We are all busy people. If not, you are either dead or retired: many pundits claim either state mirrors the other. “It’s prompted the claim that we need a fundamental rethink of the way we live and work. Lynda Gratton and Andrew Scott, professors at the London Business School have done just that in a book: The 100 Year Life (ISBN 978 14729 301 70). They argue that if turning 100 becomes normal, then we have to discard our idea of a traditional ‘three-stage life,’ one in which education is followed by work and then retirement. If our working life becomes a seven-decade long affair, then we cannot rely on a single period of education to prepare us for it. Instead, they argue, we will need to constantly retrain and reinvent ourselves to stay ahead of technology and the demand for changing skill sets. It is a daunting proposal, and one that would pile the pressure on all of us to ‘age well’: to stay robust and healthy in order to remain a productive member of the workforce.” (1)
I welcome this thesis. At sixty-one, I am rebuilding the self: I accept that I am a seeker; I accept that I know nothing, but yes, but yes, I want to learn. “Always excellence: why not?” for this reason, I am once more in India.
I love mornings: there seems to be a peacefulness that is truly surreal. It is as if Mother Earth is gathering all her energies for another push at the frenetic nature of life. There is a leak in one of the bathrooms of our hotel (I always go five star – that is a joke!) and its continuous drip, drip, drip has miraculously stopped the previous evening: overwhelming. I had a dream last night: I was a teaching in front of a classroom explaining being in the now – what happens when everything coalesces into the moment. I had a vision of lines floating on a screen suddenly uniting. This is what Kolkata is like: humanity amalgamates into a unique living form. It can be bestial, it can be crass, it can be sickening – or it can be sublime and beautiful. All physical expression reflects the inner being of a society. This city is, obviously, much like the psyche of India itself, it reflects inward and not outward. Therefore, the exterior form is not as important: the city looks disheveled and unkempt. Reference this against another British Empire city: Singapore. It is a totally different reality. Which would you rather live in? The seasoned traveler would certainly say Singapore. It is cleaner, more efficient, more beautiful. But would a bureaucrat in Singapore stay for an extra hour after finishing his official time just to help you finish an important document? Would a hotel let you sleep in the lobby because its rooms are taken until two days hence? Would Singapore be more human than Kolkata? I am not so sure. And now something even more bizarre: Kolkata is getting cleaner; yes, it is true. Since my last visit, there has been a proliferation of public toilets. There is, of course, no shortage of people in India so every toilet is manned by at least one attendant who collects a fee and cleans the facility. The second more remarkable move is the banning of heavy plastic bags. The “rag pickers,” supposedly, can’t sell them because they don’t break down into smaller components: they cannot be recycled – hence no value. (2)
The heavens open: it is monsoon season. People, as in any community, respond in their own way: some have umbrellas (too pricey for the masses), some a newspaper (It serves two purposes – you can read it and it can keep you dry.), finally others a simple towel. As an aside, the newspaper business is booming in India (3). It is, however, all quite pointless, water being so ubiquitous. I am lucky for I am sporting my new raincoat. Then the torrent is over as quickly as it has come. You are left feeling a little unfulfilled, the water falling on your “impermeable” for such a small piece of time. In the city, the deluge, though a brief refresher (it is hot after all), has “water logged” the traffic. Suddenly a cacophony of horns, of various hews and pitches, begin. You have the tweets, the bleats, the bellows, the screechers, the hand held, the machine driven, the professional, the amateur: it just does not matter – nothing moves: gridlock. For the pedestrian, great fun: you can snub your nose at the taxi who five seconds before refused to take your fare. The distance, he determined, was too short. The taxis in Kolkata regularly refuse to take you if the chauffeur deems the distance to be uneconomical. Fantastically, every car displays a large sign: “No Refusals,” India is the home of anarchy, after all. Kolkata precludes the notion of new and shiny shoes: this state simply does not exist – hence, a plethora of repair/shoeshine men. On virtually every block, there is someone who has plunked himself down, and gone into the trade: quality and competence thus vary profoundly. A friend of mine needed her shoes repaired so we stopped by a shop. As she was repairing her shoes, I felt the need to replace the insoles in “my” shoes: Why? (Next week, we will continue.) The great author poet, animator and political commentator, Dr. Seuss, (Theodor Seuss Geisel, 1904-1991) leaves us with a thought:
five LIFE LESSONS FROM DR. SEUSS
1. Be yourself: “Today you are you, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is ‘youer’ than you.” Be positive!
2. Make the world better: “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”
3. Be like a child and never stop learning: “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn the more places you’ll go.”
4. It is about learning: “So be sure when you step, step with care and great tact. And remember that life’s a great balancing act. And will you succeed: Yes! You will, indeed (98 and ? percent guaranteed)! Kid, you’ll move mountains.”
5. Be positive: “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.”
A closing thought: This week, the world occupied its same chaotic place on our phones and digital screens. There were murders and shootings and bombings and tragedies and conflicts and deaths and disasters and messes: and, and, and, and another and. But: they didn’t happen to me, nor did they probably happen to you. I smelt a rose; I fell in love, I phoned my mom, someone was nice to me, and I kissed someone I loved: probably some of “those” things did happen to you. Which reality is the really real, as the philosophers say? Remember: I only know what I know.
To sum up: This week we spoke about the death wish of our society relative to age. We must learn how to live not how to die.
A truism: We do not need a religious canon to know the difference between right and wrong, morality and immorality: killing is wrong, loving is good.
Just for fun: Willie Nelson / On The Road Again
This week on your thoughtful walk, please remember the last time you fell in love.
Every day look for something magical and beautiful.
Quote: The grand and the not so grand all have a unique and remarkable gift. Their individual obligation is to make their flower, their flower, as beautiful and magnificent as it should be: From actor and philosopher Bill Murray (b. 1950): “Life is not a dress rehearsal.”
Footnotes:
1) Want to age well – how about never retiring?
2) Plastic bags banned in Kolkata
3) There’s one country in the world where the newspaper industry is still thriving