You are God. You want to make a forest, something to hold the soil, lock up energy, and give off oxygen. Wouldn’t it be simpler just to rough in a slab of chemicals, a green acre of goo? You are a man, a retired railroad worker who makes replicas as a hobby. You decide to make a replica of one tree, the longleaf pine your great-grandfather planted- just a replica- it doesn’t have to work. How are you going to do it? How long do you think you might live, how good is your glue? For one thing, you are going to have to dig a hole and stick your replica trunk halfway to China if you want the thing to stand up. Because you will have to work fairly big; if your replica is too small, you’ll be unable to handle the slender, three-sided needles, affix them in clusters of three in fascicles, and attach those laden fascicles to flexible twigs. The twigs themselves must be covered by “many silvery-white, fringed, long-spreading scales.” Are your pine cones’ scales “thin, flat, rounded at the apex?” When you loose the lashed copper wire trussing the limbs to the trunk, the whole tree collapses like an umbrella. You are a sculptor. You climb a great ladder; you pour grease all over a growing longleaf pine. Next, you build a hollow cylinder around the entire pine…and pour wet plaster over and inside the pine. Now open the walls, split the plaster, saw down the tree, remove it, discard, and your intricate sculpture is ready: this is the shape of part of the air. You are a chloroplast moving in water heaved one hundred feet above ground. Hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen in a ring around magnesium…you are evolution; you have only begun to make trees. You are god- are you tired? Finished?.Annie Dillard
About This Quote
In this quote, George Orwell is making a point about the way things are produced in modern times. The problem is that we have all been taught to believe that the way things are produced is the way they should be done. In reality, there are many ways to make something and often there are certain methods that produce superior results than others. The reason we can’t use these methods today is because we have all been trained to think and behave the same and we don’t want to change. We have become so used to doing things in a certain way that we feel uncomfortable with anything that doesn’t follow our patterns of thought and behavior.
Source: Pilgrim At Tinker Creek
Some Similar Quotes
- Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.
- Before you, Bella, my life was like a moonless night. Very dark, but there were stars, points of light and reason..And then you shot across my sky like a meteor. Suddenly everything was on fire; there was brilliancy, there was beauty. When you were gone,...
- Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy–the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only...
- Each day brings new opportunities, allowing you to constantly live with love–be there for others–bring a little light into someone's day. Be grateful and live each day to the fullest.
- It's the kind of kiss that inspires stars to climb into the sky and light up the world.
More Quotes By Annie Dillard
- How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.
- Spend the afternoon, you can't take it with you.
- You do not have to sit outside in the dark. If, however, you want to look at the stars, you will find that darkness is necessary. But the stars neither require nor demand it.
- Could two live that way? Could two live under the wild rose, and explore by the pond, so that the smooth mind of each is as everywhere present to the other, and as received and as unchallenged, as falling snow?
- Eskimo: "If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?" Priest: "No, not if you did not know." Eskimo: "Then why did you tell me?