Day 80: Fahrenheit 451

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.  ISBN: 97814159161963 (audiobook).

 If ignorance is bliss, why are people trying to find out why they're so unhappy in the first place?  Wouldn't it be better to stay in the dark?  Reading isn't there to make you happy, life isn't there to make you happy.  Removing knowledge from the world and retreating to a state of ignorance, *gasp* will also not make you happy.  All it will do is hide your problems until they have time to sneak up on you from behind and bite your head off.

Ignoring your problems, or even the fact that you have problems, and trust me you do, is a bad, bad thing.  If you're one to scoff at and scorn people who use drugs, alcohol, video games, etc. as a means of constant escape from the badness of their lives, but are also one to brush off your problems and not recognize them for what they are, you are just as bad as the alcoholics/potheads/video game junkies.

Believe me, one day someone will come up to you and ask you if you are happy, and then you will have to think about it.  I'm asking you now, are you happy?  If you aren't, do you know what needs to change to make you happy?  Is it something you're avoiding because it's just too much damned work?  If you are happy, why?  Is it something you've done that makes you content with yourself, or is just you current circumstance which might be ripped away from you at any moment?

People seem to think that happiness just appears like rainbows and shooting stars.  It doesn't.  You have to work at being happy, there is no effortless happiness.  Yes, the root word means "luck," and there is a lot of luck in happiness, but there's so much more to it as well.  Happiness is kind of like a house.  If you build a good strong foundation and put a lot of care into it, you'll be able to withstand some bad luck hailstorms and your garden will flourish with the rain.  If you build a crappy house it's likely to be blown over by some asshole with a leaf blower. 

There are a lot of things you can do to build your happiness, and even my house is somewhat of a fixer-upper.  But for the most part I would say I'm fairly happy.  I have pretty good relationships with friends, family, and fiance.  I am comfortable, clean, and safe.  I am prepared for most future disasters.  I am also happy.  There are things that I am not happy about, but I like who I am at the moment, and I think I'm on my way to going good places.  There are days when it's hard to remember that, but most of the time my life is good.

Day 79: Fahrenheit 451

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.  ISBN: 97814159161963 (audiobook).

Holy butts!  Why haven't I read this before?!  This is possibly the most important book that was ever written.  This needs to be required reading in every civics class in America and several other countries.

It also made me realize something.  I would be willing to die for a book.  Maybe not just any book, maybe not any copy, but I would be willing to die for the last copy of the Bible, the Koran, the Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence, even Mein Kampf.

I don't have to support the words in every single book to want to save it.  These are all important works, and there are many other works that are important regardless of their content.  They need to exist so that people can read them, analyze them, and form their own opinions.  It is necessary for these historical texts to exist, regardless of whether or not we want them to.  The truth is that they existed in the past and formed and shaped current events.  It may be a dark part of our past, but we should own that and accept it for what it is: A mistake, a terrible mistake, and one we'll hopefully learn from.  But we can't learn from it if we don't know how and why it happened.  If we don't have the resources, we can't possibly understand the ideas and concepts that led to later attitudes and events.

Our lives are so paltry and fleeting compared to the ideas captured in stories, philosophy, non-fiction, etc.  Why wouldn't I consider giving up my life to save something so much more significant than I am?  I might prefer to give up a year of life for a chapter, and I would like to choose the work, but if I had to dedicate my life to saving one book I would do it.  Whether it meant memorizing it and carrying it around until it could be written again, or if it meant sacrificing my actual life, the words and the ideas are more important than one individual, because they can affect a larger number of lives than my life can.

I hope that we don't, and will never, live in a society where I have to carry out this sentiment.  I hope we are past book burning of any variety (that includes banning).  I know that books are challenged everyday, particularly in schools, but that is all the more reason to provide access to them in other ways.  Allowing our children to experience the world through someone else's eyes can only be good for them.  Otherwise, how do we expect them to be well-rounded and understanding people?  Books give us an opportunity to see life from someone else's perspective.  Yes, it's dangerous.  They may not take the things we want them to take from literature, but it's a freedom that must be kept for everyone, regardless of its consequences.