books are like herbs
I’m like organizing my Goodreads bookshelf because I noticed a taste emerging within me (I try to always extend myself beyond what I like though, so I can learn to love more things)
I was making a “bookshelf” of books which “understand how I feel” (and these are all books about how much I detest capitalism and government, though they are not anarchist philosophy books)
And I realized I never even added one of my most crucial books to my “read” list and so I began to write a review for it
And I usually find it an intellectual exercise to talk about a book but this was so emotional and so full of images
I remembered the setting in which I read it (the social contract by Rousseau)
I was in my room, post college, back in my parents house
Feeling like a goddamn loser
Working at Nordstrom in the jewelry department by day, wearing a name tag that says I speak German (as if we had such an influx of German customers)
And feeling like I was too good for the place. Like anyone would be too good for the place really because such a place shouldn’t exist. It’s beneath human dignity
And I would go home to my room, turn on my pink Christmas lights
And read this book between rounds of online chess
I was in a daze
And time would just fly by
It was some sort of coping mechanism
The book gave me something akin to hope. But it wasn’t hope because it didn’t promise me any solutions and didn’t give me any actions to take
But I felt like someone out there, even though it was a long time ago I thought his spirit still hung in the air, understood me
And understood what was wrong on a systemic level
And he undid the damage of mass unconscious complacency and gaslit complicity
Through his voice of clarity and reason and kindness
(A very Swiss voice tbh)
It was like medicine for a sick child
And it got me all teary and nostalgic (now that I’m no longer there, I think of that pink Christmas lights illuminated room with some fond feelings) and moved about the power of books
There’s a spiritual dimension to books, they’re as holy and medicinal as herbs
And as personal too
(I almost completely forgot about herbalism until I stumbled upon an herbal shop the other day which sold the types of things I used to make. Oil infusions and herbal teas.)
Herbs have energies and properties and are complex and have multiple functions and react with each individual in their own way. Like a perfume adjusting itself to your natural scent such that no two people wearing the same perfume smell the same, we each too have a special relationship to herbs which is particular to us and to the herb and to the moment we use it
It sort of hit me that I treat books like herbs, a book is not worthy of praise unless it has some medicinal value for your literal physical health or psychological-spiritual wellbeing
If it doesn’t uplift your soul and make you a happier kinder healthier person, it doesn’t deserve to enter your spirit
I’m just getting all emotional about how amazing books can be and also feeling kind of judgmental about how no one really seems to take it so seriously
People read purely for entertainment value sometimes and I think it sullies a beautiful thing
It’s like deep frying lemon balm to make lemon balm chips
Yes it can be done but is an insult to the plant and the person