406: J. B. MacKinnon, part 1: The Once and Future World

J. B. MacKinnon's book The Once and Future World influenced my view of nature as much as anyone's. I thought I knew what nature was, what we were trying to conserve or preserve, but I wasn't even close. I found his writing gripping and colorful. I'll link to a couple recordings I made that quoted the book at length.

We've been talking about our work, his new book he's nearly finished, my book I've just started, and how he was thinking of acting on his

research personally.

He was sharing so personally about the challenge he was considering for himself, impromptu, I asked if he would consider recording a podcast episode. We just jumped into it. Here's both of us unrehearsed, unprepared.

I loved getting to learn the backgrounds of wildlife, Hawaii, all the things I read from Once and Future World, and how and why he found

out about them. I hope you're all also on your path to discover variety in food, clothing, community, and so on that our culture obscures and makes us feel backward about.

Partly I'm impressed with myself at remembering those parts of his book unaided, but really that recall illustrates the power of the book and sadly what we've done to our world. But hopefully what we can restore. I'm always impressed with how fast nature rewilds when we take our foot off the gas. And how much we enjoy the surprising discovery of simple, sustainable living.

• J. B.'s home page
• My first video essay on Once and Future World
• My second video essay on Once and Future World

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.