My day didn’t start with this plan. Yep I began with coffee and page 311 of Jill Lepore’s These Truth’s: A History of the United States.
She’s covering reconstruction. As I finished a section of that chapter, I glanced at the larger pile of current reads and decided to pull out one from the bottom that I was prepared to give up on – the pile has 9 books (all started) and the bottom one was the newest addition. I had read only the first 8 pages of the intro when I brought it home and placed it on the bottom to perhaps give it a little more time before deciding if it was worth my time. The book is co-authored by Mary Lawhon (U. of Edinburgh) and Tyler McCreary (Florida State). Enough!: A Modest Political Ecology for an Uncertain Future (2023) – note the word “uncertain” again in its title. The thesis they are exploring is summarized nicely by this sentence on page 11 –
“Enough, then, is about less of some things, more of others, a different way of producing most things and a radically different distribution of them”.
I am gratified that they write with an air of humility, embracing uncertainty, but exploring possibilities. I may be hooked.
So then I go to check my
daily news at The Guardian only to find this
story towards the lower middle of today’s news. Maybe I follow this
stuff too much or too closely, but everything tells me the pace is accelerating
and reminds me of this short
video (less than 2 minutes) that I have used for almost two decades in almost every public
talk I give. I share it because it depicts, better than
I could ever explain myself, the pace of change and the danger it represents.
While I still have 135 pages
to read in Enough!, I am pulled to listen to their ideas and others, of how of
we might yet create that future of ENOUGH! we can leave to our children. We need to awaken to new "possibilities".
Keep Shining Your Light!!
