Living Like Weasels Essay Summary

Enis Jevric
Professor Gregory Munna
English 101-1310
03 March 2015

Essay #1
It would be great not to worry about anything besides basic human needs, like water, food, and shelter. In Annie Dillards essay, “Living Like Weasels”, she states; “but I might learn

something of mindlessness, something of purity of living in the physical senses and the dignity

of living without bias or motive” (63). Saying how human life can become simple, if we

live a pure life without bias or motive and concerning oneself with nothing but the basic

necessities of life, which is what the weasel is doing. If we give ourselves over to mindlessness

and necessity, it can be liberating. This is the value we as human beings must acquire.

Weasels live the way they do because they don’t have choices like us. If we lived like

weasels do and do what we are supposed to do in our lives, things would be better. “This is

yielding, not fighting” (Dillard 66). Dillard wants us to comply with the laws of nature by being

a part of it. In order to be free and live free, we must become like the weasel who is mindless.

Human beings are a slave to the mind, we are always making decisions. We think too much and

take caution, were the weasel acts on instinct. In order to start living, let’s stop thinking and live

in the present with one necessity. Dillard says, “I think it would be well, and proper, and pure, to grasp your one necessity

and not let it go, to dangle from it limp wherever it takes you” (66). She saying, find

something you love to do and hold onto it and see where it takes you. What makes us not free is

that we are slaves to the mind. The weasel is free from thoughts and emotions. True, freedom is

to find something you are passionate about and stay with it to the end, no matter

what happens. Live life by not giving up until you have accomplished your goals. Human beings never stick with one thing, we let go of our passions in life, because at times our thoughts corrupt our thinking and we choose the wrong decisions in life. She claims, "And I suspect that for me the way is like the weasel 's: open to time and death painlessly, noticing everything, remembering nothing, choosing the given with a fierce and pointed will" (Dillard 65). We have the choice to remember, the good and bad in our lives. We should learn to live life to the fullest with no regrets. Remembering the past, brings us nowhere, we must only live at the present. Our choices determines all of our actions. To live freely we must act fast without hesitation, like the weasel. Dillard uses the phase “grasp your one necessity” (66) meaning finding what you need in life, whether it be passions or skills and holding to the necessity. If human beings forget about our thoughts and concentrated only on our passions or skills, life would become better. If we let our thoughts run wild, we can’t grasp our necessity. We must act on instinct and not lose our freedom which is our necessity. The weasel knows what it wants and holds on to its necessity unlike human beings. Dillard says “the weasel lives in necessity and we live in choice, hating necessity and dying the last ignobly in its talons” (65). People live each day questioning their motives, where the weasel simply lives life at the present. In Annie Dillards essay, Living Like Weasels, Dillard wants human beings to only worry about the necessities of life. We should live any way we want right? But giving ourselves over to mindlessness and necessity, that’s the right path to living in freedom. True freedom is finding your skill or passion and holding on it even if it means dying for it. We as human beings can learn many important things of how the weasel lives, the weasel is free even from death because the weasel keeps firm in what it wants. If people live in the present and hold on their necessity, no matter what happens, life would become better. When we clear our minds from mixed thoughts, is when we can find our skill or passion and only concern ourselves with what is important. It’s important to live life as the weasel, who lives as he’s meant to. Mindlessly and one self’s necessities, just paying attention on that, people can stop making their lives harder for themselves and starting living how they are supposed to.

Works Cited
Dillard, Annie. "Living Like Weasels." Twenty-five Great Essays. By Robert
DiYanni. New York: Pearson, 2008. 62-67. Print.

Cited: Dillard, Annie. "Living Like Weasels." Twenty-five Great Essays. By Robert DiYanni. New York: Pearson, 2008. 62-67. Print.