My friend Dan posted a great quote on his blog recently, which I'd like to share. It's attributed to author and environmentalist Edward Abbey, and it goes like this:
One final paragraph of advice: do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am —
a reluctant enthusiast... a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic.
Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and
adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more
important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here. So get out
there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out
yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run
the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly
for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely,
mysterious, and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in
your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active
and alive, and I promise you this much; I promise you this one sweet
victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men and women with
their hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotized by desk
calculators. I promise you this; You will outlive the bastards.
As we head into the weekend, get outside and enjoy!
[Source: excerpted from a speech to environmentalists in Missoula, Montana in 1978 and in Colorado, which was published in High Country News in the 1970s or early 1980s under the title "Joy, Shipmates, Joy."]
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