Posted on 12/19/2005 3:57:53 AM PST by Nicholas Conradin
Natural Links in a Long Chain of Being
I believe we are not alone. Even if I am on the other side of the world from the farmhouse I live in, I still dream of the ancient vines out the window, and the shed out back that my grandfather's father built in 1870 with eucalyptus trunks. As long as I can recreate these images, I never quite leave home.
I don't think farming in the same place for six generations is a dead weight that keeps you shackled, doing the identical thing year in and year out. Instead, it is a rare link to others before me, who pruned the same vines and painted the same barn that I have. If those in this house survived the Panic of 1893 or the Great Depression, or bathed with cold water and used an outhouse, then surely I know I can weather high gas prices.
I believe that all of us need some grounding in our modern world of constant moving, buying, selling, meeting and leaving. Some find constancy in religion. Others lean on friends or community for permanence. But we need some daily signposts that we are not novel, not better, not worse from those who came before us.
For me, this house, this farm, these ancient vines are those roots. Although I came into this world alone and will leave alone, I am not alone.
There are ghosts of dozens of conversations in the hallways, stories I remember about buying new plows that now rust in the barnyard and ruined crops from the same vines that we are now harvesting.
I believe all of us are natural links in a long chain of being, and that I need to know what time of day it is, what season is coming, whether the wind is blowing north or from the east, and if the moon is still full tomorrow night, just as the farmers who came before me did.
The physical world around us constantly changes, but human nature does not. We must struggle in our brief existence to find some transcendent meaning during reoccurring heartbreak and disappointment and so find solace in the knowledge that our ancestors have all gone through this before.
You may find all that all too intrusive, living with the past as present. I find it exhilarating. I believe there is an old answer for every new problem, that wise whispers of the past are with us to assure us that if we just listen and remember, we are not alone; we have been here before.
“I believe there is an old answer for every new problem, that wise whispers of the past are with us to assure us that… we are not alone.”
ping
Thanks for the post. Glad to see NPR allowed someone from the Hoover Institute air time.
Naw... It's all a matter of who's ox is being gored rather than any actual principles.
Beautifully authored. I couldn't agree more with VDH here. Emphatically so.
Let me know if you want in or out.
Links: FR Index of his articles: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=victordavishanson
His website: http://victorhanson.com/ NRO archive: http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson-archive.asp
Somewhere inside me was the belief that Hanson had read the metaphysical poets.
The exercise appears to have taken root.
Hanson IS a metaphysical poet?
Taxman,
I was kidding. A little.
What's glaringly absent from VDH's piece is necessarily rigorous metrics and medial pauses.
I'm still kidding.
He's a very fine writer, though too much the military historian to be a poet. But every now and again we can glimpse a style (see Raleigh) and purpose (see Gardner) that might qualify him as a poet.
It seems to me when I read pieces like this that his personal philosophy is that of a metaphysicist. And for that he can even be excused his occasional ill temper.
One of the most remarkable and noble among all living Americans (and, more generally, humans).
Is it pledge week for them?
IMHO, that is a qualifying statement.
VDH is way out of my league as a historian, thinker and philosopher.
I find his writing most insightful and educational.
Good point! It must be. LOL
The physical world around us constantly changes, but human nature does not. We must struggle in our brief existence to find some transcendent meaning during reoccurring heartbreak and disappointment and so find solace in the knowledge that our ancestors have all gone through this before.You may find all that all too intrusive, living with the past as present. I find it exhilarating. I believe there is an old answer for every new problem, that wise whispers of the past are with us to assure us that if we just listen and remember, we are not alone; we have been here before.
I love the statement, so it's worth repeating.
Merry Christmas, Tolik.
Have you read his book, Fields Without Dreams?
Absolutely great account of his growing up on a small raisin farm in central Calif.
No, I have not. I have a long list of books I want to read, and I'll add this one to it.
Thanks.
Happy New Year!
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