The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman Commentary

I need to broaden my horizons from reading books about food, food policy, food food, diets, and food. Unfortunately for me, I have a click addiction, a penchant for ruthless procrastination, and burgeoning adult onset attention deficit disorder. I like the idea of reading books, however, typically can only make it through a few paragraphs until my mind is off to another topic. My office is littered with books as they are my friends, but I don't spend enough time to get to know them well, so they are kind of acquaintances.

When at Barnes & Noble on 5th at 18th attempting to purchase class books that the sad excuse for a Pratt college bookstore did not even bother to order, I saw The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman and vaguely remembered TiVoing and then being too preemptively depressed to watch the show of the same name on television. But here in my bookstore glow with my glossy new handy dandy student I.D. I don't have to pay tax on the damn thing, so why not! Consumerism once again rears it's ugly head. I will offset it by keeping my 5 year-old cellphone for another two or three weeks longer. But I digress....

A very good quote:
"Any conjecture gets muddled by our obstinate reluctance to accept that the worst might actually occur. We may be undermined by our survival instincts, honed over eons to help us deny, defy, or ignore catastrophic portents lest they paralyze us with fright." (4)

I kind of feel like this first week of classes have been like this, an attempt to drum into us just how horrid the world is, how bad we as a people have let it become, and frankly, I am referring to it as "Doomsday Studies" indefinitely. I understand that all these problems exist, so why make it even more depressing by outlining them furiously in each class? I genuinely hope that week contains far more positivity or at least maps out what we should be doing to change this rather than misanthropically dwelling on the problem. And, besides that, this shit ain't cheap.

But hopefully I will make it past page 4 to find more of those great quotes and concepts.At least I'll give it a good college try, you know, because I didn't have to pay taxes for it, and for a libertarian like me, that's as good as it gets.