The Narrow Scope of Experience by Michael Blieden (original) (raw)

I was walking by a used book store today and there was some novel from the 60's on display in the window. I don't even know who it was. But the book looked heavy and inviting. I wanted to buy it and sit in a McDonalds for 3 hours like I did when I was in college finishing "Misery." But then I remembered the stack of unread books at home, one of which is Robert Caro's 1000 plus page biography of Robert Moses, and I realized that I would never read this alluring used book in the window of the bookstore. And it saddened me to think of all the things I'll miss in my short lifetime. I won't live to see every Cassavetes film twice, or learn Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, Russian, and Arabic, or upload my consciousness into an android body and travel the galaxy immune from the effects of space radiation.

I would have liked to do all those things.