So grateful for this post and the trails it points us towards. I was particularly struck by this quote: “Pessimism may be warranted; fatalism is not. The future is not written.”
Dear Sara, Thank you for your much-needed therapeutic comments. They suggest to me Martha Nussbaum's Therapy of Desire and her commentary on the Hellenic philosophers' stances on life. I think we are in dire existential straits right now and we need strong metaphors and images to keep us from despair. Ironically, something that I found profoundly moving in this regard was the way that Paul Kingsnorth ended his novel Alexandria about how the last humans (and an AI) coped with their imminent demise. As the waters surrounding their small island inched ever higher. One of the characters, a little girl named sfia has the last words: "we stand joined now, joined in light and Waters all around./ ...all are smilin, sound and light. all are smilin./we are all smilin now." Our demise is not a foregone conclusion, but avoiding it is going to require a great deal of enlightened effort. We are animals for whom metaphors are a part of our ecosystem. Let's use them wisely now that it seems that so many of the efforts of governments, etc. are just not enough or have ended in failure. So many seem not to care, but the climate crisis has indeed vouchsafed the notion that we are all one. Much love and many blessings, Randy
Thank you, Randy! So nice to hear from you. I’m an admirer of Kingsnorth too--could have added his essay “The Cross and The Machine” here. Thanks for the novel rec; ultimately fiction is better at expressing the truest things, as you say.
So grateful for this post and the trails it points us towards. I was particularly struck by this quote: “Pessimism may be warranted; fatalism is not. The future is not written.”
Dear Sara, Thank you for your much-needed therapeutic comments. They suggest to me Martha Nussbaum's Therapy of Desire and her commentary on the Hellenic philosophers' stances on life. I think we are in dire existential straits right now and we need strong metaphors and images to keep us from despair. Ironically, something that I found profoundly moving in this regard was the way that Paul Kingsnorth ended his novel Alexandria about how the last humans (and an AI) coped with their imminent demise. As the waters surrounding their small island inched ever higher. One of the characters, a little girl named sfia has the last words: "we stand joined now, joined in light and Waters all around./ ...all are smilin, sound and light. all are smilin./we are all smilin now." Our demise is not a foregone conclusion, but avoiding it is going to require a great deal of enlightened effort. We are animals for whom metaphors are a part of our ecosystem. Let's use them wisely now that it seems that so many of the efforts of governments, etc. are just not enough or have ended in failure. So many seem not to care, but the climate crisis has indeed vouchsafed the notion that we are all one. Much love and many blessings, Randy
Thank you, Randy! So nice to hear from you. I’m an admirer of Kingsnorth too--could have added his essay “The Cross and The Machine” here. Thanks for the novel rec; ultimately fiction is better at expressing the truest things, as you say.
Thanks for this and for all the other things you send our way.
So good to see your name, Casey! Fellow travelers always.
Grateful for this framing as the new year opens.
Thanks Sara, this is very helpful!
Wonderful, thanks for sending this!