## Metadata - Author: [[Paul Kingsnorth]] - Full Title: Savage Gods - Category: #books ## Highlights - Is language the trap? The field is full of language. Everything is speaking to everything else, and some of it I can hear and some of it, because of my biology or my cultural inheritance, I am not equipped to. All nature is a language—but none of it is written down. Writing: converting a living, dancing speech, a pattern of sounds from a pulsing animal body, to dead, unmoving symbols on a page. Writing: fossilizing life, replacing life with representations of life, representations which can be more attractive than life itself if you’re not careful. Look: I have shown you my field. Probably you will never see it, and even if you do, you will not see what I see, because you are not me. All you have is my words, but my words are not my reality. I have nothing for you but black marks on white, which fire neurons in your brain. What if they fire the wrong neurons? What if I am setting off a chain reaction which will echo down the centuries and shade out reality, truth, with some bright white light? ([Location 1649](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07W8VHLKZ&location=1649)) - And why should this poor little plot of land have to bear the weight of meaning that some wandering primate has wanted to layer upon it? Why should anyone or anything have to bear the weight of our stories? ([Location 1703](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07W8VHLKZ&location=1703))