I'm an English degree holder. If I didn't like words, I'd be in the wrong business.
But I've also recently come to a place in my life where I can no longer separate my wasteful daily habits from hopelessly asthmatic children with the misfortune of living on streets where hundreds of trucks travel daily to haul my waste.
So I've been becoming purposeful about recycling, reusing my reusable grocery bags, and re-purposing what I have rather than buying new items or getting rid of them. (For example, I'm in the middle of reupholstering our coffee table so it can be a bench for the boys or guests to sit on, which will practically double the current seating in our living room.) In addition, and taking into account our budgetary concerns, we've cancelled our Entertainment Weekly subscription (though it still keeps showing up each week), which saves us sixty-ish bucks twice a year and cuts down on waste.
I should also take a moment to mention Andrew almost got me a Kindle for my birthday.
But here's my dilemma: As exciting as Kindles (and the like) are, they're contributing to the death of the written word. A part of me wants to keep paying for a moderately expensive magazine subscription as a statement that I support the written word and don't want to see it dissolve into electronic media. Our language and acceptable standards of grammar and usage have changed so much recently due in no small part to the popularity, convenience, and immediacy of texting and emailing and other abominably addictive electronic ways of communicating - this means you, ironic blog post! And my heart becomes sad when it considers how much more our language could degenerate if the traditional, printed, written word continues to lose popularity. But how do I balance that against the impact an excess of physical paper waste (as well as other waste)?
Well, I don't. I buy only what magazines we can reasonably afford to begin with, and I make a cozy space for books in my boys' lives, so the written word is always a part of who they are. And when I read a really good book, which I did recently, I pass it along, talk it up, gift it to a friend or two.
I do what I can to keep words alive. (And recycle the words I've finished reading.)
2 comments:
I struggle with the same thing. But I've found that the library is an excellent way to balance that. Now, while I ride the train into work, I can read the coolest, latest book or novel in written form - but for free - and then it gets passed onto someone else :} It's a great way to recycle words - and makes me feel better about my letter writing habit.
I would be a library junkie too if I could. However, since I don't have that option, an e-book reader has been a wonderful way for me to keep a trickle of literary input (beyond the internet) in my life. I still prefer a book-book any day, but I'm growing not to mind reading the same words on a screen with electronic ink... and it is SO nice to be able to pack a library's worth of books in my purse when we go on trips. :)
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