Katherine May wrote The Wintering: The Power of Rest And Retreat In Difficult Times. In this book she writes of her own experiences at the time of her 40th birthday. Her husband suffers with stomach pain. His appendix bursts before he gets into surgery. While he recovers from that she experiences her own digestive pains which is eventually diagnosed as Crohn's Disease. And her six year old refuses to go to school due to anxiety. Everyone is her family has to slow down and take time to recover. Her point is that being unproductive can be a good thing. She also writes about how some people get through the winter by sleeping more, taking saunas, and spending more time indoors cooking, repairing, and resting. She talks about the fable of the ant and the grasshopper. The intended moral of the fable is work hard. The ant works all summer getting ready for winter while the grasshopper dances and has fun singing. When winter comes the grasshopper asks the ant if there is any food to spare and the ant says no. The ant says that the grasshopper should have prepared for winter by storing his own food. According to the author the ant has the wrong attitude. Since grasshoppers don't overwinter and survive the season only as eggs, the ant is depriving a dying grasshopper of a tiny bit of sustenance. This author definitely looks at the world through a lens unlike my own. I don't agree with everything she wrote but I found it interesting.
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