A few years ago, a coworker of mine who was one of the best children’s booksellers I had ever encountered, told me she felt “without purpose” in her life. It occurred to me then that many of my female friends had said something similar while in their 30s. I opined that it had to do with the way that modern women had only recently stopped having to do any of the work that fed, clothed or housed them and so had just begun to feel the loss of a particular type of usefulness. It seemed that men had lost track of that a few generations before, but women had only fully moved away from it in the 1970s.
I said then that when young people felt it, something would then happen. Now. I don’t see myself as a seer, but it’s clear that humans want to be useful and work on things they need for their own survival. So, once again, there is a lesson for all of us in the alternative food system-add dignity and fun to the place to those seeking real connections to their own survival.
Tools for Living – The Chronicle Review – The Chronicle of Higher Education.
