Living Like a Monk

So, I finished working for Democracy Now! today. I was working with their archivist cataloging DVD's which have they have received. Democracy Now! receives books, CD's, DVD's and, I'm sure, other paraphernalia. Some of it one might expect, in the same way I volunteered for Democracy Now!, others send them original music, original radio broadcasts and even video. I hadn't realized people did this, but I'm not surprised. What did surprise me, however, is that someone would send a bootlegged copy of a feature film; or multiple bootleg copies of a feature documentary. I cataloged them anyway.

As I was working, my mind wandered, as it is so wont to do, and I ended up fixated on the idea of what it must have been like for monks during the dark ages transcribing all of the known knowables (as opposed to cataloging the known knowns, things we know that we know, known unknowns, things that we know we don't know, unknown unknowns and last but not least: things we don't know we don't know) in a chilly monastery in some hidden corner of Europe.

Uh, the air conditioning was really cold in the office.