The closest thing to sustainability I know is spending the summer at our ocean-side cottage in Maine. But like so many things in life, this too comes to a close every year. Tomorrow, my wife and I pack up the car and head back to Lexington. I am always gripped by commingled feelings of gratitude and of sadness. Thankful to be able to spend another year watching the incessant cycles of nature from my office window. Not that my life in the city is so bad, but here I do get a sense of what flourishing (the subject I write about) is really all about.
The sun sets across the water just for us everyday, as the beams reflecting off the surface of the bay aim directly at our house. No day is the same as the last except that in some way they are reassuringly and paradoxically the same.
The sadness comes in anticipating a different life in the city. I write that it is possible to flourish in the midst of a noisy, evermore crowded, consuming society, but I must admit I am not always certain. I probably should not admit this feeling since I am trying to sell my new book and its ideas. But the sadness is tempered by the vision of next year that has already started to form even before this season has closed. Maybe this is what sustainability is.
Summer’s Over
The closest thing to sustainability I know is spending the summer at our ocean-side cottage in Maine. But like so many things in life, this too comes to a close every year. Tomorrow, my wife and I pack up the car and head back to Lexington. I am always gripped by commingled feelings of gratitude and of sadness. Thankful to be able to spend another year watching the incessant cycles of nature from my office window. Not that my life in the city is so bad, but here I do get a sense of what flourishing (the subject I write about) is really all about.
The sun sets across the water just for us everyday, as the beams reflecting off the surface of the bay aim directly at our house. No day is the same as the last except that in some way they are reassuringly and paradoxically the same.
The sadness comes in anticipating a different life in the city. I write that it is possible to flourish in the midst of a noisy, evermore crowded, consuming society, but I must admit I am not always certain. I probably should not admit this feeling since I am trying to sell my new book and its ideas. But the sadness is tempered by the vision of next year that has already started to form even before this season has closed. Maybe this is what sustainability is.