Our Wild Calling Book Summary - Our Wild Calling Book explained in key points

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Our Wild Calling summary

Name: Our Wild Calling
Rating: 4.5 (44 reviews)
Author: Richard Louv

Richard Louv

How Connecting with Animals Can Transform Our Lives—and Save Theirs

4.5 (44 ratings)

19 mins

Topics

Change & Evolution Anthropology Life Sciences Animals

Table of Contents

Our Wild Calling
Summary of 6 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 6

What’s in it for me? Embrace the wild side of life.

Do you ever yearn for something that’s missing from your life, even if you don’t know what that something is?

As you’ll discover in these blinks, the thing you’re missing might be your connection to the natural world. You’ll explore the deep and beautiful ways in which humans can connect to the wild animals and natural environments around us. You’ll learn how other species can bring joy and meaning to our lives, and how we can forge a shared sense of identity with the billions of other beings that inhabit our world.

Packed with radical ideas as well as the latest research into animal behavior, this is your go-to guide for seeing the natural world through a new lens.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

how beauty can motivate us to protect animals;
what fruit bats talk about; and
why the Maasai people don’t have a word for nature.

Appreciating the beauty of wild animals encourages us to protect them

A brief encounter with a wild animal might change your life forever. The author’s life-changing moment happened when he was on Kodiak Island, Alaska. One night, he was strolling by a lakeside when he noticed a pair of bright eyes staring at him from the darkness. He was face to face with a huge black fox that was as large as a coyote.

He and the fox silently considered each other, neither wanting anything from the other, except the electrifying experience of being in each other’s presence. Eventually, the author even spoke to the fox, and asked if it wanted to accompany him to the cabin where he was headed. Incredibly, the fox followed. Just before they got to the cabin, the fox melted away into the long grass.

This is the key message: Appreciating the beauty of wild animals encourages us to protect them.

The author can’t remember many of the people he met that summer on the island, but he’s always remembered his brief moment with the black fox. Over the years, he’s had other meaningful encounters with animals, too.

One year at his summer house, he observed a colony of ground squirrels who lived in his garden. He came to appreciate the rhythms of their life; the way their infants played together, how hard the squirrels worked to survive each day. Eventually, he saw these humble ground squirrels as beautiful.

Appreciating the beauty of other species can help transform our relationship with the whole of the natural world.

How? Well, Norwegian ecophilosopher Arne Naess differentiates between acting morally and acting beautifully. When we act out of a sense of moral obligation, we do so through gritted teeth. We’re going against what we want to do, but we do it because it’s the right thing to do. On the other hand, when we act in a beautiful way, we do something moral because we want to; the moral action is in harmony with our true inclinations.

We can appreciate the beauty of other animals by identifying and empathizing with them. This feeling of empathy must replace any sense we have of superiority to animals, and certainly any sense of alienation from them. Only when we identify with other species can we feel a genuine desire to protect them from harm. When this happens, protecting them and the natural world becomes a beautiful act that we want to carry out. In other words, we must act because we care, not just from moral obligation.

Humans are heading toward a lonely future – but there is an alternative.

Thanks to modern technology, human beings have never been so connected – and yet we’ve never felt so alone. Not only are rates of loneliness growing in the Western world, but younger generations report much higher rates of isolation than their older counterparts. How did we become so alone?

Some ecophilosophers believe that our loneliness is not just a hunger for the company of other humans, but for a connection with other species, too. Ecologist Michael Vincent McGinnis has coined the term species loneliness to describe humankind’s increasing alienation from non-human life.

Anthropomorphizing animals is a double-edged sword.

Do humans and other animals feel the same emotions? Until recently, the scientific community believed the answer was no. Indeed, any scientist who hinted that animals might share any of the same thoughts or emotions as humans was deemed to have committed one of the worst sins of all: anthropomorphism.

Anthropomorphism means attributing human-like qualities to animals. The risk in anthropomorphizing animals is that, by thinking of other animals as human-like, we ignore their innate, unique characteristics. As a result, we remain ignorant about them. One study, for instance, found that children who were taught about the natural world through the use of caricatured, cartoonish talking animals absorbed less information than children who were simply taught the facts.

Animals communicate with us, and they speak to each other, too.

Humans and other animals may not speak the same language, but that doesn’t mean they can’t communicate. The author recalls the story of a professor who found himself waiting at a rural bus stop in the Alaskan wilderness. Suddenly, a large male wolf emerged on the road ahead. The wolf stared at him intently for a minute, before turning and walking away. As he went, the wolf kept looking over his shoulder at the professor. It was like the wolf was using his whole body to point toward something. After a while, it became clear that he wanted the professor to follow him, which he did. Somehow, the man understood that the wolf meant him no harm. These two species, man and wolf, were communicating effectively.

Later, the professor learned that the wolf’s pack had killed a moose in the area surrounding the bus stop. The wolf was trying to lead him away from the kill, so that its family could eat undisturbed. This is just one example of how, if we listen carefully, animals will speak.

We can interact with the natural world in a multitude of ways.

How do you relate to nature and other species? Perhaps even your understanding of the word nature holds a clue to how you feel about it. Consider that the indigenous people of Southern Kenya, the Maasai, do not even have a word for nature. Why? Because they don’t need one; they see themselves as completely inseparable from the natural world. For most modern people, though, our relationship with nature feels more ambiguous.

Ecopsychologist Patricia Hasbach believes that there are three distinct ways in which humans relate to other species; wild, domestic, and distorted. When we relate to animals in a wild way, we interact with them in their natural environments. For instance, we might see a lion in the Serengeti, and be overcome with feelings of awe, or even fear. Alternatively, we might relate to animals in a domestic way, like interacting with a pet dog. Because we know our dog, and it knows us, there is a mutual feeling of happiness that feels natural.

Help nature by thinking globally and acting locally.

You might not be able to change the world, but you can change the part of it that you call home. James Garcia discovered this for himself, growing up in an impoverished neighborhood in Denver. As a teenager, James came across a bird in his local park with an old fishing hook caught in its throat. He wasn’t able to save the bird, but it haunted him that an innocent animal had suffered because humans couldn’t be bothered to pick up their garbage. After his experience, James vowed to change things for the better.

He looked around his local area and realized how little his fellow neighbors cared for nature and the other animals around them. At first he felt angry, but gradually, he started to feel empathy. After all, everyone in his neighborhood was poor; they worked multiple jobs, and had little time or energy to consider the environmental impact of their choices.

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What is Our Wild Calling about?

Our Wild Calling (2020) examines how humans and other animals can enjoy mutually beneficial relationships. It explores stories and philosophy from the ecological movement, and outlines how we can move toward a more hopeful future for all Earthlings.

Who should read Our Wild Calling?

Nature lovers looking for inspiration
Office dwellers seeking ways to reconnect with nature
Anyone looking for direct ways to respond to global climate change

About the Author

Richard Louv is an author and journalist, whose interests center around connecting families and communities to nature. He is also the cofounder of the nonprofit organization Children & Nature Network. Louv’s work has appeared in The New York Times, as well as other publications, and in 2008 he was awarded the Audubon Medal.

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