doing our job is decency
faith in today, Flaubert, art of travel, and acting from a place of knowledge
Dear Reader,
Thank you for joining me. I hope you have had a great start to the year.
The year started with joy, celebration, a lot of street food, buying what we enjoy the most — a rainbow of fruits and vegetables, wandering around in the open pastures that are bronze now in the dry months, sitting in the sun on the grass playing cards and shooing cows away, stopping for coffee at a cafe but having cold lemon ice tea instead, burning coal in a small aluminium pan in the balcony not only to keep us warm but just for the cosiness that comes from natural fire, observing the rural life here in the state of West Bengal in the east of India, and then settling into the routine of reading, writing, and being — from which I was never so away from.
One of the greatest highlights and joys of the year has been celebrating five years with my partner. We almost repeated the new-year routines and let a little more sun into our lives. When I look at our past pictures, all I see is a wonder for the world, laughter, food, and adventures amidst so much that must have been painful, for it takes a lot for two human beings to assimilate each other, to brew together. Our will to want to go on sums up all the good and the hard.
With all the happiness, things did become a little tremulous recently. Just one of the trivial externals were the tenants in our building, here in Siliguri where we have been for a month and a half, stealing clips from our clothes drying on the terrace despite being told and our clothes falling and fluttering in the wind (and dog and cat droppings).
When there is an external stir — which is probably the one constant in all our lives, whether we travel or stay put at one place, I do draw strength from this Tamil poetry,
Bear with patience transgressions of others, To forget it is even better. பொறுத்த லிறப்பினை யென்றும் மதனை மறத்த லதனின்று நன்று. sacred Tamil verse from this treasure of Old Tamil Poetry
When things get too hard — which they do often — because of our obsession over the past, turmoils of today, and worries about the future — I give in even more hours to reading than I usually do. There is nothing as mind-calming, soul-cleansing, and pleasurable as reading a good book or an article.
Or I walk out in the sun to be between the trees. And when I can’t, I tell myself,
Lucky are those who don’t have time to feel the grass under their feet because they are busy toiling. Great things come out of deliberate hard work.
But when will that success come, you ask? When it has to come it will come. It may not be in our lifetime. But won’t we be happy knowing we tried our best? That we gave it all?
The world has been evolving for billions of years, and we all contribute to its evolution uniquely. We may go without knowing what fruit might our hard work bear, but someone else will harvest what we sow while we will have to be okay with the pleasure of doing, seeing the sweat drip from our foreheads, and still smiling as we keep ploughing on.
Doing our job is decency. — Albert Camus
We are not losing anything, for a few are fortunate enough to have a purpose to go on whether the sun shines upon them or darkness threatens to swallow them whole. Then whether it is freezing, scorching, or pouring, we have something to depend on, to be with.
When I feel lonely, I write, I work, I do.
And even darkness stops a few feet away from those who face it with all the strength and courage they can summon upon. With no resentment for the past, but good faith in today.
Do you believe in the strength of today?
“What though the radiance which was once so bright Be now for ever taken from my sight, Though nothing can bring back the hour Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower; We will grieve not, rather find Strength in what remains behind." - William Wordsworth
For this week’s letter,
Some of my writing,
quotes I love,
things to read,
things to watch,
and
travel tips.
Latest Articles From the Week
Lessons Learned in 2022
We can run as fast as we like but life catches up with us. It’s always right there. Running behind. Chasing us. It’s a race we cannot win. For we are life itself, and she is us. One of the learnings from 2022.
Find the rest of the lessons now. Or Pocket to savor them later.
Quotes I Love
“I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't trust you.” Friedrich Nietzsche
“I can't believe that man's body composed as it is of mud and shit and equipped with instincts lower than those of the pig or the crab louse, contains anything pure and immaterial.” — Gustave Flaubert
Which Alain de Botton explains as, “Central to Flaubert's philosophy was the belief that humans were not simply spiritual creatures but also pissing and shitting ones, and that we should integrate the ramifications of this blunt idea into our view of the world.”
“Success is the child of drudgery and perseverance. It cannot be coaxed or bribed; pay the price and it is yours.” Orison Swett Marden
“The work of writers, I say, has much in common with the work of these Arctic fishermen. The writer has to look for the river, and if he finds it frozen over, he has to drill a hole in the ice. He must have a good deal of patience, weather the cold and the adverse criticism, stand up to ridicule, look for the deep water, cast the proper hook, and after all that work, he pulls out a tiny little fish. So he must fish again, facing the cold, the water, the critic, eventually landing a bigger fish, and another and another.” Pablo Neruda
Let’s not divide the world into hateful people who burn their eyes all-day on computers and those beautiful mindful soulful ones who don’t. As Pirsig said, “There is as much Buddha in a computer as much is on the top of the mountain.”
What I’ve Been Reading
I’ve been reading short stories, books, articles, and so much more. I can’t possibly list all what I have read in the past week so I’m putting down the things I found most relevant and worthwhile.
Beautiful reads from the week,
The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton — An essential book for not only those who travel or want to be encouraged to travel, but also for those who want to “really” see what is already around them, who want to contemplate nature and its abundance, who want to understand what happens to us when we look at a stunning landscape, and are curious to know why we travel. This one book introduced me to many of these above ideas, and also to a variety of classic and lesser-known authors I have already started reading.
Camus on the Coronavirus — Drawing from Camus’s The Plague, a timeless piece by Alain de Botton on why “Suffering is randomly distributed, it makes no sense, it is simply absurd, and that is the kindest thing one can say of it.”
The quality of BEING, in the object’s self, according to its own central idea and purpose, and of growing therefrom and thereto - not criticism by other standards, and adjustments thereto - is the lesson of Nature. Walt Whitman's timeless advice on creating.
It makes me really sad to see that beautiful parts of Peru (that I had the fortune to visit) are suffering through the driest draughts and alpacas are dying and people are worried — Peru Draught Ravages Alpaca, Crops, People. Climate changed a while ago.
Sharing once again — International Travel Guidelines for Indians.
What I’ve Been Watching/Listening
that’s worth mentioning
As promised, a few playlists on Youtube that entertain, rejuvenate, and inspire me, along with the moods in which I listen to them.
Favorite songs from a beautiful movie Begin Again, and many other uplifting songs - Tell Me If You Wanna Go Home
My morning song: Song of the River by Hariprasad Chaurasiya
My night song: Peaceful Piano with Rain by the Soul of the Wind
The Best of Beethoven I tune into when I really want to dance away on life and climb high
Songs that make me feel alive (Most by Tuba Skinny)
Rest, next week
And for all my Wanderlusters.
thinking of all the food I ate while living in a village in the Himalayas some four years ago. It is just above freezing there right now in January.
The villages of Dharamshala city were more international that I could ever imagine them to be. Tourism changes the local culture. It makes locals more aware, equipped, and richer. But mass tourism can make people more business-minded, opportunistic, and impersonal, too. Too many travellers and you can see the whole place full of plastics, every house turned into a hotel, and every plate catered to foreign visitors.
But these problems can be solved - or avoided completely - with the right intention, deliberate choices, and a sustainable and scalable approach right from the beginning.
Preserving a local culture, keeping the environment clean, and making sure that there is more than a transaction between a local and a visitor is not any one person's responsibility. The job is of all of us - those who like to see and those who open their doors for the world.
let's make it happen together by caring, considering, and acting from a place of knowledge that all our actions have everlasting consequences.
Thank you for reading.
I hope you have a great week ahead. Stay strong, serene, and soft-hearted :)
Let me know what you think about this newsletter. Just press reply.
Yours,
Priyanka
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