How should I put books on the bookshelf?
The greatness of marriage lies in these questions. The power to make you think about something that seemed so obvious to you when you lived alone that you never imagined it would be a question. A relationship that makes my way of life, which has been working well for me, unfamiliar, confirms my boundaries, and asks me to come out because there is a world outside the box. That was the real face of marriage.
We decided to use the smallest room in our newlywed home as a bookstore. (It’s too cute a small room to be called a study.) I brought in a white bookshelf to match the white-painted space, and placed all the books I brought in tightly. Because it was a small space, it felt like it was filled with books. As I felt proud of the bookshelf filled with my favorite books, I thought for a moment that I wasn’t sure if my hobby was reading or reading books. If your hobby is reading, especially if you are more comfortable with paper books than e-books, and if you like reading while messy and underlining, then reading soon becomes a real estate issue. The moment you get into the fun of buying one or two books at a time, you can quickly fill a room with them. It was so difficult to afford that I asked myself several times when I was faced with a book I wanted to buy. If I couldn’t immediately answer that I had to keep it, I borrowed it from the library or read it as an e-book, so the books on the bookshelf in my newlywed home were books that had passed through my filter to some extent. Maybe that’s why I felt more proud.
Unlike my sparkling eyes, my wife had a displeased expression. When I asked him why he did that, he said something I had never even thought of.
Doesn’t it bother you if you place your books like this?
It’s annoying. Did I put the book in the wrong place? no. Is this something that could go wrong in the first place? I looked at the bookshelf again to see what it was. It was well organized so that you could see at a glance which books were stored where. It was natural. I placed them with care with the intention of organizing my bookshelf. Her wife soon told her why.
It’s not pretty.
It was a shock. You can also look at bookshelf from an aesthetic point of view. It was a perspective I had never thought of before in my life. Her wife explained the reason in detail. The first problem was that the height was uneven. In addition, the thickness of the books was mixed with thin books and thick books, so it seemed as if they had been placed randomly. I even heard that it would be better if you took into account the color of the book and the material of the cover, so it seemed to me that it was becoming a more complicated problem to solve, like an equation of increasing degrees. In times like this, the best way is to ask them to show you what you think. I told my wife to change one section of the bookshelf to whatever she wanted.
Rumble, knock, knock. Books were thrown in and out repeatedly for a while, and soon one space was organized. Only then did I understand what her wife was trying to say. The bookshelf, handcrafted by her wife, looked like one wall of a pretty book cafe. It’s clearly the same book, but just changing the way it’s placed creates such a different atmosphere. I had no choice but to acknowledge my wife’s sense that she would enjoy reading a book in this room. And looking at the books scattered in her wife’s hands, I realized how I had been organizing her bookshelf. The locations of the books were no longer visible at a glance.
There is a book called A. While reading A, a question arises about a certain part. I buy a book called B to supplement this. As I was trying to understand B, I also needed a book called C. Buy C. D helps you read C. So D also buys it. Now, a total of four books A, B, C, and D are a community of destiny for me. My approach was that in some context they should stay together in one place. But from an aesthetic standpoint, these books are unlikely to be placed together. This is because the height, thickness, color, and cover material of the book are all different.
This is not a question of right or wrong. It’s not just a matter of how to organize your bookshelf. Like the tip of an iceberg, it is just a small incident that signals a fundamental difference in the way we view the world.
My wife is a person with delicately developed five senses, so she looks at the world sensuously. Taste, smell, touch, hearing, and even sight. My wife’s senses are like high-performance sensors. This is because I often sense differences that are difficult to distinguish with the naked eye. For example, if your wife says that her photo looks a little out of place, she is clearly out of line. She feels the differences, even if they are subtle enough to be noticed only by gridding the photos on a computer. Even though it looks like there to me. So it’s only natural that her wife views her bookshelf aesthetically.
Unlike this, I look at the world conceptually. I value relationships intertwined with meaning and logic rather than things that can be felt sensuously. Although they are invisible, what mainly interests me is that they are connected and influence each other. Even when I look at a work of art, I don’t just feel pretty. To be moved, you must be able to think about the context and meaning in which the picture was drawn. It is natural for me to group books into units of meaning.
Senses and ideas. The fundamental differences in how we view the world are revealed in small ways in everyday life. For example, you can see a difference even after cleaning. My wife focuses on keeping the space neat and tidy, while I prioritize eradicating invisible bacteria and viruses. In the end, when you take the time to clean it all up, the results are similar, but the difference arises in whether tidying up or hygiene comes first. We are different even in these small details.
The greatness of marriage lies in the moment we realize that even these things are different. As we face the reality that the person closest to us is so different from us, we can see aspects of ourselves that we never knew existed. Growth begins with realizing who you are. If I go further and acknowledge and respect differences, and even jump into another world, my world expands. A couple helps each other grow. If, on the other hand, you are in a situation where you have no choice but to reject or refuse rather than acknowledge differences, marriage becomes a decision that increases risk rather than greatness. Therefore, both people must consciously accept the moment when they discover differences.
I started organizing my bookshelf by appropriately mixing my standards and my wife’s standards.
I tried to keep the feel of the bookshelf that my wife had organized as much as possible, and put the books back together in the context I needed. I like it.
Can I become a slightly more sensuous person?
I look at the bookshelf and look forward to changes.
