Compassion: Am I kind and thoughtful enough? This question has stuck with me throughout my happy and lucky life. The question was initiated by an experience I had as a young man. Many years ago, I had the opportunity to go to school for a period of time in Krakow, Poland. It was at the height of the Cold War (1) and the Eastern European environment was extraordinary and distant for a sheltered Canadian boy. At the border between East and West, there were soldiers armed with Kalashnikov machine guns, barking police dogs, and reams of barbed wire: nobody smiled. You felt like you were entering a place only envisioned in a John le Carré spy novel (2).
My tome begins: In but a moment, a door opened and I was blindfolded and bundled inside a dark and blackened chamber: “Why do you want to enter our worker’s paradise? What are your real intentions: talk?” I looked up into the eyes of my examiner with the blank look of the uninitiated, Kafka came to mind. “I am innocent!” Gosh how the mind can race and imagine. I was propelled back to that original moment only to hear, “Thank you and welcome to Poland,” said in Polish.
My friends were waiting for me at the train station. We drove to their home in the countryside. What first struck me was the open drabness. Poland, historically, is a nation of life and vitality: its composers, artists, and political heroes have achieved mythical levels. By the 1970s, however, the society had begun to show the signs of national and moral collapse: World War Two and soulless communism had wrought unimaginable hardness and cruelty on the land. The country had become like an old uncle wearing tattered clothes who had lost all his money but still retained his élan and style. I quickly nestled into my language school: my mission was to become fluent in Polish so that I could finally converse with my maternal grandmother.
In time, I realized a tremendous anomaly: the US dollar had stunning purchasing power. I had US $1,000 (NT $30,000) in cash with me. In Canada, at the time, this was not a huge sum of money. In Poland, however, this approached two year’s wages. For the first moment in my life, I could be truly generous, with impunity, because the money had virtually no pecuniary value. I bought my girlfriend a bicycle, my friend’s brother a color television for his marriage, etc. In my “giving,” I felt little emotion, however, believing that this was simply the right thing to do when you have a surfeit of something.
Poland is a very cold country, so I also treated myself well: I bought a lambskin coat, bespoke boots, and many elegant dinners. What changed my life was one little incident. I was in Warsaw to visit my friend’s parents. On my way to their house, I stopped for dinner with another friend of mine. The meal in the old city was truly magnificent — a quartet playing Chopin only added to the excellence.
After my “repas du soir,” I took a brief walk along cobbled-stoned streets before catching the tramway. My boots crunched peacefully on the newly sprinkled snow. I was snug, smug, and comfortable: a prince at twenty years old. I passed by a baroque cathedral. Outside the ancient edifice was an old woman wearing a thin and weathered coat. She emitted a sense of bleak poverty and was not overtly begging, but simply seeking alms.
I, thoughtlessly, placed a 1,000 zloty note in her bowl (maybe a month’s wages). She sprang to life, knelt in front of me, and kissed my hand. I was brought to tears: a sense of profound humility washed over me. The prince had become a pauper. I intimately connected with her plight. At twenty I was finally allowed to become human. From Victor Frankl: Being human always points, and is directed, to something or someone, other than oneself – be it a meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter. (Parts of this essay were first published in 2014)
A closing thought: To this day, I remark that I had been allowed to understand life. The state of gratitude is a phenomenon that few young people now truly appreciate. Life is just too good. Our beds are warm, our bellies full, and political violence is something for the novel or history book. The past tells us, unfortunately, that life is ephemeral. Change is inevitable. We would be well-served to appreciate the world around us. It will most assuredly change — especially if we lack critical thinking and moral values.
To sum up: This week, we spoke about humility and gratitude.
To be noted: From Confucius — It is only the wisest and the stupidest who cannot change.
Just for fun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlFLVPBqesg
For reflection: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8cFQT0zpa8
This week on your thoughtful walk, please ponder your own humility. It will allow you to connect with humanity.
Every day look for something magical and beautiful
Don’t be a wage slave – critical thinking is great!
Quote: Humility is not to be confused with lack of power: it shrouds your inner magnificence.
Footnotes:
1) The Cold War (1947–1991) was a state of political and military tension between governments in the Western Bloc (the United States and NATO) and governments in the Eastern Bloc (the Soviet Union and its allies in the Warsaw Pact). It was “cold” (as opposed to hot) because there was no large-scale fighting directly between the two sides.