I love libraries

The closest thing to a religious experience I've had is from visiting the library for the first time.

For most of my life I've never gone to a library. I honestly don't know why, but my best guess is simple ignorance combined with black tar cynicism. The exception is the school libraries that I had access to while growing up, but I don't count those on account of them being located in schools, which just so happens to be in my top 3 least favorite places to be. That's a story for a different time, though. Just know that its difficult for me to separate "library" from "school library", due to circumstances outside of my control.

It was only about a year and a half ago that I first went to an actual library. I wanted to buy a book, but at the time I was unemployed strapped for cash, so I needed a different way to obtain books. It took me far too long to realize that libraries were a thing that existed, but when I did...

Like I said. It was the closes thing I've had to a religious experience. I know its cliche, but fuck you; when I walked inside it felt like I was home. Walls and walls of books, respectful silence, beautiful and inviting architecture, helpful and nice staff, and most of all it was public and free.

I remember some part of me thinking that it couldn't be true, that I'd have to pay for a library card, or I'd be kicked out for some insane reason. That wasn't the case, obviously. I can imagine what my expression was like, just fish eyed disbelief at my surroundings. My whole life I've been exposed to hyper competitive capitalistic markets, everyone constantly in a race with each other to the bottom, and here I was in a place that understood.

It was calm. It was inviting. It was beautiful. It was free. And it was for everyone.

I love libraries because I simply can't believe they exist. Anyone who knows me will say that I'm cynical. I nearly always make the worst possible interpretation of people's actions and always expect the worst to occur. This cynicism probably led to me ignoring libraries under the same umbrella of "too good to be true" that I ignore anything else that benefits me personally. If you'd tried to tell me that something like libraries existed without any sort of nasty catch I wouldn't have believed you; I didn't believe it, before I actually tried it for myself.

And yes, some of you out there will say, "but the catch is that you have to pay taxes for them!" My rebuttal is: are you fucking serious? I don't know what planet you live on, but the money you spend on taxes for libraries is so small as to almost not even exist. Yes, the public pays for libraries, but that means everyone has access to them for the price of pennies. That isn't a catch, its a benefit.

And others out there will say, "but libraries are under funded!" I agree. Libraries are starving for cash like a dying antelope in the dessert (that's "dessert" as in the confectionery food you get served at the end of a meal. Its an allegory to the fact that there's plenty of money out there, and yet libraries are still struggling). Its a travesty that the world is set up in a way that tries to ruin things that are good. Still, even if libraries are under funded, that doesn't invalidate the fact that they are amazing.

I go to my local library constantly. If home is the place where you feel most comfortable and accepted, than the library is that place. I take advantage of their study rooms to write, I read in their comfortable chairs, I borrow books at a rabid pace, and I'm always amazed that I'm allowed to enjoy something so unambiguously good. I sound like a sleazy salesman, but its the truth.

Can you even imagine someone proposing the ideas of libraries in the present moment? If libraries weren't built upon a foundation of tradition than you would be laughed at for even thinking of the idea. Free books for everyone? Paying a little extra in taxes? Are you crazy? What would the publishing industry think?

My cynicism has a hole in it, and its libraries. Ill be the first to explain to you about exactly why humanity is on a course to self destruction, or how governments can justify spending trillions of dollars on militarism while ignoring things like libraries; I can spell out exactly the reasons that working 40+ hours a week doing stuff that you hate just for the right to exist contributes to nation wide mental illness, or the absolute travesty that is the health care and medicine industries (and not just in the USA, either); I can proselytize about the way the internet and social media ruins lives and makes people hate each other and themselves, or I can cry about how the software industry is broken beyond repair; I can tell you in no uncertain terms about how people don't actually care about their own lives, or how the disease of aging kills 100,000+ people daily and we just accept it.

I can claim all these things, but I can't claim that humanity is totally lost, not when something like libraries still exist.

-Tim