There Is A Musk That Comes From Academia, Which I'll Attempt To Describe.

There is a musk that comes from academia, which I'll attempt to describe.

It starts with the smell of wood. Where a building isn't stone, it is old lacquered hard wood that has also been absorbing the elements for centuries. Outdoors, it is wet and slick, but indoors, the dryness preserves it, and absorbs the scents brought in such as leather and cigarettes and cigars and the spilled whiskey.

There is the scent of people as well, permeating throughout. Academia is often thought of as a solitary environment, but lectures and classes and clubs and parties, they bring together women, men and others in a tight space often. There's the scent of sweat and perfume and cologne, but also the inimitable aroma that comes from worn leather and damp wool. Breath these in deep enough, and your mind and soul are transported to events that have transpired over the course of decades, if not longer. The deep bellied laughter, the intimate whispers, and even the silence between two or more forbidden lovers, gazing from across the room.

Finally of course, there's the musk of books. Of paper, flax, cotton and leather, of the glue binding in the spine, and the collected dust of a hundred years. That scent is the book dying, the materials with which it was made slowly degrading over a prolonged period. A finely trained nose might even determine a book's age, from the distinct smell of the materials used by printers at the time.

Breath it all in, and let yourself feel everything that these fragrances evoke in your mind. Longing, desire, nostalgia, lust, anger, sadness, melancholy. The history that has passed may guide your present and future.

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BE A STUDENT OF WHAT YOU ADMIRE

DO IT BADLY RATHER THAN NOT AT ALL

TO DESPAIR IS TO CEDE VICTORY TO THOSE WHO DO NOT DESERVE IT

BROADEN YOUR CULTURAL HORIZONS

REVEL IN THE ANALOGUE

ACTION ABSORBS ANXIETY

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