Lesson 33: Feel small in this majestic universe
Walking in the Himalayas was the experience of a lifetime, although I found myself wracked with guilt for the plight of our Sherpas. We arrived in Kathmandu and the group of us were whisked off into the hills to begin a challenging hiking tour to the base camp of Annapurna. This is one of the world's most notorious mountains and yet the twenty sherpas that carried our tents and baggage were carrying unbelievable loads. They walked barefooted. I felt a sadness for them but maybe I was wrong. Maybe it was them that was sad for us. A sixteen-year-old carried our belongings for some days. He called himself Suzuki. It was scrawled across his T-shirt, and he wore it every day. I tried for his real name but he proudly back pointed to his chest. Suzuki.
And so it was.
The contrast to this poverty though was the vibrations of gentle contentness that hummed within this community like a flock of songbirds. Beside the River Bagmati, open-air funerals took place. The Pires and ash turned the water into a muddy cola but just around the bend, people cooled themselves in the same river, as though sharing the space with the remains of the deceased was as normal as sharing a bath with a sibling. Perhaps it was. There was a peace and rhythm here that doesn’t exist in the societies that I have belonged to. We are wealthier for sure but we are searching for happiness in all the wrong things. How strange. Despite our things, we rarely seem any more content. So we take ourselves to simpler places, to the Himalayas, desolate and barren, just to feel the thing that was within us all along.
Despite the privileges that we enjoyed, the mountains humbled us.
The Sherpas would change out every couple of days. As soon as supplies ran low, two would head back, and new ones would arrive, like a human conveyor belt. We passed mounds of stones that we were told were monuments to those who had died in these mountains. “We are the A-Team,” Harold would say confidently as we marched through the forests toward Fish Tail Mountain and Annapurna. We were fit and prepared, but tiredness grabbed at us and started to cling on. The Sherpas were oblivious. Leeches that fell from the trees could not deter them. Suzuki would burn them off with a cigarette, flicking them away like harmless black flies.
Slowly the Westerners broke. At the base camp of one of the mountains, a science teacher who we had met was openly weeping, as though a thing inside of him had finally cracked itself free.
“My life has been worthless, compared to this,” he said pointing out at the vastness.
I sat with him and took in the majesty of it all. The vast, and indomitable Himalayas. Isn’t it funny that we travel so far, to a place with nothing, to push ourselves to a place where we ourselves have nothing left?
On the way back down, I walked with three Chinese girls.
“London Bridge is falling down,” they sang happily, over and over again. I sang with them.
It was all so simple…and beautiful.
But isn’t this what we yearn for?
To simply feel small again in this majestic universe.
Lesson 34: Never speak ill of anyone, Friday, October 13th