Cracks In the Pavement:
An Introduction
THE INITIAL SEEDS that have grown into this collection of writings were sown a few years ago during a stroll through Rancho San Antonio Park in Cupertino with my good friend and mischief-maker, Brian Penrose. I had recently, as was becoming my custom, sent him a journal entry I had written about implications of telecommunication technology on modern culture or some similarly dense topic.
You know, he said as we wound our way up oak-lined switchbacks, more people need to read this stuff.
I was not at all sure I agreed with him, and I was quite certain that the prospect of sharing my writing more broadly brought more than just a glitch of anxiety. I had thoroughly enjoyed writing for the previous six years—precisely the amount of time that had passed since my last college term paper. In the interim, writing had become a kind of meditative practice, an opportunity to explore and experiment with thoughts, ideas, and feelings with reassurance that my words would not be subjected to any critical evaluation other than my own. Brian was coaxing me out of the comfortable little den I had fashioned for myself, and I was ambivalent about venturing outside.
A year passed, I was concluding my work at the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems at UC Santa Cruz, and I would soon be marking thirty years on the planet. Largely unbeknownst to me, Brian’s seeds had been active in the recesses of my mind, growing like sprouts kept in a dark cupboard. I wanted to start this new decade with intention and with time to process and reflect upon all that I had been absorbing and observing in recent years. I sat down one evening with a yellow legal pad and jotted down a list of twenty-odd topics I might like to write about. Suddenly, the project shifted from an almost unconscious notion to an inevitability.
The book has experienced a meandering evolution since I first set pen to paper at Plum Village monastery in February of 2009. Included in this volume are a handful of personal essays drawn from that original and ambitious legal pad list, as well as a number of pieces written about places that have captured my attention. My purpose, however, has remained constant: to share with friends and family the thoughts and experiences which most animate me and, in so doing, offer encouragement to others as they pursue their own paths and questions.
I have also wanted to share some of the incredible privilege and good fortune that has brought me into contact with inspiring and thought-provoking people, places, and ideas. I have also endeavored to convey both the sense of urgency I feel with regards to the environmental and social challenges of our time, as well as my firm conviction that, in addressing those challenges, we have the opportunity to become co-creators of a more just, sustainable, and fulfilling world.
Many, if not all, of the points I raise in the first half of the book have been raised by others, often with more eloquence and nuance than I have managed to give voice to. I recommend to any reader looking to delve a little deeper to peruse some of the titles listed in the back of the book.
Part of the value of these writings, frankly, is that they have offered me an opportunity to meditate upon, and to practice articulating, facts, concepts, and views I find compelling and relevant to our times. I write not as an expert or authority on any of the topics addressed in this book (which should be readily apparent), but simply as a human being both troubled and inspired by forces at play in the world and desirous of a shift towards a healthier human presence on the planet.
These writings are first and foremost a reflection of my love of, and fascination with, life in its myriad forms. They are part of what poet, writer, and agricultural sage Wendell Berry calls “our obligation to our own being and to our descendents… to study life and our conditions, searching always for the authentic underpinnings of hope.” If you find in these pages an impetus to hope or to search, I am glad for it.
Chad Morse
Monterey, CA, November 2009