Cosmos
the case of a missing book, Carl Sagan, and chicken soup for the soul of a newfound 25 year old who is sometimes afraid of being perceived
In 2022, I went on a first date with a guy, and leading up to it, I had the genius idea of lending him one of my favorite books, “Cosmos” by Carl Sagan. Although it read like a textbook and it took me about 9 months to actually finish it, the book was filled with annotations, dog-earred pages, highlighted phrases, and post-it notes. I made that book my own.
There is no purpose in my elaborating on how the date went. But I do want to declare that I miss my book. Life, of course, continues to pass by, but once in a while, I wonder what my book is up to. Has it been opened up since 2022? Are my annotations being considered at all? Are they cared for? Is it collecting dust on a shelf, or was it given to someone else? Has it been tossed out in the garbage or burned? Or more ironically, is it stuck in an infinite loop of being regifted to other first dates???
It was a choice to give a stranger a possession of mine; to me, it was a spontaneous choice that seemed absolutely necessary in the context of our conversations prior. But to the version of myself now, I harshly tsk tsk (a.k.a. “what the fuck was I trying to achieve doing that lol”) at the naivety of my reasoning. It was a risky choice with no reward, and I don’t think that book is ever coming back.
But then I thought about the loss through a completely different lens.
I am that book.
I am that book, not just to him but to anyone who has ever met me.
Regardless of whether that person skimmed a couple of pages in our book, or if they worked up trying to figure out what the moral of the story was and then gave up halfway, or if they put the book down to start reading something else, or even if they are keeping up with the chapters on a weekly basis, everyone I have interacted with has read a bit of my story.
I could be showcased front and center in someone’s library, hidden all the way in the back, put in a dumpster and then lit on fire, or thrown into the ocean, but I still occupy some kind of space in a person’s fabric of life. The smallest ripple could bring up something where they have to reference this book again.
Although my book (the physical one - "Cosmos") is more likely than not hiding in the back of a closet somewhere in the tri-state area, for a period of time I wanted it back. I wanted to reclaim my property completely. It took me a long time to recognize that even if I physically got my book back in my possession, the memory of them having that book lives eternal. Whether they liked the book or not, it's still there. It may never be opened up again. But it still exists. Whether we like it or not, we exist amongst the “belongings” of the people we love and once loved.
And in the same line of thinking, we amass a library of books of the people we have interacted with. It is our choice to catalog every one of those books, reread unfinished stories one day hoping to open up to a better ending, or choose to walk past some of these books because we know they will not satisfy us.
Everyone is naturally a critic of our book. When it comes to these critics, people will analyze, people will perceive, people will cherish, people will forget, people will hate, people will not care.
And that is okay.
Joy arises in us when the stories in our books are praised. Empathy arises in us when our stories are paralleled with the stories in the books of others. And pain arises when previous experiences and traumas act as a cataract for the reader, and they completely misunderstand your book. But what matters is not what the criticism is, but what you do with the criticism. And is that not something we are all continuously learning how to do?
Sometimes, the consciousness of being perceived by everyone around me leads to intense feelings. Maybe its a product of my anxiety. I think I am still learning to be okay with all of this. But it is a privilege knowing that someone has stuck around all the way until the end, possibly adding another chapter to their book of me in their library. I am utterly grateful.
So, with that being said, what book are you planning on reading next?