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The View From Lazy Point: A Natural Year In An Unnatural World (2011)

by Carl Safina(Favorite Author)

4.25 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0805090401 (ISBN13: 9780805090406)

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

Henry Holt and Co.

review 1: I loved, loved, loved this book so much. I can't remember the last time something shook me so deeply and left me thinking about how I live and what I consume- all the choices I make, and their costs. Can't underline a library book so keeping a running tab of quotes here:"The compass of compassion asks not "What is good for me?" but "What is good?" Not what is best for me but what is best. Not what is right for me but what is right. Not "How much can we take?" but "How much ought we leave?" and "How much might we give?" Not what is easy but what is worthy. Not what is practical but what is moral. With each action we decide whether to sow the grapes of wrath or the seeds of peace.The compass of compassion suggests that very few things, each simple, are needed. We shouldn't h... moreate people for the group they were born into, or because we hold conflicting beliefs about things that cannot be proven, seen or measured. We can't infinitely take more from- or infinitely add more people to- a finite planet. While living in a world endowed with self-renewing energy, we can't run civilization on energy that diminishes the world. If we can get these simple things under control, I think we could be okay. Simple does not mean easy. Yet more than ever before in history, we can now understand what's needed. But nations need to act boldly and soon. Time runs short at an accelerating pace."___"The world is changing because we're changing it. And that makes me understand, at least, what kind of person I'd like to be. A person can seek ways, whether big or small, to heal the world. That, to me, is spirituality and one's 'soul.' Not some disembodied wishfulness but a way of being that, most days, I can work on. Life is like walking with a flashlight on a dark night. You can't see your destination, but each step illuminates the next few steps, and, taking one after another, you can get where you need to go. Only now, we'll need to quicken our pace if we are to avoid major upheaval in this century. It's up to us not just as individuals but as citizens of nations and of the world."__"America is a world power of expanding wealth and shrinking spirit, enlarged houses and broken homes, engorged executive pay and low worker morale, increased individualism and diminished civility, obesity and what Robert Lane calls "a kind of famine of warm interpersonal relations." We slave for prosperity but shirk purpose, cherish individual freedom but long for inclusion and meaning.Simply put, more is better up to a point; after that, more is worse. When you're hungry, eating is good for you; when you're overweight, it isn't- but you want to eat more. The continuing appetite for more stuff, after emotional well-being stops increasing, is a psychic disease of the developed world. You can be right on track until you pass your destination; then- without changing course- you're headed in exactly the wrong direction What makes people happy: working on relationships. So maybe one stepping stone on the path to happiness has the word "Enough" engraved into it."__"A morning like this makes me feel happy. And I don't mind knowing that the feeling will be temporary. Happiness, like everything else in this rhythmic realm, comes and goes in waves, and it's good to savor it when the wave rises and, when the wave recedes, understand that another wave will come. Sometimes you ride the wave; sometimes you ride out the trough. A wave's height is measured by its depth, anyway.My father, a schoolteacher who suffered from real depression, used to say, 'Those who know they have enough are rich.' I'm not sure he believed it. But I did. When I was young my friends and I would sit around with a fish on the grill and a beer in hand-very low-budget- and joke, 'I wonder what the poor people are doing.' A dry roof, a cold fridge, a hot shower, wheels, and climbing into any boat- even when the roof wasn't mine, nor the fridge, nor the shower, nor the boat- that's always felt like incredible riches. I'm not knocking money, but it's got its limitations. It can make many things easier, but it doesn't guarantee that you'll choose the right things and ask the right questions, and a lot of people with money remain (or become) unhappy. Anyway, I've seen what real poverty looks like. So my middle-class life and my connection with the sea have always seemed amazing luck. I've never thought that having more stuff would solve all my problems or make me happier- and that's proven true."__"Relationships are the music life makes. Context creates meaning. Asking, "What is the meaning of life?" is the wrong question; it makes you look in the wrong places. The question is, "Where is the meaning in life?" The place to look is: between. Neither the Red-wings nor Kenzie need to be taught that what's crucial is that we be mindful of the relationships."__"Saving the world requires saving democracy. That requires well-informed citizens. Conservation, environment, poverty, community, education, family, health, economy- these combine to make one quest: liberty and justice for all. Whether one's special emphasis is global warming or child welfare, the cause is the same cause. And justice comes from the same place being human comes from: compassion.""Anyone looking for a country with low taxes; no funds wasted on social programs; no government regulation of business, health worker safety, or the environment; and no gun control might consider moving to Somalia.""Rather than focusing on growth and the (increasingly unlikely) possibility of further development, we could focus on development with the (increasingly implausible) possibility of growth.""I wasn't the problem, but we're always only part of the problem. At some point one confronts the question of right and wrong in private, with the door closed. We can do the right thing. Right things maintain a community.... We each make our solo voyages to deep, expansive waters. Alone in our contest with the wider world, we test our mettle and seek our trophies, promotions, compliments, and accolades. We strive to be needed and thereby to know that there is a reason for us. We seek to be told we are good because we're too unsure of ourselves to know. Yet often we remain so focused on our neediness that we forget the creatures- human and otherwise- we're drawing into the vortex of our own passion play. All of us have compulsive loves we must forbear. We forget to see that we can engage the world without harming it. And although we fish for approval, the challenge is: to capture our prizes while bringing more to the world than we take.""Passing along a world that can allow real children to flourish, and the cavalcade of generations to unfold, and the least to live in modest dignity would be the biggest pro-life enterprise we could undertake... Children yet to come will be the cleanup crew to our festivities. Because we know they won't be coming to the ballroom until we've all waddled off, we've granted ourselves permission to party like there's no tomorrow."
review 2: This is the first book I've read by Carl Safina, a marine biologist. He writes really well - catching you up into the interesting things about the natural world as he experiences it - but not sparing you, the reader, from his clear-eyed perceptions of man's impact on the environment in both his most benevolent forms and in his most unthinking and destructive forms. He doesn't hold anything back and spells out clearly where we, as societies, are failing to understand our own integral part of the environment and we are continuing to destroy it to our loss - both imminent and long-term. However, he also makes clear that his is not only a diatribe. He still delights in what he finds in nature and he still has hope that man will finally find an accommodation with it. An excellent author. I will read more of his books. less

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