Blog PostsFriends | Blogfourteen yearsfourteen yearsi don’t know what to think, my mind’s unclear, still. peace in my heart is closer now than at any other time in my life but clarity still eludes me. i’m less healthy now than when i arrived but older, and wiser too. those are the facts as i review having lived in Thailand for fourteen years. friendship, kindness, pride and dignity are the peaceful, life-enhancing themes i associate with Thai people. i never felt that way about the people in any of the other places i lived. we foreigners set great store by the facts we know but life as an expatriate in Thailand has taught me that an entire archive of knowledge and information is no substitute for a deep well of sympathy and understanding. the language barrier is frustrating, but can be overcome by a warm smile and an effort to speak Thai, no matter how many times sounds must be repeated to endow them with the right tones to finally make oneself understood. being here these short fourteen years has influenced and changed my karma forever, any way I look at it. a world of wanta world of wanta world where many have gone without when others held more than they needed has ever been a place of vague promises and false facts. some say we shouldn’t share because that will take away the motivation to succeed from those that haven’t made it (or taken it) yet. they say that sharing what they’ve gotten isn’t fair reward for the hard work, inventiveness and selfish instincts that created a legacy of luxuriance. often, they castigate the poor for the moral failure of not having created success from opportunities that proliferate for all to embrace with hard work. and that those who won’t learn to swim and win races deserve to sink into a sad state of ignominy and endure blame for failure to pass life’s basic tests. i say that those ideas are just attempts to justify greed and selfishness, they have nothing to do with lives of caring and sharing that most people hope for. and that people who need to frame ideas that justify not sharing live illusions of happiness underpinned by fear of losing what they have, and are poor in spirit. and i say that people who are poor in spirit and in fear of loss don’t have a worthy life because, isolated, they are not enriched by the fellowship of sharing. |