STICKERS.
"Land abuse cannot brighten the human prospect." - Wendell BerryWhat we've chosen to do with our lives is not always easy to explain to people, or easy for them to understand, and our endeavors often get relegated to the "hippie" section of people's minds. However, that is not how we think of ourselves, or what we're doing. We work way too hard to be overlooked as absurd. We think of ourselves as serious entrepreneurs who not only consider community and environment, but employ it. We try and survive in cahoots with nature, not in spite of it. Lucky for those of us who have dedicated our lives to this symbiosis, we have people such as agrarian essayist and Kentucky author Wendell Berry to give the movement grace and eloquence; to distinguish our lifestyle as something other than just rebellion; and to inspire us and others to never forget the land we stand on and live off of.Recently Wendell Berry was chosen to speak for the National Endowment for the Humanities' Jefferson Lecture. "[The] most prestigious honor the federal government bestows for distinguished intellectual achievement in the humanities," according to the NEH. We wanted to share with everyone the speech he gave, a speech which was promptly followed by a member of the board joshingly (but unfortunately, truthfully) noting that Wendell's views do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. government.We thought it would be cool to post the speech in full here but it's quite long so please follow this link. I know we talk A LOT about Wendell Berry, but it's decidedly worth a read, as a way to both get to know Mr. Berry, and perhaps a way to understand better the world in which, or more appropriately on which, we live.
