When I was younger this sort of thing would have sent me into a tail-spin; it would have been enough for me to ignore the scale and go out on a BINGE of note. Talk about denial. This negation of reality is the reason for my weight gain during my forties. Of course, lots of business lunches and an office potato lifestyle did not help matters either. I virtually had no exercise but I was still eating as if I did. I spent my life at a computer, sitting in meetings or sitting in my car driving to and from meetings. I was miserable. So I ate and sat around even more when I got home. I could have stepped outside and started walking but I did not. A victim of my own distress. I wonder if other people ever feel like that?
All this puts me in mind of the reasons for choices. Reasons can be no more than justifications or excuses for doing or not doing something. Reasons can also be incentives, goals, challenges all of which are considered 'good'. The former, justifications/excuses etc. are considered 'bad'. Sometimes I think that the consequences of our choices are much more important than the reasons for them. The difficulty is in being able to predict the consequences of choices, not just as individuals but for all life for all time because the consequences of our actions will still be here long after we are all gone. That is why I love Wendell Berry and I quote:
'If we have the wisdom to survive
To stand like slow growing trees
On a ruined place, renewing, enriching it
Then long after we are dead
The lives our lives prepare
Will live here.'
Rachel Carson says a similar thing, we have: 'The obligation to endure'.
'The wisdom to survive' Wendell Berry and 'The obligation to endure' Rachel Carson. I find this so powerful, so moving.
Thank you Wendell Berry and Rachel Carson.
Diana Elsmere
