Great literature brings great comfort in times of need. “Do not be afraid. Our hope cannot be taken from us; It is a gift” – or “[i]to him that is pitiless the deeds of pity are ever strange and beyond comprehension[/i]” ring in my head and give illumination in the darkness of this time. 
I will never give up my books. I love real books. There’s that awful commercial for the Kindle that has a guy and a girl, where they allegedly complain about the stacks and stacks of books that could all be in that little device. All I could think was GIVE ME THOSE STACKS!!!!
Nicholas Meyer once said on a commentary track that if there’s a future with no physical books, he wouldn’t want to live in that world. Neither would I. I have 11 bookshelves. Granted, I have not been purchasing at Half Priced Books for many months, but still, once I get through some stacks, I’ll be on the hunt for some new material.
I look for wisdom in the words. The best fiction uses truth, whether it be truth of the human condition, or the truth in situations, but always truth rings inside your soul when you read it or hear it.
My soul ripped itself apart. I’m not a particularly spiritual person. Something fundamentally changed inside me. It haunts my dreams, when I’m awake, and how I try to live my life. Whenever I start my habits, whether it be a conversation about something technical or about things that mattered, it’s as if they ring much differently. Not better, not worse, just different.
Everything’s changed. There’s no going back to where I once was, to what I once was. Learning to live this new life seems so odd. I’ve always despised petty materialism. Even though I love my books, there is a spiritual connection. Buying furniture and painting my home was about wiping away the past and, quite frankly, wouldn’t impress anyone with an interest in materialistic needs or home decor (my sense of style sucks for anyone other than me).
I’m a man without a nation. I’m the ronin, a masterless samurai who never had much honor to begin with. I want to find a sense of duty and honor again. A knight-errant with an impossible quest; to bring peace to my past. As someone else has named me a giant, when I am merely a windmill they are tilting.
If I am to become Don Quixote, which one of my cats should be Sancho Panza? V or Lorenzo?
“In that book which is my memory, on the first page of the chapter that is the day when I first met you, appear the words, ‘Here begins a new life‘. “
– Dante Alighieri
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