How to Library

For those of you who don't know what a library is, it's a place you go and get free books.

They've also normally got a lotta 90s shit like huge computers, fax machines, and those old school computers that magnify newsprint and nobody uses.

But they've also got shelves full of these things called books. Words printed on paper and bound together in book form. Normally there's a picture on the front with the name of the dude or chick who wrote it.

The library uses a fucked up, but I imagine super useful, system to arrange their books with. It's made up of letters, numbers and decimal points and it's confusing as fuck. But forget that for a second, we don't need it.

Look instead at the genre signs. Just like TV shows and movies, books are arranged in genres. There's horror, mystery, romance, adventure, shit like that. And there's also history, biology, business, architecture, shit like that.

All you gotta do is walk around and look for the signs. They're normally on top of, or at the end of the shelves.

Pick one you like.

Maybe you enjoyed physics in high school. Maybe not but we're going with physics.

Now you're face to face with a wall of intimidating-ass books. Each shelf is an impenetrable wall. You're stuck reading the nonsense code printed on a label. Stop doing that and let your eyes unfocus and drift around.

Anything stand out?

Any colors or single words cry for attention?

A purple spine with the words “History” and “Galaxy” looks kinda interesting, so you grab it but it actually isn't the picture-book you'd hoped for but a boring text book.

Back on the shelf it goes.

But don't worry, now you're looking at one book. You've narrowed all the thousands of choices to one. Good job.

Look at the books to the left and right. Anything good there?

Chances are something will strike your interest. If not, turn around and look on the shelf behind you.

I've found tons of awesome books just by randomly looking at a shelf, picking one book and moving on from there.

Physically picking a book is the easy part.

Having the mental balls to actually pick a book off the shelf is another thing.

How many times were you told as a kid you weren't interested in something or not to waste your time on something? Even when we're being told we're good at something, we're being told we're not so good at the others. Over time our field of view narrows.

Libraries offer an opportunity to see everything. Or at least a decent chunk of everything. I once used the library of Three Hills, Alberta, a town of 3,000 people. Even there, I had access to more books than I could ever read.

Libraries offer us a way out of the echo chamber. Downstairs in the Adult Fiction section you can pick up a copy of Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. Upstairs in the Sociology section, you can pick up On Palestine by Noam Chomsky.

Unlike the internet, you get to see the whole library at once. There's no suggested next reading or autoplay. Total user freedom.

So figure out where your closest library is. Take your driver's license and a bank statement or something that shows your address cause you'll need them to get a library card.

Then forget everything everyone's ever told you and introduce yourself to one of the greatest achievements of all goddamn time: the Public Library.