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.
— 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.”, as quoted in Saving Nature’s Legacy : Protecting and Restoring Biodiversity (1994) by Reed F. Noss, Allen Y. Cooperrider, and Rodger Schlickeisen, p. 338.
4 comments:
Very nice. (But It makes me feel sorry for the pure deskies... they aren't enemies, they are our enemy's prisoners!).
Awesome!
I'm on the fence with this one. On one hand, being the family man, I like that whole relax thing, and being the reluctant enthusiast allows more time for cuddling, etc. On the other hand oour old friend Neil Young said it best in Hey Hey My My that it's better to burn out than to fade away(or rust).
But I guess for those desk bound, accountant/bankers, this is supposed to excite them into getting their noses out of the books and into the woods.
Strange thing to sya to a bunch of enviromentalists, non? Although, I guess in 1978 things were a little different.
interseting!
i wonder about his tone in presenting this as a speech-- likely he had a twinkle in his eye.
so in that regard, while i share people's misgivings, i wonder if he knew full well that deskies were not the "enemy".
irony and sarcasm don't necessary translate well from a speech to a piece of writing.
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