Darkling Wood

Bruce Baugh has a blog! It’s a good one. I know Bruce just well enough to stop and chat when I see him. He lives in Portland OR as I once did, and he participates in the fora at SFF.net as do I. He makes his living as a writer, mostly of game materials, and he’s a fellow ebook enthusiast. I don’t even remember how I ran across his blog, but once I saw it I added it to my aggregator immediately.

He has a post about getting rid of stuff (primarily books) that mirrors my feelings about it. It’s difficult, but I’m finding that the more I do it the easier it gets. Changing ingrained behavior is always difficult at first but it gets easier with time. I’m with him when he says:

It’s a common belief among all my various communities that “Books are sacred!” I’ve decided that they’re not.

I think that the truth is sacred – the world is a valuable thing and knowledge of it worth pursuing. And while various of my other convictions shift, the idea I first encountered in Lewis and Tolkien about creativity being part of the very image of God continues to ring true with me. To know, to invent, and to entertain are worthy enterprises. But books are not either of these things. They’re artifacts which carry the results of the effort. When I treat the books as ends rather than as means, I think, I’m performing the same kind of mistake that my cat makes when I point at something and he pays attention to the finger itself.

This blog is good stuff, his writing is good stuff, and Bruce is a good guy.

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dave

Dave Slusher is a blogger, podcaster, computer programmer, author, science fiction fan and father. Member of the Podcast Hall of Fame class of 2022.