I have a curious hobby.
Well, at least an uncommon one. I collect old nature field guides. My somewhat flexible cutoff date is publication before 1950, but I'll make an exception for something really beautiful. My favorites are the ones with the striking line drawings, woodcuts, or lithographs illustrating the entries:
I'm fortunate to work as a sorter for the largest used book sale in the eastern half of the United States -- we process a half a million books a year -- so I always pick up one or two new ones each time the sale comes around.
It's also an escape from the real world, which seems pretty grim at the moment. I relate to my friend who posted on social media, "My desire to be well-informed is at odds with my desire to remain sane." I can only immerse myself in the news for a short time before I saturate, become overwhelmed, and drown in despair at the greed and imbecility of the people we're allowing to steer the course of the entire human race.
But then I retreat into books, and for a little while at least, everything's okay.
It may seem like a cowardly refusal to keep my eyes open -- but merciful heavens, we need things like that. We need to keep creating, we need artists and musicians and writers and dancers and everyone else who remains determined to continue bringing little bits of beauty into this poor, damaged world. There's an apocryphal quote, often attributed to Winston Churchill, which (although almost certainly not his words) bears a message we should all take to heart. The story goes that some military leader or another during World War II was giving Churchill a hard time because he refused to cut governmental financial support for the arts and music. The general claimed every cent should go to munitions and the war effort. Churchill responded, "Then what are we fighting for?"
Yeah. Exactly. If we creative types stop creating -- become so bogged down by the daily horrors in the news that we put down our pens, brushes, musical instruments, whatever medium we work in -- then the evil men and women who for some reason are trying their best to tear down and trample every good thing in the world will truly have won.
Please. Don't let your voice be silenced. Especially not now. We need to show them that the small joys they disdain add up to something beautiful and immense and unstoppable. We need to live up to the standard set by Sam Gamgee in The Two Towers:
"It's like the great stories, Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn't want to know the end, because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad has happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come, and when the sun shines, it'll shine out the clearer. I know now, folks in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going because they were holding on to something.""What were they holding on to?" Frodo asked."That there's some good in this world, and it's worth fighting for."
It is indeed, Sam. And it's worth remembering that even little bits of beauty -- flowers in the garden, throwing the ball for your dog, listening to your favorite piece of music, watching the way the wind moves the tree branches, or leafing through the illustrations in an old field guide -- can recharge our souls to continue the fight for another day.
