Juan Tamariz and Wendell Berry recently passed away. Between them, they had more than 170 years of generous contribution.
Juan was a card magician. His students are generally considered the best working in the world today.
Wendell was a farmer and a writer. His essays on non-industrial farming and community-building will resonate for generations.
What each had in common was the patience and commitment to choose depth. To seek out the inconvenient path because it mattered.
Neither traded for easily measured metrics or convenience. Instead, they chose a path and followed it, leaving things better than they found them.
Looking back a century, it’s easy to appreciate this. And yet, each and every day, it requires a recommitment. “Under the circumstances,” it’s tempting to justify the small compromises that corrode our work. The hard part is to realize that we’re not under the circumstances; we are them. We can start today.