Richard Quinney

Preservation

Preservation

by Richard Quinney

 

We keep watch from the wooded ridge at the Old Place. And ask the essential question: What is life? And its corollary: What is it like to be alive? Especially to be alive from the human perspective, with the conscious awareness that life is being lived. What constitutes life, distinguished from non-life, is an ongoing question of scientists—biologists, chemists, physicists, astrophysicists, and neurologists. I am interested in this inquiry, for certain, but it is to the actual living of life that I able to give my attention. And my attention is driven by the desire to live a good and meaningful life. My discipline is to make notes from daily observations and to record images in the form of photographs. This is the kind of sociology—the phenomenology of everyday life—that I now practice. It is a spiritual and philosophical practice, as well.