The Dreamer has invented another one of his off-the-cuff lessons. They are the best!
He starts reading an excerpt from a book that has made a great impression on him, which he is studying more deeply for his own personal passion. While reading it, his eyes are shining, like someone who can’t help but share his joy with the first passerby. Like me when I say, “Beatrice,” out loud without being aware of it, or I want to tell everybody that I did well on my oral exam, which is a really rare occurrence. …
This time he is reading us a story from the book Decisive Moments in History, which deals with three sieges and three sackings.
“Rome, Alexandria, and Byzantium. Three cities loaded with treasures, beauty, and art. Three cities with libraries full of books, libraries that protect the secrets of centuries of literature and research. Buildings brimming with scrolls and codices, containing the dreams of all those men that could be useful to so many other men yet to come. But those dreams went up in smoke under the burning flames of barbarians, of Arabs and of Turks. With one incendiary gesture, they erased rooms and floors full of papers that contained the secrets of life. They burnt the spirit and its wings. They forbade it to fly as it had done for centuries, freeing themselves from the prisons of history. The paper in those books burned just like it did in that marvelous novel of Bradbury’s, which you should read. … ”
These words of The Dreamer, although I don’t know exactly what they mean, they sound good, even though I’ve never heard anyone speak of this Bradbury guy before.
At the end of his passionate speech, The Dreamer asks us, “Why?” None of us is able to answer. He tells us to think about it and then write an essay on it for homework. The Dreamer is off his rocker. He thinks we are capable of such thoughts. We have to solve problems of a much more simple and concrete nature. Of an immediate and useful nature: like where to copy a Greek translation, how to land a date with that really hot girl, how we can come up with the money to recharge our cell phones after spending all our credit on two days’ worth of text messages consisting of five or six words each … and other things like that. No one is used to pondering such deep questions from The Dreamer. You just don’t have the head to tackle some of these things. You don’t even know where in the world to go to find such answers.
Because these questions that he asks are not the kind to which answers can be found with Google. If you type in Rome, Alexandria, Byzantium, fire, dreams, causes, books … nothing comes of it. Because on the Internet, there isn’t a text that puts together words that are so disjointed. You need to come up with the connection. This is why it’s so complicated.
I don’t know if I’ll do this homework assignment. It’s so hard, but it has something mysterious about it, because, for the first time, the answer is nowhere to be copied. You need to find it yourself. Maybe that is the added challenge. I have to give it a shot. I hate The Dreamer because he’s got me once again, piquing my curiosity.
Ignorance is the most comfortable thing that I know, besides the couch in my family room.