The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore (2011)

As I clicked the link to the above video, I was under the premise that "the next 15 minutes of my life would change forever." I was skeptical at first, thinking all that effort to oversell the whole thing might not be worth my time at all. In any case, I watched it anyway, and boy was I dead wrong.

Are books still relevant in this technology-driven generation of ours? Do we treat our books according to the inherent value of their content? Do we still see books as useful investments and prized assets? Why does the weasel pop? Does it matter? If life is enjoyed does it have to make sense?

Books are not mere paper sheets with ink scrawled all over them—meaningless and immaterial in such sense. They are my friends. They have life, and each of them has a story to share. They also have feelings, being able to deal with neglect by rotting away in the shelves, all shriveled up in condemnation for being forsaken.

Okay, now I'm feeling guilty.

I've been too caught up with my social networking life for the past few months, probably so much that I forgot how it felt like to enjoy a good book. I can only imagine my books, staring at me in their shelves as I go on to do other things that do not involve them. How they must have missed me! How they must have pitied themselves for being unused all this time, downgrading them to inutile objects despite the infinite knowledge that their pages contain.

Is it bad enough that the only books that I've read in a while were academic in nature, much more that I had to open them for the sake of duty compliance rather than for the sheer interest to learn?

Looking back, whenever people would compliment me for my seeming depth of knowledge on a wide array of topics, I would only smile and say, "It's probably because I read a lot." In consonance, whenever I would also get praised for being able to write well (though not as GREAT as others would claim), I would just shyly shrug my shoulders, put on a jesting smirk, and say, "I read good books."

Books changed my life. In effect, I would also like to change the lives of other people. It sure is a big dream, but this 'dream' has become the guiding principle in most of my pursued activities. Probably that's the reason why I write. Probably that's the reason why despite the lingering mediocrity of my posts, I still continue to fill this blog with my blather. And ultimately, probably that's the reason why I still aspire to become a novelist someday.

Books... where would I be without you?

Write a story. It doesn’t need to be somehow an award-winning and/or a best-seller to make it ‘sensible’. As long as you put your heart to it, it’s a good book. And someday, when the right reader comes, your book becomes a masterpiece -Carlo H. Andrion