More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
The love of our neighbor in all its fullness simply means being able to say to him, “What are you going through?” —Simone Weil
I was wrung out from watching her suffer,
Whatever must be done to forestall catastrophe, whatever actions or sacrifices, it was now clear that humankind lacked the will, the collective will, to undertake them. To any intelligent alien, he said, we would appear to be in the grip of a death wish.
To think that the masses of refugees fleeing shortages of food and clean water caused by global ecological disaster would find compassion anywhere their desperation drove them was absurd, the man said. On the contrary, we would soon see man’s inhumanity to man on a scale like nothing that had ever been seen before.
And who could believe that the concentration of such vast power in the hands of a few tech corporations—not to mention the system for mass surveillance on which their dominance and profits depended—could be in humanity’s future best interests.
Neither season after season of extreme weather events nor the risk of extinction for a million animal species around the world could push environmental destruction to the top of our country’s list of concerns. And how sad, he said, to see so many among the most creative and best-educated classes, those from whom we might have hoped for inventive solutions, instead embracing personal therapies and pseudo-religious practices that promoted detachment, a focus on the moment, acceptance of one’s surroundings as they were, equanimity in the face of worldly cares.
Self-care, relieving one’s own everyday anxieties, avoiding stress: these had become some of our society’s highest goals, he said—higher, apparently, than the salvation of society itself. The mindfulness rage was just another distraction, he said. Of course we should be stressed, he said. We should be utterly consumed with dread. Mindful meditation might help a person face drowning with equanimity, but it would do absolutely nothing to right the Titanic, he said. It wasn’t individual efforts to achieve inner peace, it wasn’t a compassionate attitude toward others that might have led to timely
...more
The only moral, meaningful course for a civilization facing its own end: To learn how to ask forgiveness and to atone in some tiny measure for the devastating harm we had done to our human family and to our fellow creatures and to the beautiful earth. To love and forgive one another as best we could. And to learn how to say goodbye.
I took out my phone, that reliable prop, and spent a few moments tickling it.
Patricia Highsmith once admitted that she liked criminals, finding this type of person extremely interesting and even admirable for their vitality, freedom of spirit, and refusal to bow down to anyone.
Enough bones of contention between us, my friend joked, to make a whole skeleton.
The nurse, the picture of professional poise, winked at me as she went out. They are trained to forgive, in cancer care.
