John Fowles: Nature, Art, and Science

The modern version of hell is purposelessness.

“It is not necessarily too little knowledge that causes ignorance; possessing too much, or wanting to gain too much, can produce the same result.”

— John Fowles

Achieving a relationship with nature is both a science and an art, beyond mere knowledge or mere feeling alone; and I now think beyond oriental mysticism, transcendentalism, ‘meditation techniques’ and the rest—or at least as we in the West have converted them to our use, which seems increasingly in a narcissistic way: to make ourselves feel more positive, more meaningful, more dynamic.

I do not believe nature is to be reached that way either, by turning it into a therapy, a free clinic for admirers of their own sensitivity.