Beyond The Imagination
by Meng Luo
12/24/2004
Eversince I discovered a Chinese library on the internet, I have been glued to the screen. Every night with my fingers clicking, I am browsing and reading books on the internet. All kinds of books are there. Literature, poetry, history, philosophy books are there. Fiction and non fiction books are there too. Books with authors known and unknown are there. Books my father once had are also there.
All of a sudden, my daydreaming takes me back forty years into my father’s tiny apartment in China. I was 10, and my father was 50. My father was a High School Principal, and my mother was a teacher in the same school. In their small living-room, they had a huge bookcase full of books. Their books always invaded my tiny playing area.
“Dad,” I said “When I am at your age, all your books will not take up any room.” “Oh?” My father smiled at me, “Where would you keep them?” “In the air!” I exclaimed. “How would you read them?” My father was amused. “You would read them on a screen.” I stated as a matter of fact, “You’d press some buttons, and there you’d go. You’d have books in the air and you’d be reading them from a screen.” “Ha, ha, ha…” My father busted into laughter. “Dad, it will be real.” I was serious. Shaking his head, my father said, “It is beyond the imagination. I don’t see how this could happen.” “Dad, you don’t believe me?” I was upset.
My father brought down his chuckling, and pulled me into his arms. “My daughter,” He said, “Let me tell you a story about books. Two thousand years ago, a book was made of bamboo strips. The words were written or carved on the strips. These bamboo strips were wired together and rolled up into a book-roll. A book-roll was heavy and bulky. Confucius had so many book-rolls that he needed five carts to carry them. The idiom ‘Knowledge rich as five carts’ comes from this fact. Today Confucius’ books are inches thin in paper. This was beyond the imagination at his time.”
My father continued, “Imagination is good. Human beings always turn imagination into reality. For example, a telephone is a ‘long way off ear,’ and a telescope is a ‘thousand mile eye.’ Things you can imagine, you will have them in life.” I got his point. Now, having books in the air is a reality.
I am back on my screen, browsing and reading books. There are so many books. If I spend my life time reading, I will not even crack a tiny bit of the iceberg. It is a great waste of human knowledge. I wonder forty years into the future, and how my grandchildren would solve this problem.
All of a sudden, my 10 year old granddaughter hopped to my face. “Grandma, please don’t worry.” She said sweetly, “We have the biochips implanted into our brain. All the knowledge is in our brain.” “What?” My mouth dropped and my were eyes wide opened. “Are you alright, Grandma?” “Ah… It is beyond the imagination.” |
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