Last week Chris found me in the bedroom, scrolling through IG & FB, and crying quite a bit. He asked me what was making me feel so emotional, and through tears and teary hiccups I told him I was sad and angry we lived in the world we did. I told him I wanted to live instead in a world where one could simply have a baby, fall more deeply in love with that baby, and post a picture of that baby on social networks for friends to see and adore and exclaim how precious that baby is. Instead, we live in a world where everything you do, say, and post is monitored and analyzed to — at the very best — influence your behavior and decisions. I told Chris it didn’t feel fair to me that I had to worry about creating a permanent digital fingerprint of my baby (without his consent) for advertisers (or worse), when all I wanted to do was marvel at him and let loved ones do the same online.
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Chris did not say a whole lot. Instead, he drew me a bath and found several squares of dark chocolate we keep in the house for times like these. And when I was in the bath, he sat down next to me and read me some of Wendell Berry’s poems. Wendell Berry, who is a brilliant, contrarian old farmer in Kentucky, and one of my personal heroes, if I may use that too often overused word. The first poem he read to me was “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front”, and it was once more a balm, as it has always been every time I have read it. .
“Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand.
Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion – put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.”
