Business Philosophy. Part II., or, Whence That Dusty Shelf?

Books are artifacts. Do you ever wonder if, in a hundred or so years, this blog that you have haplessly decided to read, will exist? If the myriad upon myriad email messages, notifications, websites, &tc will possibly remain? If a plague decimates humanity, or a plot to undo electricity finally works--where will the bulk of human wisdom be stored, save in books?

Already, we know of our distant ancestors through their own recorded history; if we obliterate the written page, we shall become a society without a past, and with no future to speak of. Something to muse upon in these summer days, while sipping one's iced tea beneath an iridescent umbrella, while the cicadas sing their melancholy, tense chantings, this.

Without the rediscovery of the Classical texts, would the Dark Ages have ended? It is a pithy question to ponder. So it is in our current 'light age,' when the blinking of computer screens and televisions is all that can be seen from space--when, at last, the world wakes up unto itself again, it will seize upon the remaining relics of this civilization--the books--to aid in the answering of that immutable question, "What was it all about, really?"

It is our duty to provide these valuable archaeological finds for our children's children's children. Or even, our children's children, or our children's children's children's children's children's...I think you get my point.

And so, those groaning dusty shelves in my house are for a purpose, after all. They are archaeology, and so I tell my friends. Future historians will thank you for not moving them from your chair, to the ground.