As we
traversed rural India at the speed of a couple of miles per hour, it became
clear how much we could learn simply by bearing witness to the villagers’ way
of life. Their entire mental model is different—the multiplication of
wants is replaced by the basic fulfillment of human needs. When you are no
longer preoccupied with asking for more and more stuff, then you just take what
is given and give what is taken. Life is simple again. A farmer explained it to
us this way: “You cannot make the clouds rain more, you cannot make the sun
shine less. They are just nature’s gifts—take it or leave it.”
When
the things around you are seen as gifts, they are no longer a means to an end;
they are the means and the end. And thus, a cow-herder will tend to his animals
with the compassion of a father, a village woman will wait three hours for a
delayed bus without a trace of anger, a child will spend countless hours
fascinated by stars in the galaxy, and finding his place in the vast cosmos.
So with
today’s modernized tools at your ready disposal, don’t let yourself zoom
obliviously from point A to point B on the highways of life; try walking the
back roads of the world, where you will witness a profoundly inextricable
connection with all living things.
–Nipun Mehta, PATHS ARE MADE FOR WALKING: Four steps to take on the road of life, Parabola, Fall 2012.
From Catherine Willis
Photo given to me by my Grandmother, taken somewhere near Warrnambool Victoria.