Wendell Berry on how to find peace

Berry explains that he actually likes how the typewriter slows him down. He likes having to mark it up with a pencil and show it to his wife so she can also make corrections and hand the paper back to him. He gets to spend time with his wife working on the essay and he likes collaborating with her. The word processor on a computer would, of course, make everything easier and free up his wife from manually making corrections, but Berry is careful to point out that it isn’t necessarily a good thing for the two of them to be so freed up. The slowness of the process gives them time to think together and be creative.

Berry wasn’t opposed to all technology. After all, a typewriter is every bit as much a machine as a computer is. A pencil used for handwriting is technology, too. Come to think of it, the written alphabet itself is a kind of technology that didn’t exist in the age of Homer. Berry wasn’t merely an anti-progress zealot and he wasn’t advocating going all the way back to the ancient Greek habit of painstakingly memorizing poetry, but he was famously hesitant to adopt technology until he understood the implications of doing so.

Every advance is a trade-off, and every time we add a new tool to our capabilities we leave some other skill behind. For instance, I type on a computer so much that my hand-writing is neglected and has consequently become atrocious. Berry had a few rules he followed before adopting new technology that can be summarized as follows: He wanted to know if the technology is actually cheaper and more elegant than what it’s replacing, if it creates a dependency, if the innovation actually results in higher quality, and if using the technology becomes isolating.

Berry was good at slowing down to examine what actually makes for a happy life. Does the breakneck advancement of new technologies actually give us peace? Or rather, is there something about, say, a smartphone loaded with social media apps that is addicting and fundamentally dissatisfying? Maybe we would do better to be more thoughtful about how we choose to spend our time, what new technologies we adopt, and how fast we demand change.

Berry learned this lesson the hard way on his Kentucky farm when he used a bulldozer to scoop a new pond out of a hillside on his property. The pond filled with water and was nice for a time, but eventually the entire hill collapsed because he’d inadvertently destabilized it. He had moved too fast and thoughtlessly. He had used technology to work against nature and, before he knew it, he had caused damage beyond his ability to fix. From that day on, he learned to use his tools and ideas in harmony with the land instead of trying to control the land with a fast fix.

The difficulty, at least for me, is that slowing down feels so inefficient. I’d prefer to get-rich-quick, take the shortcut, do something, anything, because if I can just keep moving I won’t have to pause and be still with the things about myself I don’t like, my dissatisfaction, and the stubborn way the world refuses to bend to my will. I prefer to dream of the brand new thing arriving to save me. But of course the dream is false. The new thing doesn’t save us. The new technology cannot bring peace to our hearts. Technology, badly used, becomes alienating.

Berry understood that we are each given a life. We are given a community and we are shaped by that community. We are born into a land and a culture. This is our inheritance. We will never gain peace by fighting against our place and our people. For better or worse, we have each been given a unique life. It’s vital that we slow down and learn to appreciate it, even if it isn’t perfect. In such a way, we learn to patiently appreciate our own selves even if we aren’t perfect.

There’s no fast fix or shortcut to inner peace. Quite the opposite, peace is in the inefficiencies. Peace is the freedom from always having to be productive, as if we ourselves are nothing more than organic machines or pieces of technology designed only to generate profit, and it is the freedom to seek higher things that are unquantifiable.

This morning I sat on my porch before the sun came up. I had my first cup of coffee and listened to the crickets. The waning September moon illuminated the Rose of Sharon bush by our back steps. The branches moved slowly in the summer air as the bush prepared to open its new flowers to the new day. For a few minutes, I did nothing. I thought nothing. It was, technically, a complete waste of time. It was so peaceful.

The relentless pace of change and progress by which we are surrounded is a blessing and a curse. We have more material abundance than at any time in history, and for that I am grateful. I am thankful for this computer I’m using right now to type this essay, but I also very much understand Berry’s reluctance to use a computer of his own. He was happy with the slowness of his life surrounded by his farm, family, and community. It was his little foretaste of Heaven and it gave him great peace.

Here’s a poem of his that is always on my mind. Perhaps you’ve read it before:

Wendell Berry is a writer who has influenced me very much. In some way I feel like I knew the man although we never met. I pray that the small but significant glimpses of peace he achieved in this life are now his permanent inheritance in eternity.