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Every live thing is a survivor on a kind of extended emergency bivouac.
Annie Dillard
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Every living creature adapts to survive in a constantly changing environment.

Annie Dillard's quote suggests that all life exists in a state of ongoing survival, likening existence to an extended emergency situation. This metaphor emphasizes the resilience and adaptability of living beings in face of the unpredictability and challenges of life, where each moment necessitates a form of survival instinct and response to circumstances beyond our control.

Themes

SurvivalNatureAdaptationLifeResilience

In practice

Example use cases

In a discussion about environmental awareness, this quote can emphasize the resilience of nature.

More from Annie Dillard

What is important is the moment of opening a life and feeling it touch--with an electric hiss and cry--this speckled mineral sphere, our present world.
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Geography is the key, the crucial accident of birth. A piece of protein could be a snail, a sea lion, or a systems analyst, but it had to start somewhere. This is not science; it is merely metaphor. And the landscape in which the protein "starts" shapes its end as surely as bowls shape water.
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Buddhism notes that it is always a mistake to think your soul can go it alone.
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Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.
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It is difficult to undo our own damage, and to recall to our presence that which we have asked to leave. It is hard to desecrate a grove and change your mind. The very holy mountains are keeping mum. We doused the burning bush and cannot rekindle it; we are lighting matches in vain under every green tree.
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To crank myself up I stood on a jack and ran myself up. I tightened myself like a bolt. I inserted myself in a vise-clamp and wound the handle till the pressure built. I drank coffee in titrated doses. It was a tricky business, requiring the finely tuned judgment of a skilled anesthesiologist. There was a tiny range within which coffee was effective, short of which it was useless, and beyond which, fatal.
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