I loved this and was so sorry it finished so soon. If you feel the urge please feel free to write a biography of your great grandmother and her family set in rural NC. I would be first in line to buy it.
Already ordered on your recommendation. Thank you. I would also welcome the opportunity to talk to about your outstanding book „The Inner Work of Leadership“ which frankly is one of the most powerful I have read and fully aligned with my own perspective and conviction.
PS I was reminded strongly of this passage from Wendell Berry‘s „The Open Wound“ which I hope you will enjoy if you don‘t know it:
There were two heavy facts that Nick accepted and lived with: life is hard, full of work and pain and weariness, and at the end of it a man has got to go farther than he can imagine from any place he knows. And yet within the confines of those acknowledged facts, he was a man rich in pleasures. They were not large pleasures, they cost little or nothing, often they could not be anticipated, and yet they surrounded him; they were possible at almost any time, or at odd times, or at off times. They were pleasures to which a man had to be acutely and intricately attentive, or he could not have them at all. There were the elemental pleasures of eating and drinking and resting, of being dry while it is raining, of getting dry after getting wet, of getting warm again after getting cold, of cooling off after getting hot. There was pleasure to be taken in good work animals, as long as you remembered the bother and irritation of using the other kind. There was pleasure in the appetites and in the well-being of good animals. There was pleasure in quitting work. There were certain pleasures in the work itself. There was pleasure in hunting and in going to town, and in visiting and in having company. There was pleasure in observing and remembering the behavior of things, and in telling about it. There was pleasure in knowing where a fox lived, and in planning to run it, and in running it. And… Nick knew how to use his mind for pleasure; he remembered and thought and pondered and imagined. He was a master of what William Carlos Williams called the customs of necessity.
Hard to put into words what this piece means to me . I guess all I can say is, it inspires me to contemplate how good life is and then get on with it as best I can. Thanks for posting this Barry, and thanks Max!!!!!
I loved this and was so sorry it finished so soon. If you feel the urge please feel free to write a biography of your great grandmother and her family set in rural NC. I would be first in line to buy it.
Max will be glad to read your kind words. In the meantime I do recommend his other books: https://amzn.to/3FNNlut
Already ordered on your recommendation. Thank you. I would also welcome the opportunity to talk to about your outstanding book „The Inner Work of Leadership“ which frankly is one of the most powerful I have read and fully aligned with my own perspective and conviction.
PS I was reminded strongly of this passage from Wendell Berry‘s „The Open Wound“ which I hope you will enjoy if you don‘t know it:
There were two heavy facts that Nick accepted and lived with: life is hard, full of work and pain and weariness, and at the end of it a man has got to go farther than he can imagine from any place he knows. And yet within the confines of those acknowledged facts, he was a man rich in pleasures. They were not large pleasures, they cost little or nothing, often they could not be anticipated, and yet they surrounded him; they were possible at almost any time, or at odd times, or at off times. They were pleasures to which a man had to be acutely and intricately attentive, or he could not have them at all. There were the elemental pleasures of eating and drinking and resting, of being dry while it is raining, of getting dry after getting wet, of getting warm again after getting cold, of cooling off after getting hot. There was pleasure to be taken in good work animals, as long as you remembered the bother and irritation of using the other kind. There was pleasure in the appetites and in the well-being of good animals. There was pleasure in quitting work. There were certain pleasures in the work itself. There was pleasure in hunting and in going to town, and in visiting and in having company. There was pleasure in observing and remembering the behavior of things, and in telling about it. There was pleasure in knowing where a fox lived, and in planning to run it, and in running it. And… Nick knew how to use his mind for pleasure; he remembered and thought and pondered and imagined. He was a master of what William Carlos Williams called the customs of necessity.
Thanks. Berry's poetic writing is always a rich pleasure. As it happens, I drafted an essay this morning with Berry quotations.
Hard to put into words what this piece means to me . I guess all I can say is, it inspires me to contemplate how good life is and then get on with it as best I can. Thanks for posting this Barry, and thanks Max!!!!!
Excellent essay. Too many Ehrenreichs today, including generations X and Z
Your great grandmama was an owner, where the products of her labor were hers to sell, not a sharecropper or a day laborer. You doth conflate too much.
They started as tenant farmers first, then were able to acquire their own land. I could have made that clearer.