Hobos: the keepers of the stories we will need

All of the threats and promises to severely cut funding to libraries, arts organizations, and essentially all the things that make up a civilized life are wearing pretty hard. These are all centers of communal life, positive ones, that balance out the cruddy or boring parts of daily living. Without music, art, theatre, libraries, and, dare I say it, schools-- well, where would we be? And, in the current state of things, where will we be?

Every militaristic society in the history of the world ended up failing. The ones that shared culture through arts left us permanent reminders of the beauty of things, of humanity, of thought itself. At the end of Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, there is a group of learned people who have memorized entire sections of sacred text and other books: they have become the texts, and they live rough. They are called hobos, but truly, they are the keepers of community, of the collected knowledge, and they will guard the stories for the times that will inevitably come after.  I was reading a bit about a group, The Internet Archive, that is feverishly documenting and preserving internet sites, too; they are storing our stories-- including the thousands of government websites' information that has been purged since January-- so that we don't lose our collective history and knowledge. 

I appreciate that so much. We all should. Recently, T. had a copy of the Declaration of Independence hung in the Oval Office-- not a bad idea, it's a nice reminder of what we are supposed to believe. But it hangs behind heavy curtains. The symbolism is not lost on me. 

I'm proud to be a hobo. I hope you are one, too. 

C