panic. if i don't get around to reading a book, like maybe if it's too boring or something, my dog will eventually chew it up. saves a lot of time.
If i were god and i were to make intelligent life in my image, i would give it the ability to forget things that it has been told. this seems like a weakness, but I think the ability to forget unimportant sayings is more useful than the ability to remember important sayings.
it's rather convenient then that books will eventually break down and have to be rewritten by the next generation of writers, who decide what is and isn't important. our ideas evolve and change with us, and the act of preserving them kills this evolution.
however the nature of books has changed: books distributed between many hard drives last longer than books on paper. obviously, everyone now realizes that there are way too many books around and not enough time in the world for anyone to read even a tiny fraction of them. this problem worsens for future generations as technology improves.
so there's this robot in asimov's the last question who will eventually read all the books for you and understand everything, and that's supposed to be god or whatever. but it doesn't exist, so do not read for the sake of relieving stress about "things that will never be known", "things that will be lost to the winds of time" or "things I would enjoy to know, but I just don't have enough TIME!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAxARJyaTEA". read what you have to and nothing more.
https://i.postimg.cc/vTZgX2jp/hnmeme.jpg