HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME

So, today is my birthday. Which one, specifically, is irrelevant. Let’s just say that a 20-year-old me would summarily dismiss me as an antiquated, decrepit man while a 60-year-old me would certainly make a Faustian bargain to gain what he would consider my boundless youth and vigor. In any event, I am here and this is now – today. With Fates On Fire, I purposefully created a wide bit of latitude when I set out to “Explore the Magic of Financial Independence,” so I could have the breadth, the space, the expanse to write whatever I thought was meaningful to my overarching objective. Thus far, all articles have been related to financial independence & early retirement, But today’s my birthday, so I’ll do whatever feels good. Whatever feels right. And today I want to approach the notion of literacy, which I believe is the most powerful and ultimate form of freedom and independence. It’s a true story about words, libraries, and the prejudices many people, sadly, possess. There’s even a little fiction I tucked away at the end about literacy and hope.

I AM A PART OF EVERYTHING THAT I HAVE READ

As a lifelong reader, I have spent countless hours in libraries. My soul is inextricably bound to the written word. So, wherever words congregate and copulate en mass; wherever all those words fuck and horde themselves tightly together betwixt some four walls, I will sniff them out. I will find them. Or, perhaps that is actually mirrored – maybe it’s the words that seek me. I don’t know, maybe I read too deeply in to Homer’s Odyssey when I was a kid, but I will swear on everything there is to swear on that, for me, the Siren’s call of a library is always, unequivocally, too much for me to resist. The potential ecstasy of the secrets that might be learned has always been irresistible. As Ray Bradbury said, “I discovered me in the library.”

Recently, I was in my local library – a small, modest affair of less than 10,000 volumes, but close to home. A place I sometimes seek refuge when the big university library seems too imposing and I want to experience my local community in a more “real” way. As a lifetime visitor of public libraries, from the massive, historic centrals in London, Chicago, Paris, Los Angeles, to the small town rural ones to specialty stacks at universities, I’ve been to more than a few and will, sadly, never get to see them all. But I have seen all kinds of people in all of these libraries.

A REPOSITORY FULL OF BUMS

So there I was, wandering about and, like most others there, having a wonderful time, I happened to be walking by a couple of guys sitting around waiting for their kids who were having a blast looking at the newly remodeled children’s book section when I heard one of them say, “This used to be a nice place, now it’s nothing but a repository full of bums. Too many fucked-up assholes in here,” referring to the many homeless folks liberally scattered about the library. While his observation may have been accurate, his sentiment set me afire.

I checked out my books and headed home. It wasn’t until later that night that I really became agitated and disturbed by that comment. Yes, there are many homeless people that frequent this library, and, frankly, many urban libraries. Libraries, outside of simply loaning books, function as the de facto heart of a community, including access to computers, internet, quietude and even air conditioning. As Neil Gaiman said, “libraries are an archive of information and give every citizen equal access to it. And that includes health & mental health information. It is a community space. It is a place of safety and a haven from the world.” But what really disturbed me most was the prejudice of the man – the outrageous assumption that these “bums” were doing nothing of value or import or anything at all. I continued to fixate of his “repository of bums” comment and that got me thinking.

LITERACY IS THE BRIDGE FROM MISERY TO HOPE

Many of the writers who have literally changed my life are those “bums.” These “bums” didn’t change just my life, but are, in fact, some of the greatest writers in the history of literature. Yes – drunks, junkies, addicts, homeless, and alone. They did heroin, cocaine, opium, laudanum, speed, amphetamines, and guzzled gallons of booze. Some lived on the streets or in vile squalor. They struggled with illness both physical & mental. Nevertheless, their writing has made an indelible mark, is taught at universities around the world and has inspired millions. And, I unashamedly love them all. And, while you may be oblivious to it, they actually made our world a better place. Not of because their unfortunate circumstances, but in spite of them.

  • Edgar Allen Poe
  • Charles Bukowski
  • James Bowen
  • William Burroughs
  • Charles Dickens
  • Robert Louis Stevenson
  • Phillip K Dick
  • Adlous Hulxey
  • Hunter Thompson
  • Jean-Paul Sartre
  • John Cheever
  • Tennesee Williams
  • Dylan Thomas
  • Jack Kerouck
  • Hubert Selby
  • William Faulkner
  • Charlea Baudelare
  • William Yeats
  • Earnest Hemmingway

So next time you’re in a library and all you can see is a bunch of “fucked up, homeless assholes” – just remember these were a few of them. And even if they aren’t brilliant authors in the making, they are humans who, while contending with less-than-stellar circumstances, are still worthy of respect and have every right to be in that library, that haven from the world.

What follows now is some species of exceedingly raw fiction (or some such anyway). It crept out on to a notebook in a very peculiar way somewhere in the Washington mountains during my Total Blackout Project and was clearly a reaction to the situation you just read about. However, the emphasis or the appeal is for those homeless folks in libraries to recognize that they are in a special place that gives them the possibility, the power – the hope – to overcome or otherwise transcend their circumstances. To discover the joy, freedom and emancipation the written word can provide.

A REPOSITORY FULL OF HOPE

Libraries are, without question, the greatest social invention ever and the centerpiece to any city or burg or township, or piece of dirt with one fucking book or even a tattered Sports Illustrated with some gymnast’s half-titty kinda seen whist gazing on a ripped and ragged picture.  Whatever and wherever this is…This is a Library.  This is a place of quietude and introspection. This is a place where one’s soul can be found.  

This is a Library and it’s precious and delicate and tenuous. It’s life ought to be considered sacred.  It ought to be worshiped. 

And here you come. Every day. Every goddamned day. To enter her.  To work your way in to her.  To entwine yourself with the Goddess of a Million Words. 

No doubt, she is beautiful. She’s cool and sexy and radiant.  The stunning goddess who will always please us; always satisfy us. She is the woman who will always love you unconditionally, even if you’ve shunned and ignored her. She offers a lifetime of unlimited second chances. She will accept always accept you. She will always accept me. 

Her treasures are innumerable. Her glorious bounty is never forbidden. To kiss her is to lose yourself and life and all to her; to abandon oneself to all she has to share – all you have to learn. All than you can be. She is exquisite beauty.  She is us. 

The admitted, “despicable, homeless, and deadly drunk demon,” Charles Bukowski worshiped Her each and every day for a decade. Waking in a fog and staggering in to her arms, he poured his life into Her arms. His head ached, but Her rewards spat back out in twisted, exquisite beauty. 

William Burroughs, with a needle in his arm (tucked way back in a dimly lit restroom) read most his life away with you. The toll of drugs, pistols and William Tell reenactments never overshadowed his devotion. 

Even my buddies James Bowen & Streetcat Bob, ducked into the majesty and splendor of London’s Central Library to take a break from reality.  Surcease on a bleak and rainy day – in this life; in their souls. 

But, the story here is…Well, the story is…

You. 

You are here and I know it’s bleeding outside. I know the cards are down and you can feel it all closing in. I know this feels like the last grasp. Or, the last gasp. 

But, it is not. 

Believe me. You are here.  She is here.

Now is the time and this is the place.

Reach out your hand. 

Touch a book. 

Save your soul. 

Once you sink deep into her; embrace her.  Once she wraps herself around you. 

You will never, ever let go.

You will never want to. 

I promise.