As always, this comes from Wendell Berry, insightful, honest and truthful writer who has inspired many Americans to work for a fairer society and thoughtful agricultural policies: "Strive to increase earnings (in whatever form) within the community and decrease expenditures outside the community".
Nowhere is it more evident how far society has moved away from a rich, thriving and interdependent community of people, than in an international airport. I am writing this at Boston's Logan Airport while waiting for my flight to England, which has been delayed 5 hours! If I could, I would stop flying altogether because of the carbon footprint, the need to eat, at least some, awful food produced who-knows how and who knows where, and being surrounded by harried, cross people and shops selling trashy stuff made not in my community or even, mostly, in my country. But, in my case, having most of my family living in other countries, it would be a painful decision not to travel sometimes. Should I not travel to visit my 94 year-old mother, at least a couple of times a year? We don't think about these things when we are in our younger years, getting ourselves established in careers and families of our own. Then, it is too late and we are stuck. I hope that younger people now might think about this when striking out on their lives. There is value in staying closer to home, working to build and improve the communities we already live in and helping to make them vibrant, economically resilient places to live where people can work to make a living and not a killing, while fostering relationships and protecting the natural systems we depend on.
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