Library - reading

I never thought reading, developing ideas, seeing patterns, drawing lines to connect the dots of history, and then writing my own conclusions could be so fun. I've spent the past two days in the local library working on my senior thesis. Granted, I've been wandering about the topic, checking email, youtube, facebook, and reading the titles of the books on the shelves in front of me: A Jockey's Life, Bowhunting, The Complete Brown Trout. One cannot say that I have been at 100% levels of productivity for the entirety of the past few days. But it's been fun for all the running around I've been doing.

For the first time in a long time, I'm having fun learning at my own speed. But the solidarity of this style of learning is palpable. It would be nice to have someone who is 'old hat' at the topic I am currently focusing on. Someone to bounce ideas off of, ask questions of, or to confer in when I have doubts about my train of thought. What I am left with is a very haphazard approach to writing and documenting my thoughts and findings. Is this what every researcher goes through? Is this the bumpy road to discovery and publication? What if I find or say something wrong? I hate generalizations but this is the only way that I can feel secure that I am not brainwashing people with falsehoods.

I hope that tomorrow will be the last day that I need to stay in the library. And yet... I will miss it. A public library is a beautiful place. All sorts of people are wandering in and out of here. Children, teenagers, poor people, people with canes, people with smells. they all come here with one purpose: to broaden their minds. Wittenberg Library is surely an isolated bubble that attracts only the students, professors, and authors of the area. I miss the people who are barely literate but want to read regardless. I miss the people who aren't looking for Machiavelli but rather Emily Dickinson or Stephen King.

To every place there is a feeling, I suppose. And in my stable ship of internal peace made of gossamer threads, I look around and smile at the beauty resonating from all the fucking variation.