What charm to a depthless pool! Dive into… Hardy’s 947 poems, Emily Dickinson’s 1789 poems, Bach’s 210 cantatas (another hundred or so have been lost), Haydn’s 104 symphonies… Shakespeare’s 38 plays and 157 poems I can almost compass, though there are always finds, even in memorized texts; the principal monuments of Handel, Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Dickens I can call to mind, but these most prolific masters outstrip my capacity of recall. Before my end I will never reach theirs. Because even if you’ve listened to the last note, you’ve forgotten the first, so the next is always new.

Our rip-roaring overstocked rating era designates “masterpieces,” “highlights,” “hits,” “best bets.” “What’s your favorite Bach cantata?” I was asked the other day. “I – uh – I don’t know,” I winced stupidly, cautioning myself not to add, “That’s not the point, you ninny.” Computers may count clicks – auto-aggregate pop charts – but continuity is the narcotic charm of devotion. You no more “do” a beloved talent than you do a friend, sampling souls like destinations on a bucket-list. Love resembles prayer that way: pray and you are always praying, not from six to six-fifteen.

I sometimes envy Montaigne or Shakespeare their limited libraries, so many fewer must-reads crashing into their consciousness, disrupting their quiet. An earnest knower then could know much of what was to be known. One reread, memorized, cited. Any avid intellect these days is drinking from a firehose, managing a few sips.

I’m asked if I’ve read the latest. “No!” I almost yelp, cautioning myself (yet again) not to add, cantankerously, “and I don’t want to!” In truth, I do want to, would, if there were time, but who has time?

Overpopulation overproduces. In Montaigne’s day, earth held about half a billion folks, today eight billion, producing (one assumes) at least sixteen times more thought, music, words. Only that sixteen vastly understates, for there are lots more than sixteen times the folks with the tools, leisure, and glory-greed, pouring their insides out. But alas, the planners have not added minutes to the day, and though we’ve doubled life expectancy, twice will hardly suffice. Proliferation of options makes choice more daunting. We depend on curators, experts, trusted advisors, to tame the assault of opportunities.

Superabundance hurts. It also risks stupefying. I need time to listen. I need more time to reflect and respond. Spend too much time learning and I end up dumb as a brained ox. I can read maybe two hundred fifty words a minute but I can write only five words a minute if the gods are with me, and why else read (I ask myself) but to write?

Sociologists, anthropologists, and others who investigate such matters estimate that an average human can maintain about fifteen close friendships. If (at least) half of my pals are masters of the past, that leaves scant time for living candidates. This makes me heartsore, that my appetite should so far exceed my digestion.

Yet I will not abandon old friends for new, especially those who’ve bestowed such luxuriant legacies. Picking up a new text, the likelihood of satisfaction is low. But with Hardy, Dickinson, Bach, Haydn and maybe a dozen other beloved luminaries, I am guaranteed a rich repast, for even when they’re having an off day, this is my incomparable intimate having an off day and that is interesting. (Why Shakespeare perpetrated Troilus and Cressida I’ll never know – and never stop asking.)

When my world is coming unglued, which seems every other day, I dive into my deep pool to rediscover how good we can be when we are good. Ahhhhhhh….