More Caffeine!
With an interlude of forty-five minutes I stopped at Starbucks to do some reading yesterday afternoon. Starbucks is a bar for non-alcohol drinkers, for the introverted types who have a proclivity for caffeine, and for studying. I glanced up from my reading to see the individual at the adjoining table. This afternoon, how long at this table, note-taking, book opened..? She has been here longer than I.
Catching her eye, I asked, “Isn’t that uncomfortable?” She half laughed, “I just find it hard to be in one position for very long.” I guess there are only so many positions that one can take in a chair. This is one of the more extreme, atypical ones. Anything helps when one has hours of reading to do.
I know what that’s like. I’ve spent hours in various coffee shops, or dimly lit lounges at Northwestern University, reading, resisting fatigue, –and always needing more caffeine. This is the price one pays to become literate, to achieve a sense of historical awareness, of a critical consciousness.
It is both satisfying, and a grind.
Not unlike a medieval monk in his scriptorium.
