David Gessner Quote
Peacock said that we all have different-size territories and I would argue that one of the more important things that he and Abbey offer is that they make us uncomfortable with the size of the plots we have settled on. They push us, and inspire us to move beyond our comfortable cells. It depends on how you are yarded, wrote Thoreau. In an age of cell phones and computers and little contact with the elemental earth, most of us are yarded pretty tightly. It isn’t just pronghorns who live in a diminished territory. Most modern humans know exactly how those ungulates feel. With each generation we settle for less wildness, less freedom, less space. We begin to accept things we would have previously deemed unacceptable. That our e-mails will be read, that we will stare down at screens for hours, that it’s okay for drones to look down on us, that only crazy or dangerous individuals seek solace by going alone into the wilderness. We shrug, half-accepting our limited lives and damaged land. What can we do about it after all?
Peacock said that we all have different-size territories and I would argue that one of the more important things that he and Abbey offer is that they make us uncomfortable with the size of the plots we have settled on. They push us, and inspire us to move beyond our comfortable cells. It depends on how you are yarded, wrote Thoreau. In an age of cell phones and computers and little contact with the elemental earth, most of us are yarded pretty tightly. It isn’t just pronghorns who live in a diminished territory. Most modern humans know exactly how those ungulates feel. With each generation we settle for less wildness, less freedom, less space. We begin to accept things we would have previously deemed unacceptable. That our e-mails will be read, that we will stare down at screens for hours, that it’s okay for drones to look down on us, that only crazy or dangerous individuals seek solace by going alone into the wilderness. We shrug, half-accepting our limited lives and damaged land. What can we do about it after all?
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About David Gessner
Gessner was born in Boston, Massachusetts and grew up in Worcester, Massachusetts. He attended Harvard College where he worked at the Harvard Crimson drawing political cartoons, most notably a drawing of Ronald Reagan urinating on an unemployed man in the gutter, entitled "The Trickle Down Theory". He was awarded his degree in 1983. He is married to the novelist Nina de Gramont.
He is the author of eleven books that blend a love of nature, humor, memoir, and environmentalism, including Leave It As It Is: A Journey Through Theodore Roosevelt’s American Wilderness and the New York Times-bestselling All the Wild That Remains: Edward Abbey, Wallace Stegner and the American West. His prizes include a Pushcart Prize, the John Burroughs Award for Best Nature Essay, the Association for Study of Literature and the Environment’s award for best book of creative writing, and the Reed Award for Best Book on the Southern Environment. In 2017 he appeared on the National Geographic Explorer show "The Call of the Wild".