When I visit City Lights, a bookstore and publisher located in the North Beach area of San Francisco opened by poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti in 1953, I feel a power. I feel the power of the hundreds of ideas and words, the power of the artistic dreams that fill the store.

This power is undeniable for me and many of the people that visit.

When I leave the store into the bustling streets of San Francisco, I feel energized, ready to write, ready to tell the world what I feel, the way I see the world.

It is not only me that feels that there is something special at City Lights. It’s a place that when people enter the store, they respect the store.

People from all walks of life, from teenage girls, to middle-aged couples, talk in the store in hushed tones, as if at a library.  At a chain bookstore people don’t act that way. When people enter this special place, they know it’s not just another Barnes and Noble.

These people can feel the undeniable something that demands quiet and respect, that something that makes the words jump out from the page and burn in your mind.

I call it a “something” because it’s hard to put it into words. Maybe it’s in the rhythm of the creaky floors. Maybe it’s in the history of the place.

Maybe it’s the plain way the books are presented, stacked on top of one another.

It could be that it just comes from a feeling, a feeling in the air.

So many wonderfully human stories get played out there.  A mom reading to her daughter patiently while her daughter hangs onto every word. Another mom discussing the philosophy of Kurt Vonnegut with her teenage daughter. Even my story, where a 19-year-old learns the power of art through the medium of comic art.

The lines and words of those graphic novels showed me a new way of looking at life. The quiet beauty of the stories seem amplified at  a such a special place.

As technology progresses, it becomes less and less clear what printed books are for, why they should even exist.

Places like City Lights are the strongest argument for them. What these places have is unique. Computer files simply do not demand the quiet respect that these places deserve.

The collection of written work, of human expression, that surrounds you, the peace that you get walking into this world of human thought from the bustling city, it can only be achieved at places like City Lights.

If the stories, the moments, that take place there everyday were to disappear, we would be losing something as a people and as a culture. It’s OK to own a Kindle. It’s OK to own an iPhone.

But let us not forget the value of these places.