But there is such a quandary we now how have. What do we call digital leaves?

If another society, a remnant of ours, should discover our work with words in a million years and all the digital bits are gone, will they think we could not read and write? Will they know how we stored our information and could they possibly discover that the magnetic bytes and bits on our machines are no longer there or are indecypherable? This screen image is not anything remotely like a leaf.

We have inherited some of the knowledge of the past that you speak of through old scrolls. But will our digital information live on?

We do not understand much about the technology of the past. For example how were the pyramids built?

All leaves fall and eventually disappear. Only constant renewal of the greatest writers can prevent this, if it can be prevented.

Books and newspapers are still printed every day and will be until the end of time. Settle down you spaz.

In a million years, Buck, even leather-bound books will be gone. But they just might find inscriptions on post offices or courthouses or the Lincoln Memorial, and consider us immensely wise.

They might find tanks and weapons and machines that destroy the earth by taking from its core its very being. See Joe Bageant's latest essay. (the more recent one after the one Jerry posted about reently, a better essay in my opinion).

Of course, there just might not be a "they" in a million years. Our planet may just be one of the nine or so planets in the solar system, dead to life, and if there were such a thing as life after death "we" will have to confess: "We did it". We destroyed all the leaves.

On a more serious note, I have probably read Walden at least 50 times. Thoreau's essays, many of them multiple times. I know many of the lines of Whitman's poems but must admit that I have never bought the book. But thanks to this post I will do so. I just read the Wikipedia entry on Leaves of Grass and I didn't know how much all three of these writers had in common. Of the two former, their writing is always filled with riddles, particularly the work of Thoreau who had a wonderful wry sense of humor. But I need to dive into the poems of Whitman that I'm not familiar with and your post just gave me an exceptional reason to do so. I don't know why I am so attracted to the works of those who were part of the Transcendentalist Movement, but I am. How I missed Whitman must be either my own fault or my excellent high school English teachers in high school decision not to go into Whitman much, or my failure to obtain a proper education in the humanities.

It's time for some grass and I'm going to get it.