This One Wild and Precious Life, by Sarah Wilson

Overarching Thoughts:

I grabbed this¹ book off the shelf in the library and started reading the first chapter. What I read was intriguing and resonated with me, so I checked it out and slowly spent the next 20ish days or so chipping away at the book - stopping to think and reflect as I went. From an earlier blog post I made, I gestured that I wanted to read more methodically, take notes, and reflect on my readings more. As I started this book, I tried to take notes and write down quotes - but it quickly proved cumbersome and ruined my reading flow, so I quickly discarded the idea and just read.

However, the book did try to pack a whole lot of various topics into it, and at times it felt a bit like a roller coaster ride. The author took to a conversational writing style, and although this made it an easier read in the sense of it not having much technical jargon…it was evident that she wrote with a passion, and for my own personal tastes could feel a bit eccentric, or in the author’s often self-proclaimed words: “esoteric”.

There were many parts of this book that I greatly resonated with, even some of the aspects that would likely be considered a bit more “extreme”. With that said, there were definitely some parts of the book that I had to raise some eyebrows at…but all in all, I genuinely appreciated the ‘spirit’ behind the writing. The further along the book I got, I actually started to appreciate the ‘story behind the stories’. Maybe it is just my sociology studies coming to surface, but thinking about the some of the ‘why’ the author thinks the way she does. In short, the sociological perspective and influences that shaped her thinking, and why my own thinking on some of the subjects can align so closely, yet contrast so much in others. I won’t go to far down this thinking, but some of these thoughts were interesting to toss around as I slowly made my way through this book.

Just a couple chapters in to this book, I actually thought about putting it down and moving on to something else, but in some strange way thinking about this blog and the post I would write kept me motivated to push through and finish it. While it was far from one of my favorite books, I’m super happy I finished it and the ponderings it lead to along the way. Sarah Wilson touches on so many topics throughout this book (and frankly has a seemingly passionate hatred for single use cups - as she repeatedly harps on them an uncountable time throughout the book), but I think her biggest push throughout the book seemed to be geared towards climate change as well as our human disconnectedness. Honestly, I initial interest in the book stemmed from her talk about our social disconnect, but she leaned more heavily into climate change issues as the book went on, it seemed. In a way, this book definetely reinvigorated my thoughts towards the climate change crisis, because admittedly with everything going on in the world and life, the climate crisis has sort of been “out of sight and out of mind” to a certain extent.

An Overview

As I mentioned before, I didn’t take any notes while reading - so I can’t really give a great summary of points that the book offered. And even if I did take notes, I am sure it would have been a complicated list to parse through, because the author wrote the book in a conversational style that jumps around from topic to topic.

Just off the top of my head, and with a quick flip through the table of contents, I would say the major points that stuck out to me are the following:

1. Social disconnection

2. Hiking to reconnect and clear the mind

3. Anti-fragile, “Big-Human”, and ‘going to your edge’

4. Capitalism, Anti-consumerism, and Minimalism

5. Making change

I thought about writing a bit of my thoughts on each section (and actually started to, then erased it), but realized I am not here to write a reflective essay and so I’m just going to touch on a few of my thoughts then call it a day.

Our Social Disconnection

Much of the book, especially in the first sections, talk about our social disconnection. I think she called it “connection-lite” - as in superficial connections that don’t require us to dig into the messy part of our connections and relationships. In an age of technology, where we have the ability to communicate literally at the tips of our fingers, we don’t engage in the types of communications that allow us really get to know one another. I am guilty of this, as I am sure many of others are as well.

Meaningful and deep connections take effort, and after the initial phases of connection it eventually requires you to confront the messy parts of being human. I know for me, its often easier to just avoid the activity all together. But I think the point being made in the book likely is pointing more towards the fact that we have so many interactions with one another, yet rarely take the time to get to know one another. We live in a world where society pushes individualism, materialism, etc - which all contribute to a society where it’s individuals are increasingly selfish and thinking inward rather than outward.

Consumerism

This is one of those things where I was already on board with the authors approach to things, so her passionate, and possibly ’extreme’ (and potentially abrasive) anti-consumption rhetoric was able to resonate - but I could definately see how her approach to non consumtion was a bit ‘over the top’ and unatainable for the majority of people.

But with that said, the spirit of her preaching of anti-consumption was rightly placed (in my perspective). Most societies around the world consume, consume, and CONSUME some more. I think that the amount we consume has been so normalized that when we actually fail to comprehend how much it is we actually do consume. Wilson’s examples and recommendations for living minimally are I think a bit extreme by most peoples standards, but I think maybe its time for us (as society) to course correct and embrace a bit of that ’extremism’.

There is not much more to say, other than just starting to pull quotes and ideas from the book, other than to just note that while I didn’t agree with everything in the book - it definitely allowed me to think more deeply about some of the things I do daily, but take for granted the impact it has. Just one example is the amount of single use items we utilize (Wilson seems to have an obsession against single use coffee cups, and relentlessly rails against them throughout the book).

I already had a mindset towards minimalism, and am always trying to cut down on my things. But often my ‘minimalist’ mindset was more about me; my mental state, my ease of simplicity, my ability to move and travel without having things weighing me down, etc. But the book made me reflect a bit more on this minimalism thing: the impact of consuming on the environment and society. I think one little note I took away from it all was to try and minimize my use of plastics. I’ve mostly already known the impacts of plastics, but it had taken a bit of a back seat as to the actual importance of the impact.

Where I am currently at (after having just moved), there is trash everywhere, mostly because the crows are always digging through the trash cans and dumpsters, littering it everywhere. I joined a group of volunteers and we spent a couple hours walking around picking up trash, and will probably continue to do so each month. When you see the amount of plastics everywhere, torn to little pieces and scattered everywhere, and think about the fact that it won’t decompose but just sit there - it really felt like a big reminder of how much we are affecting our ecosystem. I think many of us grew up hearing about environmentalism, the importance of this or that - but its sort of just been heard for so long that we don’t really sit and absorb it anymore, having heard it so much. At least I don’t. If someone would mention the importance of this, that or the other, in regards to climate change or environmentalism…I would probably nod and agree. But sitting and pondering these things as I read the book, as well as moving to somewhere that had so much trash thrown about (after coming from japan where everything is neat, tidy, and promptly cleaned…for the most part), it made me kind of step back and bring these issues a bit closer to the forefront of my mind.

In Sum

For me, the book was pretty great - not because I thought the book was actually that great (no shade towards the author, I think she did a great job with it), but because the book bounced around to so many different ideas, and in such different ways that it really provided a great deal of things to think about and reflect on.

Just to give an idea of what I mean, the book is less than 350 pages, but took me around 20ish days to finish - while the next book I started reading² has only taken me around 2 days to get past 300 pages. It’s not that the writing of this book was difficult, but just that it wasn’t something that I could get engrossed in, and I also would often only read in short chunks to think about what I was reading - and see if I actually agreed with what it was she was writing.

I checked out her works, and she has written another book³ that seems to (sort of) piggy back off of this one, and is of course more recent. I am tempted to read her next book, and see what (if anything) has changed in her perspectives. I don’t think I’ll read it right away, as I am already engrossed in this ‘Silo’ Series², but I’ll probably add it to my reading list.