The Ripe Life
The Ripe Life
That which is "ripe" does not need to grow - and could teach our growth-infatuated societies a thing or two.
***Note to readers: the whole of this essay is free to read, only the access to the Wendell Berry Reading Group Recording is behind a paywall.
Some things in life are just perfect. Desperately rare they may be, but they do exist, and you will know when you stumble across one of them. When you do, you will be unable to imagine any way, shape, or form that these objects or subjects of perfection could be changed for the better — rather any additional change or growth would destroy their perfection. The state of perfection is thus a most vulnerable state: for any form of change (which, in an entropic world, may easily come) will result in corruption — the eradication of perfection. Perfect things have, therefore, reached their pinnacle of development, maturity, and beauty — their magnificent conclusion — and that is just where they need to be. No change or growth is required. Matured, perfected, complete: these are the things we should cherish, protect, and aspire to be like.
Wendell Berry in his essay Quantity Versus Form introduces the concept of ‘ripeness’, and I have come to believe it is a most fitting concept to describe those perfect things in life. Old Father Time has worked hard on these objects of desire: maturing, forming, and developing them with skill and diligence. Time has chiselled way their imperfections, accentuated their unique and particular glories, and composed each part and piece in such a way that they are well-balanced and harmonious to the beauty and perfection of the whole. Such perfection can be seen in a ripe piece of fruit. The passing of time and the intensity of sunlight and its warmth coupled with ingenuous cell biology has matured the flavours, eliminated astringency, and softened or hardened the texture to that sublime point where it is “just right”. Ripeness: we all want it, and instinctively know when we experience it.
Berry primarily uses this term to describe certain people who have attained this “formal completeness” or the “ripe life”. They have run their course, matured in their virtues, loved God and neighbour, and have accomplished what they were meant to achieve (whether that be great or little things). Their presence is a blessing to those around them and the land in which they live. Crucially, they have also begun the process of passing on this goodness to the next generation — mentoring and guiding those who will continue the good work they have begun when they themselves have become but a memory. In short, these ripe folk, like the ripe apple that is ready to be eaten, are ready to die — no matter what age they have reached1.
We recognise these rare and exceptional people when we see them. The ability of some to stare death and eternity squarely in the face and declare “I am ready” is a disposition that takes us aback and we stand in awe. While most of us frantically try to erase the thought of death from our lives, always pushing back when the morbid thoughts arise, these men and women seem to almost relish the thought of returning to the dust from which they have come. They are ready to pass their baton of good work on and finally enter their rest and reward — no matter if the profound moment of “passing the veil” is in a week, a year, or a whole lot longer.
The Apostle Paul was evidently such a ripe man. He had to be in order to say with such confidence and joy: “the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith”2. So too was Admiral Nelson for whom the pacifist Wendell Berry admits to admiring his essay3. Nelson, though still a relatively young man aged 47, could declare at the point of his death at the Battle of Trafalgar: “Thank God, I have done my duty”. Those words can surely only be uttered from the lips of a ripe man.
Such men and women (and often the ripest person we can personally think of is the old, faithful woman who prays night and day for those near and far) are becoming increasingly rare. Berry laments this. And so do I. Which of course begs the question, am I becoming ripe? Is my life’s trajectory heading towards ripeness, or is it on the path to perpetual unripeness and immaturity? Such a question can be unnerving — but it needs to be asked. For there are only two roads in life: the road towards ripeness or the road towards its opposite with its many side streets. These streets are the dead ends of triviality, vice, staleness, or immaturity — destinations that lead to our ruin or destiny us to endless futility. It matters greatly, therefore, what road we are on.
That was perhaps a bit more morbid than my writings usually are, but those truths needed to be stated. However, as I have meditated and let my mind wander on the topic of ripeness these last few weeks, I have found it to be a sweet and rich source of wisdom — with so many fruitful applications and guidance for life4 that take on a more cheerful tone, but which are no less profound.
What has impressed itself upon me most is the fact that a ripe life (or the ripe object) does not need to grow any further. It is complete. Nothing (or little) could be done to improve it. Additional growth may actively damage its ripeness or even destroy the goodness contained therein. The virtues and character of this person are well matured, and their achievements are suitable to the gifts, strengths, and limitations of their personhood, resulting in a balanced, content, and beautiful life — a life which has come to achieve its fitting ends. This emphasis on limits is critically important as Berry says:
We come to form, we in-form our lives, by accepting the obvious limits imposed by our talents and circumstances, by nature and mortality and thus by getting the scale right. Form [or quality] permits us to live and work gracefully within our limits.
And one of these crucial limits is embracing the fact that there comes a point in many of the facets and areas of our lives when growth is to be ruthlessly shunned.
The old adage goes “There is always room for improvement” and in some sense this is true. We could always be more holy, for instance, or more selfless. But is this adage always the case? Some people have matured and pretty much perfected their patience, kindness, or some other virtue. Granted, not all their virtues have reached this pinnacle (for that would be impossible) but some have. Further, take the scholar who has reached the pinnacle of his study. Yes, there is always more to learn and discover, but does he or she need to? Have they in fact mastered their field to the extent that was required and thus any further knowledge may only serve to puff up their ego or displace/degrade their competency in skilfully employing the good knowledge they have already attained and mastered? Finally, it is certainly true that our bodily limitations call eventual time on physical labour. The master woodworker whose eyes have grown dim needs to put down his tools, the award-winning baker whose Parkinson’s stricken hands can no longer knead the dough knows it is time to pass on the duty to his apprentice, and the old builder whose bones have lost their strength needs to stop lifting the bricks. There is no “continual improvement” for these faithful workers — neither should there be.
I would argue that these men and women, masters in their work who have reached that profound moment where striving and growing must cease, have reached this point of ‘Ripeness’ — there is no more to do nor more they can do. Ripeness means they have to stop. They can look back with a contented smile on their work and rest. Going forward, they can devote themselves to helping others on to the state of ripeness by guiding them with their precious wisdom, guidance, and advice, building up the ‘cultural and practical humus’5 that will serve the next generation well.
The wise man knows when it is time to retire, when to say enough and no more. The man who knows now is the time to do this is ripe indeed.
Learning the art of contentment, and the art of saying no to more growth, is thus an essential component of ripeness — and of staying ripe. Nature provides a fitting illustration to reinforce this. Consider for a moment the ripest fruit you have ever tasted: a juicy strawberry or tart apple at the pinnacle of their perfection. The taste was likely superfluous and the texture just perfect. Another day or two of growth, though, and the sensory perfection would have been lost — further growth in the fruit caused it to lose its essence of goodness. Growth degraded what was good.
This degradation of ripeness in the fruit can take on two forms which I will use as organising principles for explaining the phenomenon of ‘degrading growth’6 in our own lives and society at large: fermentation and decay7. There are many caveats and limitations to these concepts, and at many points the analogy will fall short — but I hope you will find them helpful.
Firstly, decay. The over-ripening excess growth in the fruit created perfect conditions for bacteria to attack and mould to take root — leading to a rotting, sickly, ugliness. The perfection was irreversibly lost — the sorry victim of excess growth. In likewise manner does excess growth affect our societies. The building that is built too tall and grand for its foundations will topple. Monocultures of “fields being joined to fields” replacing diversified small fields create a habitat “ripe” for pest infestation and environmental degradation. Working beyond our physical limits causes burnout, mistakes, and a general degradation of quality of our work. The master woodworker whose eyes have become dim, will make errors and ruin his masterpieces — they will in a sense decay. This is the essence of decaying or rotting growth; it destroys the ripeness either by actively degrading it or eliminating the conditions that preserved and maintained the ripe perfection. Thus, instead of perfection we are left with “second best”, or at worst, a pile of useless waste. A tragic loss.
Fermentation, on the other hand, is growth that leads to vice. It needs to be said there is nothing inherently wrong with alcohol, but when consumed to excess, alcohol leads to vice — drunkenness. So, I will call excess growth that leads to vice ‘fermenting growth’. It is not a perfect term, but I believe it does its job. And I think you will understand what I mean. ‘Fermenting growth’ is then the overgrowth that leads to vice and is fuelled by vice. This is the growth that leads to greed, pride, and concentration of power. The growth that leads to the erosion of tradition and beauty in the name of efficiency and modernisation. The growth that results from those who have an exclusive focus on growth to the exclusion of all other considerations or good and proper ends8. And this growth is all around us.
We can observe it in the chain store business who open another franchise in the next town, undercutting the local store which has faithfully served the community for decades. We can see it in the mining company who blast away mountain after mountain to get at the coal which fuels power stations and the near limitless energy they provide. We can see it in many of the factories up and down our nations, who off the back of this limitless energy, mass produce goods well in excess of demand and dump the surplus on the poor, in our rivers and seas, and even in our wildernesses9. We can detect this insidious growth in ourselves: when we covet and chase after promotion after promotion, lying and backstabbing to get there. And finally, we can detect this fermenting growth in our societies that expect everything in this world to always just get better, bigger, and brighter. Ad infinitum. No matter the cost.
Perversely, fermenting growth may serve the one who strives after it well. Exuberant profits give the big-energy Fat Cats joy, and ill-gotten promotions lead to power, prestige, and bigger bank balances. But ultimately, fermenting growth does not convivially serve the whole realm of our collective responsibilities: to ourselves, our neighbour, nature, and future generations. We sacrifice our virtues on the altar of ill-gotten gains and degrade ourselves in the process. We trade away the traditions and beauties of local businesses in return for convenience, greed, and trivial enjoyment. And we drive to extinction species who beauty should astound us (and for whom we were given the great and noble responsibility to steward and protect), when we blast away their habitats and dump our excesses in the oceans — all under the auspices of the pursuit of more.
Decaying and fermenting growth: insidious and pervasive. So much of modern growth can be classified under these perverse terms. Resisting these trajectories of growth is a perpetual challenge — and an imperative. Ripeness in our communities, traditions, and environments are jewels of infinite value that should be guarded with all our might from the growth that seeks to destroy.
How though can this be done? Especially in a highly capitalised world such as ours where growth is mandated by shareholder and governments alike? How, for instance can farmers resist striving to produce more and more even when this means abusing and damaging their lands when the gluttonous market dictates that they forever need to grow to in order to keep up. This ‘invisible hand’ tells them to “Get big or get out” and punishes the marginal and less productive (or those who refuse to submit to the logic of the machine) by driving them into bankruptcy through dept trapping them with expensive inputs or exposing them to brutal free-market competition. The land that is thus released from the stewardship of these “unproductive relics”, is now gifted to the more productive and “growth-obedient” landowners at favourable rates and is combined to create ever-growing mega-farms. “You can’t stop growing, there is a world to feed!” the market cries, all the while knowing that that our food system already produces more than enough to feed the world with twelve proverbial baskets of leftovers for the taking and that little, if any, of the food produced on these mega-farms will enter the mouth of the poor — rather its destiny is commodity markets (the prime example of inflated, excessive growth).
It seems an impossible problem to solve, and I admit, coming ‘cold turkey’ off the drug of excess growth is stupendously hard — and will involve a lot of pain for all strata of society. But it needs to be done — or we risk losing the ripe goodness left behind in our cultures, societies, and environments. We urgently need to find workable solutions, but they seem harder to find than a needle in haystack. But there is one A possible antidote, that I recently stumbled across from the words of a now-deceased sage10. It may seem surprising at first, baffling perhaps (it certainly did to me) — but it is ingenious, nevertheless. The answer lies in waste.
No ordinary waste mind you. This is “intentional waste” to serve the greater good. It is waste that takes the sting and power out of accumulating ‘growth capital’ that has the perverse tendency of causing destruction and degradation in ‘closed-loop systems’ such as our communities, environments, and indeed our world, by its resultant fermenting and/or decaying growth. It is the same “waste” that keeps natural populations in check. A prime example would be forest fires that burn off excess brush and detritus and in turn, releases nutrients that had accumulated in the system. At first, these wildfires appear to lay waste entire landscapes, but the wise old ecologist knows otherwise. He knows they actually serve to remove the growth that unbalances the ecosystem, and the abundance of nutrients and sunlight left in the wake of the fire promotes extraordinary new and rich growth and biodiversity — growth of the healthy kind.
David Fleming was the sage who alerted me to the virtue of “intentional waste” and he applies it to premodern societies11 who, in his words, were “resilient societies who were meticulous about limiting or destroying growth capital”. They did this by either preventing excess growth in the first place or by “wasting it” in activities that terminally used up the growth capital — by producing "useless [read beautiful] ornaments or extravagant, labour-intensive carnivals” — or, I would add a restoring an ecosystem.
These activities “wasted” growth capital in terms of its ability to provide more capital/growth but instead cause this capital to be spent in such a way that produces and protects true wealth that is priceless: amazing beauty, pleasurable fun, and timeless tradition. Waste it may be to industry and business, but to the rest of creation, this form of waste is not waste at all. Instead, it is perhaps how we can keep ourselves our communities, our cultures, and our environments in a state of perpetual ‘ripeness’. It is good work; it is fitting work — it is the kind of work we should consider devoting our ripe lives to.
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