Yours is the work. My work was to prepare for it. (Breadcrumbs)

Maybe we thought we would one day eat that salmon, you and I. Maybe we thought that if we worked hard enough, learned enough, we could catch it and learn from it, we could save the world, change the world, teach the world some lessons.

I thought that once. I probably learned it at university. Now I think that I, we, our generations, those of us brought up within the machine, brought up to breathe with it, rely on it, those of us tamed and made by it, those of us who crushed the world without thinking—the wisdom to come is not ours.

We will never escape what we have made and what made us. We are not equipped.

We are not the people who will eat the salmon. We are not Finn.

But perhaps, if we’re lucky, we could be Finnegas.

Perhaps, if we’re lucky, we could lay some ground for what is to come.

Yours is the work. My work was to prepare for it.

You cannot use the master’s tools to dismantle the master’s house. You cannot use your arguments and your concepts to access the chthón. You cannot use your Oxford University degree to build a world which regards Oxford University degrees with the bafflement they deserve to be greeted with.

Finnegas, Paul Kingsnorth