Are you the sort of person who feels a sense of yearning every autumn? You feel as though something wonderful and new and exciting is just around the corner? Even though your school days are far behind you, do you watch wistfully as eager students rush through the fall leaves to their new adventure? Do you never pass a book without wondering what's inside it? Are you compelled to peek, just a glimpse, to find what nuggets of wisdom, what pearls of knowledge lie within?
I am one of those people. Like Richard Feynman, noted physicist and the author of the book, The Pleasure of Finding Things Out, I just love knowing stuff. There is nothing I am not curious about, no bit of esoteric information that does not picque my interest. Whether I find that knowledge in books, newspapers, from the television or other people, if a day goes by in which I have not yet learned something new, I consider it a loss.
I am a librarian's daughter. My father was a man obsessed by learning. He failed at many things as a father, but the one thing that he did give me was a love of books, of knowledge and a desire to never stop seeking. Whenever I spot one of the books he left behind when he moved on to his new life, I get that little shiver of excitement, recalling the first time I read that book. Or looked through the American Heritage to find all manner of fascinating images of people, places, and times. I am a child of the '70's, but the flashbacks I have are not of the Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds variety, but rather I flashback to a rainy fall day when I was snuggled in my second-hand chair, beside a small red table - that I still own - drinking a cup of tea and devouring a book. It might have been The Wizard of Oz. Or my favorite biography of Harriet Tubman. Or The Diary of Ann Frank. Or a photographic book of far away places. Other times I can close my eyes and smell the cool mountain air of my family's Pennsylvania cabin, where I was admonished daily to put down the book and go out and play. Do you have fond memories of your stolen, bookish hours? And do you smile when you recall a moment in which something became absolutely clear to you - for the first time?
Many people continue their educations to further their careers, in order to make more money, to be competitive and to earn more money. But there are also people who, regardless of their age, continue to take classes. Adult education, sometimes, or workshops at bookstores. More often than not, they continue to self-educate themselves. Like 21st Century Rennaissance men and women, they dabble, or they gorge themselves, driven to cram their brain cells with as-yet-unlearned things. Yes, they study. They don't shirk from a subject that is complex but consider it a challenge to be met. Because knowledge is not something we gain casually. It is something that we must strive for. Search, investigation, or any means by which we can glean an understanding, or gain facts. It requires a diligent and dedicated focus to never cease. There will never be a day when I can say "I know everything." There will always be something else that titillates me cerebrally, or excites me, mentally.
Are you my kind of person? Do you bemoan the fact that there are not enough hours in the day in which to learn? Not a house big enough to hold all the books you covet? No bank account large enough to purchase every title you crave? Too few people whose eyes light up with curiosity when you say, "Did you know......?"
Well, then, welcome to my blog. I am The Librarian's Daughter. And I am inviting you along on my never-ending journey where I leave no stone unturned in my quest to find stuff out. It is my goal that no day will go by without providing some delicious morsel of information that will make you say, "Ah!", and let you lay down upon your pillow at night with that self-satisfied smile because something new - some factoid - now resides inside your cranium, one that was not there when you arose.
Dr. Feynman is no longer with us, but I know that he is delighting in our pilgrimage, from the mystery that is the great beyond where I expect he continues to seek.
