What Kind of Ancestor Do You Want to Be?

Description

Editors: Hausdoerffer, John; Hecht, Brooke Parry; Nelson, Melissa K.; and Cummings, Katherine Kassouf

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Pub Date: 2021

Binding: Paperback

Condition: Good.  Binding tight.  No marks, tears, bends or folds.  Very light edge and corner wear.  Appears unused.

Notes: Any volume that includes Wendell Berry gets my attention.  He deserves more praise (and a Nobel Prize wouldn’t hurt, either).  “More than asking us how we want to be remembered, the question of What Kind of Ancestor Do You Want to Be? suggests that we are, always and already, ancestors–even if we never are remembered or never have children.  The question deepens our awareness of the roots and reach of all of our actions and non-actions.  In every moment, whether we like it or not and whether we know it or not, we are advancing values and influencing systems that will continue long past our lifetimes.  These values and systems shape communities and lives that we will never see.  The ways we live create and reinforce the foundations of life for future generations.  We are responsible for how we write our values, what storylines we further and set forth–the world we choose to cultivate for the lives that follow ours.”  (From the Introduction).  All that may sound a tad hippy-dippy, but I am immediately reminded of Marcus Aurelius’s dictum, “Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be.  Be one.” (Meditations, Book 10, Number 16)