"Our Virtual Ontological Sanctuary"

"To buy books would be a good thing if we also could buy the time to read them."
-Arthur Schopenhauer

What Schopenhauer goes on to say is that books on the shelf are often mis-appropriated as "knowledge." Though many (including myself) have a rather healthy number of books on their shelf that are unread and remain unread; it would not be surprising if a large number of those people did not take a least a pride in their collection. Perhaps for some they recognize that they will never, ever, read some of the books on those shelves. But nevertheless their collection grows. Why do they do this? Is it purely some intellectual snobbery on their part to maintain an impressive collection of books? No, I believe that it is more about the possibility for learning that each book on their shelf represents. In their hands that book can become virtually anything. Some of those things are positive, like a tool, a dream, a career, or an adventure or some things that are frankly quite negative a weapon, a drug, or something which leads one ultimately to a path of destruction. In an example of the last, I am speaking of the book the Sorrows of Young Werther , Wolfgang von Goethe. This book led to the first recognized example of the social phenomenon of the copycat suicide. An author wrote once that he could hear the gunshots go off at night throughout Germany as young men ended their lives. Despite the morbidity of such a predicament; it would be wonderful (poetically speaking) to be able to write something so moving, so influential that individuals would respond with these acts of passion and bravado that this sort of act must entail. Of course, the suicides in themselves are tragedies but the sentiment is beautiful. In Homage the cynical young man performs an act of unmatched response, unrepeatable emotion. It would be my hope that I could write something akin to that. So powerful such that it might drive someone to commit some supererogatory act of kindness or heroism, but perhaps it is only the Sturm und Drang that accompany the Sorrows that can spur the heart to such great heights of action.