Recently I've had the opportunity to hang out with kids of various big companies' CEO's, CFO's children. Multi-millionaire families by all accounts and all that

Recently I've had the opportunity to hang out with kids of various big companies' CEO's, CFO's children. Multi-millionaire families by all accounts and all that. Something that jumped out at me while talking to them was that they'd watched a lot of cinema classics that I, or my little siblings, had not -- I'm talking about Scorsese movies, Orson Welles movies, classics, Sergi Leoni films, spaghetti westerns, etc. etc. It dawned on me that films, very much like books, really are very profound mediums of culture. Indeed you would be most remiss if you were to deny that film cinema, music, etc. is one of the defining things of the Western culture. And it's a rather effective medium -- you get to hear how words /sound/. Watch Jeeves & Wooster (of Fry and Laurie) with subtitles on and you're going to increase your vocabulary with SAT-level words by about 10 words with each episode. Knowing about these movies, it keeps you well-connected into the Western culture, and more in tune to what's going on out there. You'll be able to communicate with people better. Sure libraries exist. And they're free. But TPB is giving you a chance to talk about culture -- to discover content in a free manner, you're checking out stuff at the comfort of your own home -- when you're in a quiet library the chance to talk about things is forgone. It's an overly formal and stigmatized process, as it potentially very well could be in inner city areas (I grew up in one -- I vividly remember being mocked in 6th grade by my peers when they'd find out I was heading to the library). My philosophy is: while you're under 18, poor... go ahead, download it all (preferably in a 'safe' way) -- try to see the classics, broaden your musical interests by trying out Mahler, Beethoven, Beatles, Jethro Tull, Lata Mangeshkar, Vladimir Vysotsky, etc. Download some books, get some '100 must read books' list and go by that -- download pdf files, ePub files if you decide to invest in a Kindle or something, read 1984, Huckleberry Finn, Dubliners, Lolita. Download engineering, computer sciences ebooks for your college courses, that will otherwise cost you hundreds of dollars and financially burden you when you're already in a shaky position. TPB is one of the great equalizers in our society. Once you're old and you've got it made, and can comfortably afford to spend some money -- go out and spend the money to watch a movie, go watch a musical, go to the local theater, spend to your heart's content.