Happy crises

Every time I sink my teeth into a good book, I realize how hungry I am… for beautiful prose, and thoughts, and ideas that wake you up, experiences that make you feel things and think things… words that in a flash, make your ordinary day and life so extraordinary. Words that infuse pain, and joy and laughter and horror, and understanding of mankind and history, and social processes and humanity… I could go on and on with this, but you get the gist.

And in this deep deep satisfaction of a good book and beautiful prose, is melancholy. And panic. And dissatisfaction even.

For it leaves me hungry, and wanting more. And dissatisfied, because I know there is a huge ocean of more such, yet completely different, and possibly more exquisite, out there. And panicky, because I may never touch it, or reach it, that I may run out of time, or energy, or health. After all, time and energy and “priorities” are simply not in direct proportion to the vast amounts of amazing things out there.

Wait… did I just turn a happy story of a beautiful book into a crisis of sorts?

I hear Anthony Doerr speak a few years ago, and his book math rings in my head, each time I have my “book crisis”. He breaks it down something like this (paraphrasing…) If we read one book a week, that’s about 50 books in a year; and if we live another 40 years, that would make it about 2000 books.

That’s it??? Only 2000 books? From so many out there. Not to mention the gorgeous new ones that will show up on bookshelves each year.

I look again wistfully at the gorgeous book I just finished. And even if I may be panic stricken about the millions of gorgeous books I may never touch, I don’t feel ready to start a new book just yet. Just like, when we eat something absolutely delicious, we want to continue to savor its taste, and don’t want to risk losing it by eating over it.

I’ve been lucky. I’ve hit a lucky continuous spate of a few good books with no “duds” mixed in between. My 2000 will be a wonderful 2000, I decide.

Hmm… I wonder if I dragged you into my “happy moment crisis”. If so, I apologize. And yes, that’s what I’m calling these…

For these are the crises we create in moments of euphoric satisfaction, wondering, knowing, that we have tasted only a drop – only a drop in this ocean, this ocean that we know is filled with many many mysterious, different drops, waiting to be tasted, that we may never ever get to savor…

The more you travel, the more you know, how little you have seen…

The more you read, the more you know, how little you have read…

This could go on forever. Each one of us would add our own “the more you…”s

And yet, even if it is indeed a crisis – one that I have created entirely out of the needless wandering of my jumpy mind, I will take it. For the only thing it can ever suggest, is deep curiosity, appreciation of beauty and an awareness of its infinity…

Even when we know that we will never experience it all, there is joy in knowing its wide never-ending expanse… And it brings a certain appreciation of the world we live in and the beauty and knowledge in it, that is endless…

Yes. These crises, I can live with.