On Books & Covers and Knowing What's Inside

On Books & Covers and Knowing What's Inside

To be honest the old "don't judge things by appearances" adage has troubled me in one way or another over the years. For one thing, it is inclined to provoke from me a - perhaps somewhat impetuous - 'well if I am not to judge things by appearances then quite what am I expected to judge them by?' line of questioning.

The adage also posits some fairly fundamental epistemological questions. I have to say I am not at all sure I can be bothered to disappear too far down the 'perceptual knowledge and what is real anyway?' rabbit hole at this point in time. I fear you see getting lost and never finding my way back again, that I may end up wondering some woody glade posing myself such questions as 'Can we in fact claim ever to be able to open a book and check what is inside (contents against the cover that is), or are we not condemned to a world of appearances and suppositions? (Veil of perception, private languages, problem of verification etc.)'.

Such overly profound philosophical musings aside however, and positing the possibility - were we only to take the trouble - of opening a book up and knowing it intimately, it has always seemed anyhow, blatantly obvious to me that there exists an in severable connection between surface and interior, appearance and nature. Thus for me, since in the metaphorical sense a book's cover inevitably tells one something about the book itself, it was always for me not a question of whether or not a book may be judged by its cover, but a simple question of whether or not I am capable of doing so.

By the above, I mean covers are a sort of language of signs which, if we know how to interpret them, do of course quite naturally and somewhat inevitably tell us at least something about what is inside. Sometimes however, it can require someone with considerable skill, breath of knowledge, and who has opened a good few books in their time (learning as he does so how covers relate to books), to read a cover accurately and precisely. In some ways I am inclined to feel who cannot read a book? But those truly good at reading covers are perhaps few and far between. But then conversely might it not also be said, that those - especially in this day and age? - who take the time to read a book properly are few and far between and we live in a cover orientated society which never bothers to check a book was what they took it for when they bought it anyway, content to leave it lying around for the way it looks?

I don't know perhaps I am getting carried away with this metaphor but..... something else I always wanted to ask of the 'don't judge things by appearances' merchants was: 'Am I then to read every book ever written just because appearances can sometimes be deceptive? Surely to expect this of someone, or yourself for that matter is to expect the impossible? Ultimately we must I feel judge books by their covers and so make a life’s work of learning how to read them. If surface carries a language of signs however, if we wish to read these to get to the bottom of what lies beneath we have to know not always to take them by their literal meaning since in a world where people manipulate these signs we find ourselves playing a game of bluff and double bluff where one sign does not always mean the same thing but takes on shifting significance depending upon where or by whom it is used. A sea of ever shifting symbolisms, where meaning is perpetually reinvented, appropriated and expropriated. This is a vast matrix of interdependent and relative significances. In such a world I will go so far as to say, though appearances will inevitably tell you something about interior, it is often questionable quite how much they tell you, or whether in fact they tell you the things your really want to know and that are most relevant.

Appearances however are always fascinating because they are the tangible expression of, or even principal vehicle for, indeed language of the 'dialogue' between self /interior and environment that is life. What is interesting about this idea is that if we understand ourselves through the 'mirror of society' as it were, then appearances and their manipulation have a very important role to play in this dialogue, the one which exists between self and other people. Is our self image not largely determined by how other people see us? And yet clearly how other people see us is much to do with how we see ourselves, so that if through appearances we can persuade people to see us one way over another, can we not in fact perhaps manipulate our own interior/identity.

The relationship between sentiment and action etc. is interesting in this respect. While on the one hand, what we do is inevitably an expression of self so that in the very act of being we express ourselves, yet on the other hand our actions feed back to determine who we are internally. Just as for example, someone with self confidence might roll up their sleeves and put their hair back from their face, so someone lacking that confidence might make a step towards achieving it if they were to roll up their sleeves and put their hair back. It is a real chicken-egg species of circle. Just as we wear clothes to express how we feel, so the clothes we wear effect how we feel. Of course people wear clothes to express who they are, or perhaps who they want to be, but also, we are what we wear in as much as a feed-back effect exists. If I put on sunglasses and a cap, I feel and behave differently to if I wear...something else for example, say a uniform, rags, old shorts and T-shirt, different colors, a Judo-gi etc.

This is why I always believe it is worth being careful about what you do...it is tempting of course to say to oneself or others even 'oh well, I am doing this now, or I will do this, but it is not me...I am just playing at it,’ or pretending, or whatever...but an important piece of wisdom is that you become what you do, I really believe this. There is no such thing as pretending or trying or acting etc. Thus we must observe good posture in life because to take good posture is in its very self to have right heart. This is my firm belief. Posture is heart, heart is posture, this is one truth I believe...though I don't deny that there are many others.

To return to the trivial a little however, I really do believe that there are a lot of people - maybe more than in other times maybe not - who just like a publisher, will put pretty much anything on the cover, just as long as it will persuade people to pick them up off the shelf. There is however one fatal flaw in this way of being...and it can be found where the analogy fails - perhaps where the money greedy publisher ultimately cares little whether people really like their books or not as long as people buy them, do we, as people, not all want to be read and loved, and is there anything more soul destroying than to be picked up but discarded upon closer examination, and is there anything more lonely than being picked up if you have to keep up the appearance of a lie you told with your cover?