In a
time of digital
everything, I can’t
help but feel that sometimes convenience and practicality aren’t what they’re
cracked up to be. Sure I can have three weeks of music available on an iPod,
but the satisfaction and joy of browsing around for hours in a record store has
been lost to most people. You see, I love bargain bins because it lets me
discover bands that maybe even stopped existing. I also don’t mind paying full
price for a good album from a band I love. Actually, I went to the Berkley
Amoeba store recently and had a blast just looking around for hours at CD cases
of some artists I knew and many who were new to me. The process was rudimentary
yet satisfying. Get 30 CDs, listen to samples. Set aside CDs you want. Repeat. People
nowadays browse online, download illegally and can get an entire collection
in a matter of days, if that.
I’m
not saying that’s necessarily wrong, I’m saying that the search was part of the
fun... or more so a BIG part of the fun, at least for me. I can say the same
about books, browsing through bookstores isn’t practical... it’s time consuming
and a pain to discover when the store has what you’re looking for in another
section. The thing is that when you find a special random book you were looking
for or some random surprise you pick up, it’s wonderful. Years back, my wife
read the description of a book and said I might like it. I bought it without
thinking twice and I was introduced to the brilliant Carl Hiaasen.
Our
searches now are digital and so are most connections. Technology has allowed me
to publish a book and for that I am eternally grateful. And not only that, it’s
allowed me to publish a book by my own rules... now there is one detail about
my book a lot of people still don’t know. I wrote the first draft entirely by
hand: four notebooks of chicken scratchings that in them held the first part of
my little story, whose first installment is over 600 pages long. Although the
way I’m offering my book is quite convenient, the way it came about wasn’t.
Hundreds of pages of research and notes, annotations and the grind that was
transcribing said book... and I loved every second of it in large part because
it was so impractical and people asked me why I did it that way. The answer is
because I love book stores, and love record stores and love writing long emails
rather than wall posts to say happy birthday and love going out of my way to
have coffee or tea with a friend and because practical things may save time,
but they sacrifice experience quite often.
Is a
handwritten letter something practical nowadays? Of course it isn’t. The thing
is that it shows you care and that you gladly invested time into something that
wasn’t practical in the spirit of experience, of adventure, of life.
So
here’s to at least occasionally being COMPLETELY impractical for the sake of
living.
Peace,
love and maki rolls.
JD
