Recently someone I care for witnessed their young child snatch this copy of Little Women I had on hand — they took it away from this child, reasoning that this child might disrespect hard copies of my books.

My response, immediately, was, “It’s really okay.”

This person said, “He’ll tear it.”

I said, “That’s okay too. Books are plentiful, not scarce, and we already have two copies of Little Women. I live in the publishing capital of the world.” It’s true: we ought not operate in a scarcity mindset with books — that’s the point of a library.

“Yes, but I’m the parent and we’re trying to teach him to respect books.”

How on earth did this suddenly question parental status? “Do what you will,” I said. “I’m just letting you know I’m quite fine. And the book can be destroyed.”

The child was whisked away.

I was asked to remove the book.

And so began another career in American functional illiteracy. Not illiteracy. Functional illiteracy. Many Americans can read, few understand meaning. Many Americans with certificates of higher education can finish reading a book and do a report, few of them have the courage to read primary sources. Consider how seldom they assign Plato’s Republic or Aristotle’s Politics or Marcus Aurelius in organizational management degrees.

Early on in the infancy of my theological studies, I was told to mark up my Serenity Bible. It’s this gross old thing with writing all over it. A godawful translation. Even worse commentary. It had this gross, pizza-stained hunter green cover with a twine-stitched icthus on it. I kept I don’t know how many notes from chapel sermons in its front snap button, pleated pocket. But I did mark it up. Marked it to shreds. Tore pages out of it and hung them up. So, so many notes from so, so many encounters with so, so many texts. It ruined that book. Utterly decimated it.

But one of the greatest men I know said, “If it’s messy on the outside, it’s ordered inside. If the book looks bad, the spirit’s good.”

That’s not unlike the microbiome life phrase, “Live dirty, eat clean.” There’s a microbiome to the intellectual life too: read dirty, study clean. I don’t mean read erotica. I mean your intellectual life should involve disrespecting books — the objects — in order to rightly respect books — the ideas. Especially this history of ideas, since there are only about 150 truly original works. Read the books to shreds. Read them with a pen in hand. Take copious notes and cite often. Pull them off your shelves every time someone comes over to show how their ideas are related to an older, wiser thinker’s. SHOW AND TELL. Have kids come over — or adults who are still infants when it comes to touching the old books — and let them fondle a copy of Lady Ch… actually not that one. Maybe fondle a copy of Ghandi’s Satyagraha?

(There’s a double joke in there only those who touched both books would know).

It’s why I want you to disrespect hard copies of my books, please. I would rather know someone bought a book, read a book, understood it, and ruined their copy, than to find out someone stole a signed copy they bubble wrapped and preserved forever. Or bought and hid on their study’s shelf. Or what have you with regards to respecting the objects. I’m not against collectors, but if you must buy a copy with my monogram wax seal, please buy a copy to destroy as well. I’m not advocating for burning books here. The suicide wants something to end and a martyr wants something to begin, but both die. The book burner wants something to end and the book devourer wants something to begin. Take the scroll, eat the scroll, let it be sweet in your mouth and sour in your stomach. Mark up my books. Sign them with your name when you finish. Pass them on to your friends like a great roaming free library. I literally asked you all to do this at the end of Bell Hammers.

So please disrespect hard copies of my books.

If it’s messy on the outside, it’s ordered inside.

This seems to me to be a corollary from the life of Jesus who said, quite clearly and rather often, that cleanliness has absolutely nothing to do with godliness. Neither do wild, raging attempts to control the actions of others, rather than merely your self, particularly with regards to your own property. In fact, OCD meaningless rituals — as we know — have a high chance of drawing you further away from encounters with divine bliss and awakening, further away from intimate relationships with other folks, further away from wisdom, and more towards collapsing in on yourself in vain. Collapsing into a mess of anxious, meaningless meditations and fear of everything but the grounds of Being and Consciousness and Bliss.

What is the far, far more likely fate in this country is that you will own a copy of a book you never intend to read, but merely intend to hoard on your shelf. Maybe display it proudly in your den or your study when guests come over. Why? You’ll watch the film version or get the cliff notes from an academic friend. Or you won’t and you’ll just use old books to look smart. Or worse: you’ll watch an infotainment summary on Netflix and assume you’re an expert now. Not that I’m against documentaries, but I’m against those that simply poorly adapt great nonfiction books. And that happens about as often as poor adaptations of great novels.

No.

I’m not after simply sharing everything I’ve read. I’m not after looking smart. I’m not after hoarding things. Especially pretty or expensive things or items of power, talismans, or even awards. I tend to pitch trophies.

Rather, I’m interested in being wise and learning the classical tradition. I’m interested in knowing what my colleagues and friends have written. It was interesting to me that this same person in a different conversation a day earlier told me they didn’t read anymore because they’re focused on the people they’re around. I live in NYC. Frequently I ignore people I’m around precisely because I’m reading the book of someone I care about more — either a colleague, a friend, or someone far more important than both: I’m interested in a meeting of the minds of those long dead. They’re kindred spirits for good reason and, more often than not, they know me better than many neighbors and family members. That’s no offense to either — I try to love my neighbors and enemies and family on equal grounds. But there’s something to be said for proximity and something more to be said for a meeting of the minds and kindred spirits. Many of the folks I read “get me,” many of my colleagues “get me,” many friends who are writers “get me” as do my readers. Those four categories seldom include neighbors and family and foes.

And like the rotting, dead bodies of those long dead, their books will also decay. But their minds carry on. In the entrance to the Rose Reading room at the main branch of the New York Public Library, there’s this quote from Milton’s Areopagitica, from which we derived the first amendment — free speech:

A good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life.

John Milton, Areopagitica

Are you after preserving the embalming?

Or preserving the master spirit?

I want the spirit. I want to be possessed of Lady Wisdom.

So I read the embalming of her spirit often enough to unravel mummy gauze and get into the soul of the stuff.

I touch them often while they’re still here with me in hopes of being possessed of their spirit and in dialog with their minds, which linger on in the collective consciousness.

I mark them up with non archival ink and highlighters often, which has C.S. Lewis rolling in his grave. But I only know he’s rolling in his grave because I’ve marked up C.S. Lewis’s books and know how he felt about writing in them. I underlined the section in which he told me not to underline so that I’d remember he told me not to underline when, at long last, I decided to write a piece about how and why I do:

I don’t care what the book looks like.

I want all of the children I know pulling my copy of Hesiod’s Theogany and Plato’s Republic off my shelf and disrespecting hard copies of my books at an early age. Why? So that when they walk for the first time into the Rose Reading room at the main branch of New York Public Library beneath the approving glow of those gilded letters Milton penned, they are not scared to pull off the embalmed spirit of Augustine’s Confessions and open it to find written there:

Tolle Lege.