RAMBLING: on books and the internet

I have always been curious about this blogging thing, this not so private way of assembling and of course disseminating your thoughts and your worldview.

The internet is a beautiful thing, here i am lying on my bed, my laptop on my tummy and i begin a journey that takes me across people's minds as expressed on youtube, facebook, and of course blogs.

We admit things on the internet that we would not dare say aside of cyberspace perhaps due to the constraint of race, religion or politics but on the net, we write what we really feel about issues because from the privacy of our homes and cyber identities, there are no limits.

It is our utterances when we are true to our beliefs that makes me despair because it is become so obvious that the things we left behind or should i say conveniently swept under the carpets comes back to haunt us, racism, ethnicity, bigotry, extremism, fanaticism e.t.c

To deny that the way we view the world will not be coloured by our perspective which of course is determined by upbringing, family, neighbourhood,religion or lack of it, and society in general is to deny the obvious but never to give ourselves the opportunity to see the other side is sad and limiting.

Books were the original internet, it helped us to connect with each other, it gave us an understanding of other cultures and perspective much like in the way well made films do. I have always thought that books gave us the opportunity to interact with those not ourselves and sometimes even helped us see ourselves more clearly. I love this quote by William Ellery Channing;

"It is chiefly through books that we enjoy intercourse with superior minds. In the best books, great men talk to us, give us their most precious thoughts, and pour out their souls into ours. God be thanked for books. They are the voice of the distant and the dead, and makes us heirs of the spiritual life of the past age. Books are true levelers, they give to all who will faithfully use them, the society, the spiritual presence of the best and greatest of our race"

let us continue to read and blog and perhaps it may guide us in the search for empathy.