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In “Living Like Weasels,” author Annie Dillard’s idea is that humans can benefit from living wild as a weasel. I strongly agree because to live wild like a weasel is to live mindless, free and focused. With these living abilities we as humans will be able get closer to our aspirations in life and do whatever means necessary to get there. Achieving our goals would be easiest if we were to live mindlessly. Living without a mind one wouldn’t have to worry about where time will take them or the immediate approach to death: “The way is like the weasel’s: open to time and death painlessly, noticing everything, remembering nothing, choosing the given with a fierce and pointed will” (65).
My interpretation of this quote is to live purely in the moment and avoid dwelling on history or the possibilities of tomorrow.
There are many moments in my life where a flood of past memories pour into my mind and affects the vision of my future.
Living in mindlessness will enable me to live “under the wild rose” where I take with me my life’s precious moments, taking in experiences as I go along without dwelling over what is yesterday’s worries. The weasel’s skill of focus will benefit the human race in choosing a life style choice: “The thing is to stalk your calling in a certain skilled and supple way, to locate the most tender and live spot and plug into that pulse” (66).
This portrays the weasel’s skill of focus; the focus of chasing your passion in a way that keeps you alive.
By thinking single-mindedly as the weasel does, we as people will strive for what most fulfills our need for greatness and reaching our prominent goal. I would use the ability of focus to my advantage when dealing with racing thoughts of mine, to able to engage myself to the most important prize of all and not letting anything tear me away from my center point. I would like to be down, where down is out which means I’d be able to get out of my mind for a second.
Out of my racing thoughts and into one focus, where my passion is my vision. The notion of freedom in the weasel’s sense is living in necessity to oblige to his one true calling of survival. As humans our freedom would be to live without choice but our necessity; As Dillard states, “I think it would be well…to grasp your one necessity and not let it go, to dangle from it limp wherever it takes you” (66). This quote supports the greatest skill of all, living in freedom.
This quote represents the weasel’s form of freedom to live by necessity rather than choice. Our necessity would be to grasp onto our one true passion in between the time of living and the approach of death. Having the quality of freedom we are able to jump after our one goal acting with instinct rather than motive. I would find the weasel’s sense of freedom inspiring in the matter of me wanting to do what is required to reach the pinnacle of success, latching on to my biggest dream of changing the world and never letting that vision slip out of focus.
I would like to live in a civilization where the human’s only option is to reach beyond what is to be expected, living a life that is easiest for them. If we were all to live like the weasel does, where their mind set is to be wild it will benefit us in the long run. In “Living Like Weasels,” Annie Dillard interprets that being wild is to be free: to go after your calling, focused on the need to succeed. She also suggests that mindlessness, is not allowing anything to get in the way of your one true goal, where chasing after your dream is your only option, the only means to your own survival.
Freedom Of Life in Living Like Weasels. (2016, May 17). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/freedom-of-life-in-living-like-weasels-essay
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