A photo of yours truly, truly blending in…
I’ve recently arrived back from a 2-month holiday. None to bad in anyone’s books and that’s probably partially to blame for my current somewhat dreamy perspective. On return, I wrote a letter to a friend which I felt encapsulated some of my key thoughts about development and being in the moment that I wanted to share.
I sincerely hope that my friend doesn’t mind my repeating some of the words that were a personal note to her and that you don’t mind my somewhat stream of conciousness-esque thoughts, which were tumbled into the letter. Here goes…
Long ago, especially working in Madagascar and other parts of Africa, I’ve questioned whether the big white land rovers, the good intentions and the money, effort and suffering of development workers, really actually does much to help… or whether it hinders. Certainly when you look at Ladakh, for example (I read a great book called Ancient Futures – see my post on the book here), you see that in touting the latest development tools, us do-gooders actually did a lot more harm than good. In fact, the last thing they needed was ‘development’. They needed to maintain the delicate equilibrium that they had fought for many generations to develop. Things like high child mortality, low incomes, disease etc were all actually just natures way of balancing the system and ensuring that this equilibrium was maintained. But then in plops the WHO and the American tourists, who can’t believe that people live in such squalor, ‘I mean, some of the babies had dribbly noses and the children were so dirty’, and we introduce roads, and vaccinations, and education systems, and tools and machines… and voila. The equilibrium is upset, the local farming methods die, the population booms and suddenly you have a load of apathetic youngsters desperate to escape to a better life, which in reality is to slums in cities with no community and nastier conditions, so that they can become the next 2Pac and while away their days, if they are one of the million who make it, in an empty apartment full of modern art and revolving water beds that are hard to share… and a bunch of old folks who remain behind lamenting the lost simplicity of the past with grandchildren to look after them.
My own sense, is that the key is just learning to enjoy and not worrying too much about whether or not we’re making big bucks or big impacts. The next stage of my journey is to truly work out what I enjoy and to maximize that enjoyment in the long-term, rather than seeking the little, immediate highs that feel powerful but leave you with little to show for it. Being an Epicurean, in the true sense of the word (rather than the over-indulgent sense of the word).
