Saturday, June 08, 2024

‘This One Wild And Precious Life’ by Sarah Wilson (47 of 2024)

 


This book is a call to action, a call to reconnecting to nature, to stopping mindless consumerism, to stepping outside the zeitgeist. She does it through personal anecdotes and stories from many of her hikes through forests, deserts. It references authors, philosophers, environmentalists, artists and everyday people she met along the way. There is enough data to scare the pants off of you, but there's no info-dumping, not that it's anything wrong with that. Sarah Wilson opens us herself to judging by opening up about some very personal, intimate aspects and events of her life. Luckily, as she said "she doesn't have any more fucks to give about what others think" and she shouldn't. Isn't that one of the perks of getting a bit older and being comfortable with not being liked by everyone or wanting to be liked by everyone?

Everything that is troubling a sane person in these times - climate change, political crises, racial injustice, being disconnected and a sense of moral and spiritual loneliness. Yet it also gives us hope that this very disconnect and sense of alienation that people of similar angst feel, will bring them together and pave the way forward to a better world.

Drawing on science, literature, philosophy, the wisdom of some of the world's leading experts, and her personal journey, Wilson weaves a one-of-a-kind narrative that lights the way back to the life we love. En route, she leads us through a series of 'wildly awake' and joyful practices for reconnecting again that include:

- Go to your edge. Do what scares you and embrace discomfort daily. Use it to grow into your Big Life.

- #buylesslivemore. Break the cycle of mindless consumption and get light with your life.

- Become a soul nerd. Embrace poetry, deep reading, art, and classical music to light up your intellect.

- Get 'full-fat spiritual'. How to have an active practice - beyond the 'lite' 'rainbows and unicorns' - and use it to change the world.

- Hike. Just hike. Walking in nature reconnects us with ourselves, and with our true purpose.

- Practise wild activism. If you can get 3.5 per cent of a population to participate in sustained, non-violent protest, change happens. We create our better world.

The time has come to boldly, wildly, imagine better. We are being called upon, individually and as a society, to forge a new path and to find a new way of living. Will you join the journey?

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