people are like books

There are two parts to a book, the physical, and the spiritual. The physical is the paper, the leather of the cover, or the cloth, the binding, what you can hold in your hand, and touch, and hold. The spiritual is the words, the idea; you could destroy all physical copies of a book and the idea would live on. It is intangible, unquantifiable, and mystical, and doesn't do well to think too much about.

And people are the same way. A dual nature, the body and the soul; the body, transient and fleeting, but housing an immortal soul. The physical natures of books vary widely; some are large, some are small, some are beautiful, some are bland. Some are old, some are young, some are broken, some pristine. Sometimes the cover accurately reflects what is inside, but almost always there is more than meets the eye.

There is personality, too; some people are wide open, and their pages are easy to read. They walk through life simply, not difficult to comprehend; yet their pages are more easily damaged. Others are more guarded, they have their covers tightly shut; and some are closed for many years past, and we must dust off the years to learn what is inside.

And then there are girls. Girls are almost always open books, but they are written in a completely unintelligible language, so we as men are rather helpless; we can see that something is going on, certainly; but it's much more difficult to know exactly what. At times, after long study, we can pick up a few words. We can pretend to understand a few more, but that's always dangerous.

And most books aren't worth your time.

._.