Annie Dillard - Seeing part 1

Annie Dillard Seeing
Page: 693

“…[C]ultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity, so that finding a penny will literally make your day, then, since the world is in fact planted in pennies, you have with your poverty bought a lifetime of days. ”

This quote is so interesting because if you read it once, you want to read it over again. You do not do this because it is unclear, but instead you read it because it is clear descriptive and abstract. I personally like the last phrase the best with the irony if buying with poverty. And, especially how she simply says days instead of specifying something more precise it is merely a lifetime of days.

Annie Dillard Seeing
Page: 694

“But I don’t see what the specialist sees, and so I cut myself off, not only from the total picture, but from the various forms of happiness.”

This idea of people cutting themselves off from what they do not specialize n is very true. It can be seen in many everyday aspects of people’s lives. They chose to ignore what is not their “thing” out of fear of being wrong or ignorance. In doing so they miss out on a great many remarkable aspects of life.