As a "bithday week" activity, my lovely wife MB asked that we go through the books in the house (there are a lot), box up the ones we don't want, and organize the rest. We ended up boxing probably 120 books or so, 30 of which were probably technical books - the $40 a pop kind.

I hate getting rid of books. It's very hard for me. Even if it's a book that I bought and then ignored, it's hard for me to let it go. Perhaps it's because my grandmother was a librarian. Perhaps its because I grew up in a house overflowing with books. Perhaps it's because of my unquenchable thirst for useless knowledge.

I think it's that last bit. I was thinking about it today: a book on a shelf is very much like a pendulum pulled up and anchored at a maximum point of its trajectory -- Just as the pendulum represents potential energy, a book on a shelf represents potential knowledge.

It's hard to just give away potential (which is basically what I did today).