Late in the book, in a chapter on her religious beliefs, I ran into the
following paragraph, which prompted me to post, as it ties to threads
here:
"The possibility that a void exists after death has motivated me to work
hard so I can make a difference--so that my thoughts and ideas will not
die. When I was working on my Ph.D., a co-worker in our lab told me that
the world's libraries contain our extra soma, or out-of-body genes. Ideas
are passed on like genes, and I have a great urge to spread my ideas. I
read an article in the newspaper about an official at the New York Public
Library who said that the only place on earth where immortality is
provided is in libraries. This is the collective memory of humanity. I
put this on a sign and placed it over my desk. It helped me to persevere
and get through my Ph.D. work. When Isaac Asimov died, his obituary
contained the statement that death was not much of an issue because all
his thoughts would live on in books. This gave him a kind of
immortality. The ancient Egyptians and Greeks achieved immortality by
leaving behind the pyramids, the Parthenon, and writings by great
thinkers. Maybe immortality is the effect one's thoughts and actions can
have on other people."
(pg. 199)
--Eva