I’ve always loved books. They are doorways into worlds I don’t know. Some I keep because I’ve visited that world and have read and marked the text. Others I keep because I hope, someday, to have the time to visit their world. They are aspirational books.
Today, they number over 1,100 and occupy about 90 feet of bookshelf. They basically engulf my home office. And that’s a problem.
Just as we won’t have as much room for clothes, furniture and cooking equipment in our rebuilt singlewide, we won’t have nearly as much room for books.
Some will have to go.
So I’ve been culling through them, trying to decide what to keep and what to do with the rest. Some have already gone to Half-Price Books. More have already gone to the Johnson City Public Library. I’m hoping additional books will go to the University of Texas library or some other depository-like library.
Still, I’ll have hundreds left.
So what’s the biggest lesson in this exercise? (Beyond confirming, once again, that banker’s boxes are the best way to collect and transport books.)
One thing: The future is seldom what we think it will be, even when we are so confident that we write books about it.
Yes, I’ll keep my copy of “The Population Bomb,” the 1968 book that warned of global starvation. Ditto my copy of “World Dynamics,” the 1971 book whose software predicted a global meltdown about now. These books are classics.
But “The Great Depression of 1990” and “Surviving the Great Depression of 1990,” both by Dr. Ravi Batra, are going away. So is Harry E. Figgie, Jr.’s “Bankruptcy 1995: The Coming Collapse of America and How to Stop It.” These tomes are good reminders that the omens of disaster far outnumber actual disasters.
The 1998 book “The Alta Vista Search Revolution” will join those books. One of the early search engines, Alta Vista was celebrated just before the 1998 launch of Google, the search engine that ate all the other search engines on its way to becoming the fourth most valuable company in the world.
These books will be followed by:
— “The Inevitability of Petroleum Rationing in the United States,” a 1978 pamphlet by Carter Henderson.
— “Running On Empty: The Future of the Automobile in an Oil Short World,” a 1979 book from the World Watch Institute.
— “The Dependence Dilemma: Gasoline Consumption and America’s Security,” a 1980 book published by Harvard’s Center for International Affairs, edited by Daniel Yergin.
They got it wrong. Innovation changed production. We’ll run short of oil someday, but there’s a chance that we’ll be wise enough to make a transition to hyper efficiency and renewables before that. We should all be thinking about ways we can be part of that future. The real danger isn’t running out of oil. It’s climate change.
Yes, I’m enough of an optimist that I’ve donated all but one of my Doomsday Prepper books. I’m keeping the one that offers help preparing for storms and power outages rather than the ones that prepare for the future with firepower and weaponry.
I’ve also dumped the late James Blanchard III’s 1993 book, “Silver Bonanza: How to Profit From the Coming Bull Market in Silver.” Priced at $8 an ounce in mid-1993, silver was recently priced at $14, a change remarkably close to the change in the consumer price index. That’s a bit short of a bonanza.
But don’t worry. I’ve got lots of disaster books left. And you can find your own supply at any bookstore.
Lest you think my library is the repository for Half-Empty Glass world views, you should know that I’m keeping my copy of “Dow 36,000: The New Strategy for Profiting from the Coming Rise in the Stock Market.” The 1999 book was published as the Dow blasted through 10,000 at the peak of the Internet bull market, only to see the market go sideways and worse for a decade.
Now, 20 years later, the Dow has reached 26,000 with many expecting another bear market. Personally, I’m hoping to live long enough that it actually does hit 36,000. If I get my wish, it may be close: I’ll be 79 in November.
Two of my “keeper” books have the depth and power to sustain belief in a positive future. The same man wrote both: the late Julian L. Simon. His 1989 “The Economic Consequences of Immigration” and his 1990 “Population Matters: People, Resources, Environment and Immigration” support the reality that we routinely produce more of any resource per hour of human effort. That, in the end, is what counts for any future. He’s more sober than Bucky Fuller, but it’s all about Fuller’s “ephemeralization,” doing more with less.
If you want to see how all this is working out, read another keeper, Hans Rosling’s 2018 book, “Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think.”
And if books aren’t your thing, don’t go away. See Rosling’s TED talk at: https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seenor visit his website at www.gapminder.org
Horrible things happen in this world, but it’s actually getting better for most people and has been getting better for a long time.
Related columns:
Scott Burns, “This old mobile home: raze or save?,” 1/12/2019
https://scottburns.com/this-old-mobile-home-raze-or-save/
Scott Burns, “This old mobile home: The Joy of Tear-Out,” 2/25/2019
https://scottburns.com/joy-of-tear-out/
Scott Burns, “On the level … and going with the flow,” 3/8/2019
https://scottburns.com/on-the-level-and-going-with-the-flow/
Scott Burns, “Stuff: Do we really need it?,” 4/20/2019 https://scottburns.com/stuff-do-we-really-need-it/
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(c) Scott Burns, 2019