“The ecology of the valley was complex beyond our understanding, and it began to die as we went on manipulating it in ever more frantic ways. As it went dead and empty of the old life it became a place where no one wanted to live. In our right minds we want to seek out places that reek of complexity. Our drive to industrialize soured and undercut the intimacies that drew most people to country life in the first place.” PeopleWayWantMindFirstsCountryWantedDiesUnderstandingLandEmptyComplexesIntimacyComplexityValleysEcologyFranticCountry LifeOld LifeUndercut Author:William Kittredge
“I want to think I deserve what I get. I don't want to consider how vastly I am overly rewarded. I don't want to consider the injustices around me. I don't want any encounters with the disenfranchised. I want to say it's not my fault. But it is, it's yours and mine, and ours. We'd better figure out ways to spread some equity around if we want to go on living in a society that is at least semi-functional. It's a fundamental responsibility, to ourselves.” IfsThinkingWayWantResponsibilityFiguresMinesGoes OnDeserveFundamentalsFaultsEnvironmentalInjusticeSpreadEncountersSustainabilityEquityDisenfranchised Author:William Kittredge
“In learning to pay respectful attention to one another and plants and animals, we relearn the acts of empathy, and thus humility and compassion - ways of proceeding that grow more and more necessary as the world crowds in.” WorldWayInspirationalMotivationalGrowsAnimalPayAttentionCompassionLearningGrowingHumilityEmpathyPlantCrowdsNovelistsCrowdedRespectfulRespecting OthersProceedingPlants And AnimalsBe Respectful Author:William Kittredge
“We tell stories to talk out the trouble in our lives, trouble otherwise so often so unspeakable. It is one of our main ways of making our lives sensible. Trying to live without stories can make us crazy. They help us recognize what we believe to be most valuable in the world, and help us identify what we hold demonic.” WorldWayTryingBelieveHelpingStoriesOur LivesTroubleCrazyValuableSensibleUnspeakableDemonic Author:William Kittredge
“It is a skill we learn early, the art of inventing stories to explain away the fearful scared strangeness of the world. Storytelling and make-believe, like war and agriculture, are among the arts of self-defense, and all of them are ways of enclosing otherness and claiming ownership.” WorldWayBelieveArtWarSelfStoriesSkillsScaredDefenseStorytellingFearfulOwnershipAgricultureInventingSelf DefenseMake BelieveStrangenessOthernessInventing Stories Book:Owning It All: Essays Source: Owning It All: Essays
