Claustrophobia

It is amazing to me that there is enough room in the world for everything in it, sometimes.

Like, I’m sitting in the library, and there’s hundreds of thousands of books here, rows upon rows, and I know that there’s floors above and below the one where I’m sitting with more books, and then there’s that whole other half of the library where all the books that aren’t out on public display are stored. And this is only one metropolitan library out of thousands in the world. And that of all the books that have been printed throughout history, this is but an infinitesimal sampling.

And I know that most of these books were probably pounded out on a keyboard like this one, and most of the older ones probably went through multiple drafts on paper, or maybe were written longhand. And as someone who’s attempted to write a few books himself, I know how much time and effort it takes, and how much paper can piles in the form of notes and drafts and correspondence, and how many meals are eaten and days go by and cigars are smoked in the production of even one of these books.

So sitting in a place like this I have to wonder - with this many books in the world, how is there room on the planet for anything but authors? And how hasn’t every available square foot of the earth’s surface been covered over with storage boxes of manuscripts?

Something similar occurs to me going through the programming guide on cable. There’s thousands and thousands of listings, just for what’s playing right now. And even more equipment, labor, and space goes into the production of a television program or movie than into a book. With all these people and places we see on our screens, how is it that every city street isn’t closed off for the capture of a few seconds of action for some production? And when you consider how many man-hours goes into the production of one episode of one sitcom, how is it that there are people in this world who don’t work in the production of media? And how are there any offices and homes and apartments left that are not part of a film set? How is there room in our landfills for anything except for discarded film equipment, cameras and tripods, and reels and reels of celluloid?

And yet outside the library it is difficult to locate a reader, never mind an author. And over the past year in Boston I’ve witnessed naught but one film camera. Really, there’s a whole bunch of other stuff going on too, on a small globe that you can fly around in just a couple of days. Lots of people rushing around doing stuff I can’t even understand. And this has been going on for quite some time. So how is it that this tiny planet has room for anything other than graveyards?