Progress

~ Live & Learn

We keep turning one thing into another and calling it progress. We keep machining the beauty off of things as they are, creating more and more things to hide in, as if that will let us live longer. We keep burrowing into everything but ourselves: churning trees into lumber, animals into meat, wind into electricity, vegetables into remedies, and silence into noise; turning the earth, continent by continent, into one giant anthill. We keep eating our way through the arms of the Universe, desperate for something large and quiet to hold us.

~ Mark Nepo, “Short Wisdom on a Long Planet” in Things That Join the Sea and the Sky: Field Notes on Living

Photo: monochrome vibe (via to escape from the commonplaces of existence)

22 thoughts on “Progress”

  1. A scary situation well described – and oh so cleverly matched with a b/w positive/negative photo…. you are one clever, thoughtful guy.

    On a side note: Some time ago I read in an article that the ‘water energy’ that goes in one kg of beef equals a whole year of shower taking. I don’t eat much meat but I found that terrifyingly shocking and utterly scary. Now I searched for said article but couldn’t find it. It’s difficult for me to do researches when I don’t know whether I read that in E/F/G or in a newspaper/journal/magazine AND in which country, as I’m travelling so much, or even ‘saw’ on YT or in a movie…. Instead, I found this highly interesting, well made flow chart and I guess with some mind-twisting you’d arrive at the same result more or less:
    http://thewaterweeat.com/

    Happy Sunday, all the same 🙂 It’s beautiful here and although very fresh in the morning, the day promises to be warm and lovely.

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      1. No David, it wasn’t and it doesn’t really matter does it. It simply is SCARY to realise just what and how much of everything it takes to produce ONE KILOGRAM of meat. I nearly became a total vegetarian learning that….. I already try not to serve much meat and when I do to buy ‘good real meat’, not of pumped up and artificially ‘enhanced’, wrongly fed stuff…. but it did turn me off. If only some nice juicy and tender beef wasn’t so very good 😉

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    2. Hope you are setting in , well…so many adventures lay ahead for you, your husband and pups..Morning Doves sound a lot like owls and they start there comforting cooing early in the morning…Enjoy the enteral sunshine…

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        1. Your are welcome. I know that a new location influences the heart, your life and writing will be enriched in this new adventure, softly nestled with warm breezes…
          I see I used the incorrect “there” should be their, in regards to Doves…

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  5. The image of a right and a left hand representing light/good/positive vs dark/evil/negative, one slightly degraded eroding around the margins in comparison the other, clearly blacken, oxidized, overrun in overuse… takes me back to childhood, I was nine or ten, a field-trip to a Museum of Science and Industry…(in comparison to the shared image) an exhibit which left a lasting impression on me…the exhibit about lungs and smoking…clearly illustrated the effects of lifestyle choice and impact on health…I walked through a large replica of a lung and one of the heart…what gripped me was hanging behind glass …the display of two preserved donated cadaver lungs, a flesh color healthy lung…the other lung, decimated…black like coal tar…right there I vowed never to smoke. (As a teen I watched an Uncle dying of lung Cancer) I also hated the smell of cigarettes and I knew they had a high cost associated with them and they were not allowable for those under a certain age…for me, I always wondered why when a person became an adult and were supposedly smarter than a child why they’d waste their money, health and possible loss of friends over the stink of smoking?
    My perspective on your pairing of the text and image, Amazing…I feel that the resources of the earth a gift from God, for our use in a sensible and sustainable manner…Clearly, man has conquered, exploiting instead of discovering and appreciating the wonder (thankful for the few who had foresight, preserving) ..the ancient Mariner learned to navigate, relying on the Heavens for Guidance in the dark of night gliding across the water, the Mariner a linked soul to the Heavens and the Sea, in equilibrium…today, Sadly Man (and we all have had a hand in this as consumers) has pushed forward, surpassing the point of equilibrium…leaving a bleak future for Plant Earth and the current and future generations…and for me I believe that I am a temporary resident here, who has enjoyed the wondrous Gifts of Beauty and Joy found here on Earth, as with each gift of breath I draw closer to an eternal home in Heaven…
    In kind appreciation, I thank you for your daily offering that caused me to remember childhood, think, appreciate gifts of life and be allowed to express freely my thoughts…

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