Let me tell you about some of my friends who I love to death.

Lewis, one of my dear friends, is a role model in my life. He and I discuss theology a lot while sitting in old-school style coffee shops, sipping on earl greys. He is gentle with me, especially when I think I’m right when obviously I am not. He listens patiently as I rant about this and that, over corrupt belief, or perhaps a disagreement I have with him. As much as I can say, he never interrupts, but in humility continues his thought when I finish.

My other friends Walt and Robert often times woo me with lyrical conversations. I am always intrigued when we sit down in the fields of daisies in my hometown because their perspectives are so unique. I’ve never met two people who can so accurately describe how I am feeling in such a beautiful way.

Then there are my friends Chuck, Albert, William, and Eddie. These four guys can be destructive friends to me at times, but I know I can lean on them for when I want to be depressed. It never fails that they leave me despondently pensive. I appreciate that about them.

These are some of my better friends in life. They never fail to make me laugh, cry, think, or act, and I enjoy spending time with them, along with the other friends stored away in the bookshelves of my heart.

But as lively as I describe them, my friends are all dead, because my best friends in life are authors. There have been so many times that I pick up a new book by an author I’ve never read and immediately make a new friend. I store that friend next to others. First, I keep the acquaintances at the bottom shelf, because I don’t know much about them yet, but something strikes me to get to know them more. Then, my friends who I’ve talked to several times get the second shelf up. Usually, they have more than one book with them, but not as many as my best friends who rightfully earn the third shelf. My best of the best friends get to be placed at the most easily accessible shelf because I spend the most time with them.

I know it sounds a little psychotic to consider dead people as your comrades, but I’ve learned more, grew more, and felt loved more from my favorite authors than I have from a lot of people in life. I keep these “friendships” alive by reading more from them, and I emulate who they are in my own life. True friendships are to build you up, and that’s exactly what my favorite authors and poets have done for me. They’ve given me courage in time of weakness, knowledge in time of yearning, and companionship in time of loneliness. And although they never knew me, I consider them to be the best people I’ve never met and aspire to be like.

Because of this, I am encouraging our digital, fast-paced age to slow down and befriend an author. Maybe from this century, maybe not. Whoever it is, get to know them because they will enrich your life through their books more than you could ever imagine.

It’s time we fell deeply back in love with the arts of reading and learning, America. Here’s to friendships that surpass the confinement of time, but connect two separate souls as one.