“Don’t let the books go away!” – that’s what my bookshelf says to me. I can hear all the voices in the books on my shelf speaking to me.
They were very interested in Planet Qualia, when I first started writing it, and every one of them had something to add to it. Eventually, I had to tune them out, sort of like when you take a walk in the woods and after a while all the chatter inside your head goes silent. Then you can hear.
When I walk in the woods, and I start to hear, I notice all the tiniest, tree-root filaments talking, and all the fungi, and the worms and bugs, and the plants and the birds and all the rest of the animal kingdom, communicating. You would have to read a lot of science books to understand all the interconnections between all the different ecosystems, but they are there, and you can hear them crackle and sing even if you haven’t read the books. If you stand on a mountain and look down upon city, you can hear all the different neighborhoods and adults and children, and the cats and dogs and rats and grass and lonely trees, too. They are silent, but you can hear them. Listen for the qualia! Look for the qualia. Sense the qualia.