This One Wild And Precious Life - Sarah Wilson
This One Wild and Precious Life by Sarah Wilson will take you on a journey that is challenging, confronting, and beautiful.
This is the second book of its kind from Wilson, following her 2017 book about anxiety titled First, We Make The Beast Beautiful (Wilson has previously also written a number of cookbooks in the ‘I Quit Sugar’ range).
Like Beast, Wild and Precious explores the feeling of disconnectedness that many are experiencing right now. However, Wild and Precious situates this common emotional state – Wilson calls it “moral aloneness” - within a much larger, complex framework of climate emergency, late-stage capitalism, ecological crises and of course, a worldwide pandemic. Wilson theorises that the feeling of inner disconnectedness and the many external emergencies we face as humans today are closely linked (which makes sense), and states that to feel reconnected, it is time to get politically engaged, use our anger for good, get out into nature and fight for this wild and precious life.
The early parts of the book truthfully paint a pretty bleak picture. We get terrifying snapshots of the climate emergency (“horrifying truth,” she writes, “we are looking at a 3-5°C global mean increase if we continue business as usual”). Wilson is undoubtedly well-researched, having read widely and interviewed a number of climate scientists and experts for this work. She clearly states how this increase in global temperature will mean melting ice sheets, deadly droughts and wildfires, water and food scarcity, decline in insect population, increase in air pollution…it’s scary. She has done her job well here; it needs to be scary. We must pay attention to the emergency that is present all around us. We can’t fix what we refuse to know.
Wilson also is firm in her opinion that capitalism is simply not working anymore; the case studies, data and examples she uses here are compelling. Essentially, here Wilson strongly poses her opinion that capitalism as it exists today is having a dehumanising effect on us, while also destroying the planet.
Yet another strong message that emerges in Wild and Precious is that we need to get comfortable being uncomfortable in order to create true change, a message we fully endorse here at our book club. An example of this that Wilson discusses is spiritual bypassing, saying too many of us today are willing to practice ‘spirituality lite’ (as she calls it) – we’re happy to take the easy, glittery parts of spirituality (the crystals, the yoga, the ‘manifesting’) but not as willing to make sacrifices, get political, and do work that actually creates more equity and equality in our world. “If you prefer to chill and be Zen, ask if you are shunning the anger, outrage and protest that’s entirely necessary right now. Are you gaslighting others who are being honest with their rage?”
Those of you who are familiar with Sarah Wilson will know that she is an avid hiker; this love of hiking and clear reverence for the outdoors is inextricably woven into this work. We fight for what we love, she argues; so, we must reignite our love for the planet and innate connectedness to nature by getting out into the outdoors and wilderness.
Will everyone agree with Wilson’s ideas and approach? No, probably not. Is there something for everyone to gain while reading this book? Absolutely. This is a beautifully written, insightful work that re-ignited hope and the desire to take action within me; it may well do the same for you, too.
