On Trails by Robert Moor was a different kind of nonfiction than I've read before. Trails, like the ones we walk, were a means to really explore how we communicate and prescribe value to experiences and tangible messages.
The author explores the parameters of "trails" for use by wild animals communicating with one another about food or nesting to use by Native Americans for trade or hunting routes to use by typical urbane humans using trails solely as recreation.
This quote sums up how I think most people feel after a bit of time in nature: "There is, if we were to look closely enough, a wisdom of trees and a wisdom of seagrass, a wisdom of mountains and a wisdom of rivers, a wisdom of planets, and a wisdom of stars," (p.319).
This review is short because it has been about a month since I finished the book. New Year's Resolutions this year are to read 22 books and to write my reviews in a more timely manner.
Thanks, Jeremy & Rachel for recommending this book.
Miscellaneous quotes:
In a conversation with an evolutionary biologist who had read an article questioning the definition of human beings, due to the fact that our bodies depend on "an unseen universe of microorganisms to survive," Moor quotes the companion: "Which sort of brings you to a point of 'What is you? What am I?"
"Over the course of thousands of years, Native Americans devised a beautifully functional network of paths, not knowing that those same trails would later be used by a foreign empire in its slow invasion," (p.177)
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