The Corner Shelf
I hadn’t had time to alphabetize them.
Usually I do it the day they arrive. Authors return to their surnames. Subjects scatter back to their proper neighborhoods. History goes back to history. Technology to technology. Order returns before the books have much chance to know one another.
This time they waited.
For several days they occupied the same corner of the shelf.
A history of wood.
A history of ordinary sailors.
A history of sailing told through objects.
A book arguing that the very idea of a world economy had to be invented.
And another introducing a phrase I had never encountered before: general-purpose technologies.
I imagined they spent those few days talking.
The wood book spoke first.
“Civilization forgets what built it,” it said. “People remember iron and stone. They forget forests. Houses, ships, bridges, mines, charcoal—before they were industries, they were trees.”
The sailing book smiled.
“Trees don’t cross oceans by themselves.”
The book about ordinary sailors nodded.
“And ships don’t sail themselves.”
The book of maritime objects waited until they had finished.
“You all keep speaking about great things.”
It laid a marlinspike on the table.
“I prefer what fits in a hand.”
The others fell silent.
Objects have a way of interrupting abstractions.
That was when the economy book finally entered the conversation.
“You’ve all made the same mistake.”
Nobody answered.
“The wood book believes it’s about forests.”
The wood book said nothing.
“The sailing books believe they’re about ships and sailors.”
Another pause.
“The objects book believes it’s about artifacts.”
It looked down politely.
“You’re all my subjects.”
The room became still.
“Wood becomes commerce.”
“Ships become commerce.”
“Sailors become commerce.”
“Objects become commerce.”
“You are all chapters in the invention of the world economy.”
No one rushed to disagree.
It was, after all, an impressive claim.
Then the newest book quietly opened itself.
“I don’t think so.”
Everyone turned.
“I think you’re confusing scale with architecture.”
The economy book frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“It means you believe the largest system is the deepest explanation.”
It turned another page.
“Steam.”
The room listened.
“Electricity.”
Another page.
“Digital computers.”
And another.
“Artificial intelligence.”
The economy book waited.
“I don’t see your point.”
“A general-purpose technology doesn’t matter because it becomes part of everything.”
“It matters because it changes what everything else can become.”
The room grew quieter than before.
The wood book spoke first.
“So forests weren’t important because people traded wood.”
It paused.
“They were important because wood changed what civilization could build.”
The sailing book looked across the table.
“And ships weren’t important because they carried commerce.”
“They changed the size of the world people could inhabit.”
The objects book rested a finger between its pages.
“Perhaps artifacts don’t preserve history.”
It considered the sentence.
“They preserve capacities.”
Even the economy book had stopped arguing.
It had not become less important.
Only less lonely.
For the first time, it found itself sitting beside ideas that were not contained within it.
A few days later I finally alphabetized them.
Wood returned to the E’s.
The sailors to the T’s.
The economy book found its proper place.
The technology book disappeared somewhere else entirely.
The shelf became orderly again.
But I have never been completely convinced the conversation ended.
Sometimes I open a book about archaeology and someone mentions electricity.
A book about sailing suddenly begins talking about infrastructure.
A study of artificial intelligence quietly interrupts a chapter on forests.
The shelves remain alphabetized.
The conversations never are.
WE&P by: EZorrillaMc&Co.
Travel in Life 