i anticipated this already, but clearly, i will not necessarily be able to meet up and give an object to my desired person every single day. for reasons and logistics beyond my control. so i’m keeping a log and will hand off the object at the earliest possible moment. some people i am gifting to will not be in new york, some will not be available that day, and i cannot run around all day long. and that there, is another lesson; intention to release will become action to release when it is ready.
another followup then, that comes up is, how will i hold myself accountable to this process? as most people know, i am a huge advocate of accountability. i believe that the universe is so seamless it holds everyone accountable for every single action. i also believe in being accountable to one’s immediate community. transparency. it seems to make sense for me to inform the recipient that i am going to be giving them said object. so even if i am unable to make the hand off on the designated day, i will have earmarked the action with someone outside of myself. in addition to alerting the recipient, they will also receive info on the project with the object i am releasing.
i won’t list the names of the people receiving my releases here because that seems a bit extraneous and most likely my reasons for gifting those objects will be very personal. i will list the objects, what they mean to me, my process of letting go, and lessons learned.
today, is day 2. day 2 was a bit more difficult than day 1, because i already knew exactly what and to whom i would be giving my day 1 (a piece of my artwork) release. for day 2, i had to ruminate for a minute.
books. i adore reading. i have reverence for knowledge. i love learning. i love physical books. one of my college entrance essays was solely on the physical attributes of various books and publishers and how certain materials/designs for book covers and certain fonts, with specific character spacing and margins made me happy. each time i buy a book, i write in the cover the year of purchase, which also coincides with the year of reading it.
i am not good at letting books go. as someone who grew up writing papers for my critical theory and literature classes before the internet even existed to the masses, the more books you had, the more sources you could cite from. i have my own personal library. categorized by subject (philosophy, cultural studies, fiction, queer theory, women’s studies, political studies, race theory, class theory, psychology, linguistics, etc.). i used to have an electronic index by titles and authors, but that grew way too laborious to upkeep at the rate i acquired volumes. when i have moved, and i have moved so many times all over this country, the bulk of my possessions has been books. i think i’m at 30 boxes of books now. and that is after whittling down my books to only those i really wanted to keep. this is my bookshelf. and yes, the books are doublestacked, so i have double of what you see.
so today i will be giving away a book. this is so difficult. my inner expression is aghast in horror. the book i’ve chosen is Ludwik Fleck’s Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact. according to the date i inscribed inside the cover, i read and purchased it in 1997. this was from a period of my life when i was investigating fact versus philosophical thought. this book addresses that intersection from a scientific viewpoint. have i read it since 1997? no. i have kept it “just in case” i write an article and need to scour my bookshelf for information. a literal search engine, if you will. and there it is right there. i have been holding onto old ideas of referencing and obtaining information. the main reason i have kept this particular book is because of archaic ideas of wanting a literal information superhighway in my house.
and with that, i am letting go of a tome i have had for almost 15 years, from a period in my life i have held onto through this book. may all the knowledge in the book remain somewhere in my brain and may it be used happily in the hands of the recipient. letting go.
i have the perfect recipient in mind. she’s going to love it.