Life and Literature

Dear reader, as both a novelist and an engineer I would like to ask you a couple of questions.

How many books have you read in your life?

Can you name three that changed your life?

Certainly in this chaotic world and times, items such as: culture, books, logic, compassion, tolerance, patience, courage, sensibility and common sense should be a currency of value for humanity.

In my country one of the candidates for the presidency wasn’t able to name a single book he has read in his entire life, for me that was a wakeup call, a buzzing alarm in my head that hasn’t stopped since, continuously screaming that this world is being disgustingly misled by the wrong ideals.

There was a time when there was nothing more of value than science, knowledge, wisdom and love. That time was from 500 BC to 300 BC on a little country named Greece shortly afterwards. So during the next 2500 years later, that country was pillaged, robbed, destroyed, torn apart, reunited, rebuilt, and finally driven right into a political, social and economical crisis that could utterly take it to oblivion.

So what happened on those 2500 years?

The answer is simple: humanity.

We believe that now is the pinnacle of our civilization. Well we could not be further from the truth.  A simple but sad truth, I am certainly not a moralist, nor I will ever be one, neither a man of strong heart for religion, but certainly I may call myself a man of spirit, and since I do believe in God (on his many names and representations) but I do not believe neither trust in the institutions that “represents” him here on earth (on its many names as well).

Since the beginning of times humans had the need for a greater being that could direct humanity into a better path, slowly we began to give form, name and even rules to that idea: religion. But like I said before, humans were the ones to write this form, this name and these rules. So the very foundations of religion were crooked by the men by those in power for those who had none. Religion has always been one of the driving forces for humanity since the dawn of times. It is clearly reported that religious wars had taken more lives than every other cause together.

So is that what religion meant from the beginning? No, but religion is both a weak and powerful ally. Weak when it is found alone in the hearts and minds of men, but a very powerful one when is combined with: will, wisdom, culture, courage, and sensibility.

So what do books do for us? Do they magically transform your life when you read one? No, you need to read in order to develop by yourself the traits that I mentioned in the beginning of this post. They just allow you to observe another point of view, the allow you to understand other experiences and other worlds, the enforce both your imagination and your reality, they can depict scenes from the past (when you can learn from past mistakes), scenes from the present (where you can understand how the life around you is being developed) and scenes from a possible or even nonexistent future (where you are able to envision the possible outcomes of the present situation and decide to do something to change it or enhance it).

It is both sad and vexing to observe how the world is turning again into a barbaric and hedonistic society where culture, knowledge and wisdom are disregarded as useless and unnecessary. But I trust that this post will encourage you my fellow bloggers to pick up a book, whichever it is and give it a good read, then pick up any other book and also give it a good read, keep it up and you will slowly realize that the beauties and profoundness of literature will capture you and allow you to see with more detail every bit of life.

And finally to close this post, I will answer the questions I presented myself in order to preach with the example.

How many books have you read in your life?

While not knowing the precise and exact number, it will most certainly be close to 150 books

Can you name three that changed your life?

David Copperfield – Charles Dickens

Aztec – Gary Jennings

The poem of the Cid – Unknown author

Thank you for your time.

Good day

ASD.