Hard copy

Last week was my first time in months to visit Fully Booked. I was there to get a hard copy of an ebook I had shamelessly torrented, but I have since had a change of heart and decided to spend for my books. It was that or the fact that my mom wanted the book, and the ebook was pretty much unreadable (I gutted it out since, free, right?).

I had not realized how hard it was to get a physical copy of the book I wanted. With so many titles out there to read, it’s understandable that one or two book stores here in Cebu would not have them in stock. This explains my need to (shamelessly) resort to torrents for feeding the literary monster inside me. The end justifies the means, as Machiavelli says.

However, I had forgotten just how... good... an actual book feels like. Nothing compares to that first feeling of cracking open the front cover, smelling that newbook smell, hearing the rustle of the pages, and being able to scribble on the edges. At this point in my life, where my entire library is stored in my smartphone, reading something cover to cover is an almost religious experience—as cathartic as petting your cat after a long, hard day at work.

Experiences like this are few and far between for me because of the digitizing of things. Not that digitizing is bad: when before we had to wait for a week to develop camera film, we can do this in a few hours. When we first had to wait for a copy of Neil Gaiman’s Norse Mythology (which Fully Booked tells me will arrive this March—yes!), we can now download on Kindle. When before we had to be able to meet face to face with people, we now have apps like Viber or Skype that allow us to video call someone continents away. Digitizing allows us to accomplish things as quickly and efficiently as possible.

This, of course, doesn’t mean we forget about the “low tech” aspect of things. When was the last time you sat down with your friends and spent time just talking—without the need to elbow around for the perfect #dinnerwithfriends shot to upload to IG? To add to that, when did you last make time to actually meet your Skype meeting partner face to face? There’s still something about physical interaction that rounds out our whole human experience and begs us not to take our “offline” events for granted.

If anything, we should cherish these, as our lives are largely shaped by the hidden, not-documented little events that often pass us by. And I’m saying this while reading and savoring my new book—a foreign feeling as I haven’t done this in a year or so. Boy, does it feel good.

Appreciate the “hard copy” moments— those are the ones that are precious and hard to copy.