We choose..."a life of action over a life of comnsumption...engendering a life style which will enable us to be spontaneous, independent, yet related to each other, rather than maintaining a life style which only allows us to make and unmake, produce and consume." (Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society, 52 as quoted in The Everyday Writing Center: A Community of Practice, Geller et al, 71)
Discuss.
I like it.
ReplyDeleteHeh.
ReplyDelete"make and unmake" sounds like creativity to me. Sounds like art. I have a line in a poem about the earth doing its 'good work/ of making and unmaking,' which has always seemed like life to me.
ReplyDeleteBut is making and unmaking all we are about? I want to understand this quotation more fully. Can we be without making and unmaking?
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like mindfulness. The only danger is mistaking mindfulness and spontaneity for never planning anything, which just leaves you ineffectual (and poor).
ReplyDeleteNo. I don't think we can exist without making and unmaking. It's what we do. The only way to exist without making and unmaking is to sit in one place. But even then wouldn't you have to go to the bathroom? Or then you die. I think it's all pretty basic. We make noise, we unmake silence. We make food, we unmake nature. But then nature unmakes us, so it seems fair.
ReplyDelete