At long last, I realize I have too many books, and of uneven quality. I have also come to the painful realization that my children have little to no interest in reading them, despite what I regard as a wide range of topics.
As I have told others, "children aren't their parents' clones."
They will follow their own paths, despite your experience-tested guidance.
At least they are not clones yet, but God and ferociously-pagan global Caesars only know what is being cooked up in government/corporate labs as I type this.
This sense of disappointment has also prompted the realization that I'm not really preserving or saving anything for future generations, despite my hopeful delusions to the contrary.
So, with the sense of mortality gradually becoming more acute and the desire to be merciful to the poor sod(s) who will have to deal with the bound tonnage after I am gone, I have begun a purge. A bit tentative at the moment, but I have already pulled about twenty volumes off the shelves.
I have also become aware that I'm going to have to put a pillow over my sentimentalism. But as with most things, I suspect that will become easier with time.
An unenviable task, but it’s prudent to recognize it needs to be done. I am going through some of the same thought process as I, too, feel the old mortality clock ticking. I have books and a collection of about 1,000 CD’s, mostly classical but some jazz and pre-millenium rock. None of the family’s next generation seems to care about either the books or the music.
ReplyDeleteLet us know how this goes, please, and how you make the tough decisions.
Can do.
DeleteI feel your pain.
ReplyDeleteShared pain is a bit easier.
DeleteHave you considered getting rid of the kids instead?
ReplyDeleteHeh.
DeleteI did explain to my eldest son my disappointment with his lack of reading of things that are not the evil glass rectangle, and it seemed to start some wheels turning.
Maybe, just maybe.
There's some inventory management cost, but digital material is otherwise not an improvement upon print books for studying any subject.
DeleteSee also medical records. Electronic medical records are designed by IT types to please themselves. They create problems for medical professionals. Also, bean counters employed by agglomerations like Carillion make cockeyed decisions which generate productivity losses. About the final straw for a doctor I know employed by Carillion was the rule that dictation services could only be used by specialists. Primary care physicians had to enter data into electronic medical records while speaking to patients, because coffee's for closers only. He tells me this increases the time he has to allocate to recording data by 2.5-fold, then they complain he doesn't see enough patients. I could see where this was going in my own life when I went to my doctor for a physical in 2012 and he made a cursory look at my ear, nose, and throat and spent the rest of the time typing into the electronic medical record.
Technology for the hell of it really sticks in my craw.
IIRC, your three oldest are 17, 18, and 20 this year. Hope they have a trade they're learning.
As we inch closer to Fahrenheit 451 I've become more appreciative of books as a medium that cannot be easily changed and rewritten on the fly.
ReplyDeleteHope you can find an archive or library willing to take your books and hold them for future days of remembrance.
I am not dumping them all. I still hold out a faint hope that I may have grandchildren who will be wowed by the prospect of a private library. And I am definitely a hater of curated digital streams of books, films and data.
DeletePerhaps clearing out some of the dross will make the rest more interesting? One might hope.
Yeah, lighter work I have gone to a digital format (like silly anime light novels or manga, some comics) but weightier things and references I like having the physical object.
DeleteThough it was a bit fun to find an old Star Wars Encyclopedia from the 90s and go through there, comparing what was once "known" about that fictional world with what is now "known." How much has changed...
Commiserations, my friend. I spent three decades till age 50 collecting. The last decade of lightening the load has gotten a bit easier. Sometimes it's easy from the start. My sister once sent me the first Left Behind tome. After a half-hour and 100 pages, I told my wife that if I gave it to the Goodwill, some innocent soul might get snookered into it. "Recycle," she said. Right.
ReplyDeleteI did that with one of Bob Sungenis' books, the one on justification. It was before he went off the rails, but it was just a bad presentation of the Catholic understanding.
DeleteSo far, the stuff I have pulled off would not be offensive in any way I can imagine. Suitable for the Free Library kiosks nearby.