Books Can Drive You Mad
A meandering mind experiment
At this very moment, I want to write about books. No, I don’t have any particular book in mind. You can move on, in case you expected that.
A dozen ideas sprout from one word. Our neurons are wired with each other in ways that neuroscience hasn’t figured out. Scientists say that the more things relate to each other, the more likely they come to mind as a consequence of each other.
A neuron can be connected to a million other neurons. Just like neurons, if words could spawn a network, the word “book” would be like an overcrowded train junction where a million train lines intersect. They meet, collude to form new ones, or collide and destroy each other. If the brain is that of a meditator, they could make a way for each other, ensuring their peaceful coexistence.
At first, the word “Book” triggers an image of a collection of fragile pages, bound by a sturdy cover. That’s the most beautiful you can get. It’s concrete, tangible, and rooted in your sensory experiences: The coarse touch, the lignin smell, and a colorful jacket image.
As you go deeper, you enter the realm of the ideas, and things get murkier. In their purest forms, ideas fail to elicit images. But genres come to the rescue; they divide your favorite bookstore or library into high closets; you…
