He was a friend of many people in my community. I met him a few times at public lectures. But his way of thinking has had a profound impact on my life.

I rejected his rejection of technology. I think he didn't appreciate the power of information technology to support exactly the dreams he held. If people can understand each other, if they can learn from the whole world how to care for their bit of earth, surely that's a good thing? Because he rejected technology he never learned of free, open source, culture. He didn't appreciate that there is another path to liberation of humans from the machines that dominate us—that we embed them in our communities, bend them to our will, and reject exploitation. There's still hope...

I however am permanently touched by his perspective on the land as our foundation.

I was so inspired that I helped start a farm on the Kentucky River. It's a journey, but we are on our way to implement a little reflection of his vision near where he dreamed us these beautiful dreams of past and future.

I read The World-Ending Fire (Wendell Berry), Hackers (Steven Levy), and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (Robert Pirsig) around the same time. I was struck by how similar Berry, Pirsig, and the early MIT hackers thought about Quality work. I gave a talk about it at an images & algorithms class I took in undergrad. It's reassuring to see Wendell Berry was an influential figure to many others in this space. RIP.

I was assigned to read some of his work in high school. Among (many) other things, he wrote a fair amount of criticism of technology and computers.

https://classes.matthewjbrown.net/teaching-files/philtech/be...

I was always struck that one of the letters in opposition to Berry's view was written by Nathaniel Borenstein, the co-inventor of MIME.

It was an odd experience for me because it was coming from such a different worldview that I generally felt I couldn't relate to what Berry was saying at all. (I could contrast that with some of Cliff Stoll's writings about his skepticism of computers, which are always coming from a culturally familiar place and are at least readily comprehensible for me.)

I also have a book Berry wrote as a rejoinder to E. O. Wilson's Consilience (called Life is a Miracle). I put the two next to each other on my bookshelf!

rip, sad day for my homestate, he's a giant here. and for me too, as he's one of those rabbit hole authors, revealing a Truth (capital T).

berry is in the same lineage as somebody like muir, and it really pains me to say, but i really wonder how relevant those individualist back to nature (and i dont say this necessarily dismissively, just dont know how to put it) imperatives really are. the world is technological, the necessities of life are commoditized, production and markets are global. how can there be any turning away from it, apart from it being a fetishistic practice, or just eccentric affectation. just think, portable nuclear reactors next to every data center soon. the march goes on.

i had similar feeling with kaczinsky, who had similar views on sanctity of nature and impact of modernity, in a way the diagnosis is incredibly correct, but the regimen ~ a return to a more anarchic, hyperlocal, individualistic relation with it ~ completely misplaced.

the terroir, does it even exist, has it ever even existed in america?

This is really sad to see. I didn't agree with him on much but his viewpoints and arguments definitely made me consider my assumptions about technology. It helped me reconsider whether it was always good for us as humans to make things easier and more convenient via technology. He helped me realize that sometimes to be human is to go through the process to see the fruit of your labor.

I've been carrying one of his poems around in my pocket recently. I'll leave it here for y'all. Maybe it'll find someone else as it found me when I needed it most:

> To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.

> To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,

> and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,

> and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.

Do yourself a favor and read Jayber Crow -- One of my all time favorite books and really the book that got me back into fiction after a long time away

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1582431604?lv=shuf&channelId=500&p...

> “If you could do it, I suppose, it would be a good idea to live your life in a straight line - starting, say, in the Dark Wood of Error, and proceeding by logical steps through Hell and Purgatory and into Heaven. Or you could take the King's Highway past the appropriately named dangers, toils, and snares, and finally cross the River of Death and enter the Celestial City. But that is not the way I have done it, so far. I am a pilgrim, but my pilgrimage has been wandering and unmarked. Often what has looked like a straight line to me has been a circling or a doubling back. I have been in the Dark Wood of Error any number of times. I have known something of Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, but not always in that order. The names of many snares and dangers have been made known to me, but I have seen them only in looking back. Often I have not known where I was going until I was already there. I have had my share of desires and goals, but my life has come to me or I have gone to it mainly by way of mistakes and surprises. Often I have received better than I deserved. Often my fairest hopes have rested on bad mistakes. I am an ignorant pilgrim, crossing a dark valley. And yet for a long time, looking back, I have been unable to shake off the feeling that I have been led - make of that what you will.”

I have only read a handful of Berry's books, mostly novels and short story collections, but several of them are among of my all-time favorites: thoughtful, moving, humane, and surprisingly funny. They're especially enjoyable when read aloud.

Berry was one of the few celebrities I hoped to one day meet in person.

I learned of Berry just this last year. His book 'The Unsettling of America' really had an impact on me. He was a leader who lived what he preached. RIP.

> We must address ourselves seriously, and not a little fearfully, to the problem of human scale. What is it? How do we stay within it? What sort of technology enhances our humanity? What sort reduces it? The reason is simply that we cannot live except within limits, and these limits are of many kinds: spatial, material, moral, spiritual. The world has room for many people who are content to live as humans, but only for a relative few intent upon living as giants or as gods

-- Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture.