2001 by Arthur C. Clarke
On the first day of Autumn, Kimberly looks back at another fall day when she first read the book 2001 and her life changed for the better. Does this book still inspire hope for humankind? If you'd like your own copy of Arthur C Clarke's 2001, consider purchasing using our affiliate link for an easy way to support this podcast. Amazon link: 2001: a Space Odyssey https://amzn.to/35RdGEX (https://amzn.to/35RdGEX) The complete Space Odyssey series: 2001, 2010, 2061, 3001 https://amzn.to/2YRpBBn (https://amzn.to/2YRpBBn) TRANSCRIPT: Welcome everybody to Socratica Reads. My name is Kimberly Hatch Harrison, and I’m the co-founder of Socratica. We make educational videos about math, science, and programming. I hope you can sense that we make our videos from a certain viewpoint - of optimism and hope about the future. One of the reasons I’m doing this podcast is to give you a window into our sources of inspiration. What makes us think the way we do? I’ve spent almost all of my life reading. I haven’t been picky, honestly. I read everything. But out of the thousands of books I’ve read, there have been a few that appeared at just the right time and nudged me in a certain direction. That’s what this podcast is really about. I have to warn you, this is not your typical book review podcast. There are plenty of those out there already, doing a great job. Socratica Reads is a personal journey. It’s an exploration of the profound effects that the right book at the right time can have on a person. Today is the first day of Autumn. I always associate the Fall with going back to school. It’s another kind of a New Year. You re-enter school with a new identity. Now you’re a sophomore. Now you’re a junior. It’s another chance every year for things to go differently. The year I started seventh grade, I was 12, and deep in my ugly duckling years. When I look back at photos now, I don’t quite see it. But to kids my age, it was really obvious. I wonder what was it that marked me as a social outcast. I had very heavy glasses (this was before they were making nice thin polycarbonate glasses - if you had a strong prescription, your glasses were as thick as your thumb), and even with my glasses I didn’t see very well, so that meant I was really clumsy - I was a disaster at sports. And plus, I was just a weird kid, I loved to read, I got along well with adults - so my classmates rejected me and at every moment reminded me that I didn’t belong. We had a new science teacher that year. Brian Miller. He had thick glasses, like mine, so immediately I felt some kinship. On the first day of school, to break the ice, he asked the class what did we do over the summer. I said I had been to the East Coast to visit family, including a trip to New York where I saw some plays and musicals. One of my regular tormentors was sitting behind me, and she started chanting under her breath, “New York. New York. Yeah, I went to New York.” You know, the stupid stuff that bullies do, it’s never anything clever, it’s just incessant taunting. This was letting me know that nothing had changed, she still despised me for existing. The next kid went, and the next, and my bully got a bit louder, enjoying the laughter of the kids nearby. But then she went too far, and Mr. Miller heard her. He yelled at her. “What the HELL is your problem?” he said. That was all he said. He motioned for my classmate to go on with their story. My bully was stunned into silence, and I felt a strange sense of emptiness - but in a good way. The absence of taunting was like a vacuum - and who knows what was going to move in in its place. There was the POSSIBILITY, all of a sudden, of a new kind of life for me, one where I wasn’t being constantly picked on. Now. What does this all have to do with the book we’re talking about today. Well, this