I was thinking of a friend of mine yesterday and something he told me - about 18 years ago - and I was thinking that if I saw him then he probably would not remember saying that and claim he did not say it. Then today I was outside cooking an egg in my passive solar oven contraption that I created - with my relative - and suddenly my Nepali friend just drives by. We are not on a street - we are off in an HOA - so he was driving to make a delivery. He asked me for directions and suddenly I shouted out his name! hahaha.
Since we had not seen each other in 18 years and I had just been thinking of him yesterday he was shocked that I suddenly called out his name immediately. Amazingly he remembered MY name. (it took him maybe a minute). haha.
So then after he made his delivery to my neighbor then he took the time to stop and visit which was very nice of him considering he was working - so I hope I didn't get him in trouble. (Oh he told my relatives that he's the manager and was just substituting for a delivery driver)...But he shared with me how he has tents set up on the forest to meditate and read - and he was very interested in what I told him about my set up with farming mushrooms as a campsite. And sure enough when I told him what he had told me 18 years ago - he did not remember and I said how that is what I thought he would say. haha.
So then as I told him about - he remembered me talking about the "Chinese guy" and he said how he meditates on his own - and I said how I did too much free healing in the city and I overused my energy. And he said -
"They say that's what Westerners do: Over Do it."
And he laughed. haha. Very true indeed! I am honored that he accurately described me as a Westerner and that he also realizes he is not Westerner - as he was "born and raised in Nepal" as he explained to my relatives.
So then he told me - as we chatted - that one of his favorite books is "The Life of My Choice." - and I had not heard of this book. So I was keen to check it out!!
He said this dude was born in Africa and did not feel at home in Britain and so he traveled in the Middle East, etc. And he's the real deal - not like T.E. Lawrence. haha.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/jun/29/featuresreviews.guardianreview6
So my friend said that his name is the "only one" in Nepal that he knows of and that it's an old Sanskrit name. (I looked it up - it's actually a common name meaning "silent" or "quiet.")
Also I told him to tell my relative how I was kind of famous in the city for my activism. And my friend called me the "Noam Chomsky of Minneapolis." haha. That was a very kind label. Then he joked about Noam Chomsky....
Wilfred Thesiger: The Life of My Choice book - playlist
I read somewhere that the British explorers were like monks (in regards to females) - so not surprising there is no mention of sex. Celibacy is for REAL. Modern materialistic westerners have to assume that celibacy is not a possibility. Quite funny. Celibacy is NOT asexuality - it's the conscious sublimation of neurohormones into brain and brawn power. thanks
A British explorer who famously lived with the Bedouins for five years, Sir Wilfred Thesiger photographed and told the story of Abu Dhabi and its people during the pre-oil era of the mid 20th century. In spite of cultural differences and difficult living conditions, Thesiger lived the life of a true Bedouin to experience the culture first hand, and was embraced as an equal. Known by the locals as Mubarak bin Landan, his writings give a unique account of the life of the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the sheikhs and tribes of Abu Dhabi, and the history of a time that would have otherwise been lost. Over the years he photographed an incredible 35,000 images of Abu Dhabi and the surrounding areas, including those of the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan. Thesiger crossed the Empty Quarter twice in his life, in 1946 and 1948. Thesiger's celebrated works include: Crossing the Sands (Dedicated to the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan), The Life of the Great Explorer, My Life and Travels, Arabian Sands, and The Last Nomad.
“I shall always remember how often I was humbled by those illiterate herdsmen who possessed, in so much greater measure than I, generosity and courage, endurance, patience, and lighthearted gallantry. Among no other people have I ever felt the same sense of personal inferiority."
"god, you must be a couple of pansies!" is but one of several superb thesigerisms.
He was admonishing Eric Newby and companion for inflating air-mattresses to sleep on. He referred to them as "Pansies". Eric Newby and his companion who were on the receiving end of Thesigers comments. Read the book by Eric Newby 'A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush'. The exchange occurs towards the end.
In 1953, my grandfather accompanied Sir Wilfred Thesiger on his expedition in Northern Pakistan. They trekked from Hunza valley to the eastern reaches of the Hindu Kush mountains. Sir Wilfred devoted 3 pages of his memoir "Among the Mountains" to my grandfather.
SIR WILFRED THESIGER, last of the great gentleman adventurers, was, in the words of David Attenborough, 'one of the very few people who in our time could be put on the pedestal of the great explorers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.' Born at the British Legation in 1910 in Addis Ababa, Thesiger spent his early years in Abyssinia. He was educated at Eton and Oxford and in 1930, aged twenty, attended the coronation of Haile Selassie at the Emperor's personal invitation. Throughout his life he journeyed through some of the remotest, most dangerous areas of Africa, the Middle East and Asia, witnessing and photographing fast-changing cultures to great acclaim. His many inspiring travels involved explorations in Ethiopia, wartime service with the SOE and the SAS, crossings of the Empty Quarter of Arabia, sojourns in the Iraqi marshes and many loyal and sometimes turbulent friendships. During the 1960s he travelled extensively in East Africa, and from 1978 he spent the greater part of each year living among the pastoral Samburu in Kenya, until retiring to England in 1994. He was knighted in 1995 and died in 2003, aged ninety-three. His books, including Arabian Sands (1959) and The Marsh Arabs (1964), have been hailed as classics of modern travel writing. Published to coincide with the centenary of Wilfred Thesiger's birth and a major exhibition at the Pitt Rivers Museum, this book is a moving celebration of Thesiger's enduring relationship with the African continent, and his fascination with its peoples and landscapes. Containing around two hundred photographs from Thesiger's personal archive, many of them previously unpublished, these essays explore and evaluate his lifetime of exploration and travel in Africa, as well as, for the first time, his photographic practice and its legacy as a museum collection.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p009mx06
https://web.prm.ox.ac.uk/thesiger/index.php/thesigers-albums.html
Cool - my old acquaintance lives in the cooperative housing!
No comments:
Post a Comment