Enjoy life more with a little reflection.
Cracked leather from insufficient polishing
It’s almost November; a cool breeze blows. Frail, yellowing leaves flicker on branches; their brethren, dried and curled, toss aimlessly as they roll down the street. I need an escape from this coming cold…India! The red dust of Agra, the spice market of Chennai, the horns of Mumbai, the warm rains of Kerala! But how do you capture an idea, the intoxicating kaleidoscope of sights, sounds smells and tastes, so far away? Yes! Cook with fresh curry leaves! I will find some! I can capture India with a unique taste; how can I capture what values we have?
I put on my shoes; for over twenty years the leather has worn to the shape of my feet. It is not possible to be more comfortable. At least two times they have been rebuilt and resoled. Repaired with natural materials, requiring skill and experience. The photograph, above, reveals my negligence from infrequent polishing: cracks. Pure laziness upon my part, as the polish today is easy to use, whereas the polish used to be hard to apply – although it was longer lasting. My father’s shoes were never cracked; after polishing, he put beeswax on the seams, to lengthen life by impeding water seeping between the layers of the leather. He was used to hard work. As a boy, he would earn money in the cold months by coal-blacking and black-leading men’s bicycles with his bare hands to lessen rust after winter rains. Yes, I am all for better and safer ways of doing things – like stainless steel – but we still admire quality, service, and endurance. Don’t we? Why, then, do we buy cheap, disposable, plastic, uncomfortable shoes? Perhaps we are won over by effective advertising…and our own laziness. Is laziness one of our values?
Wearing my two long-trusted friends[1], I visit an Indian grocery store. It is an exotic world with different spices and foods. I am the only white face in a sea of brown. Upon my entrance, my clumsiness knocks over the Veterans’ display, spilling coins and poppies all over the floor. They rush to help me clean up the mess. These are some of our values! Luckily, it is narrow in the aisle and only I can clean my mess. I then ask for advice for jaggery – that unrefined, unprocessed, un-modern, traditional sugar that has no equal. Helpful hands provide options. I choose a Kolhapuri jaggery. I ask if they have curry leaves – the owner smiles broadly and rushes to the back. A lady appears, all smiles, with a mass of fresh leaves – with advice on how to use, and how dry and save any surplus leaves. These are, I repeat, our values! Kindness, generosity, care, the individual connection between strangers…a sacred trust!
Walking home, carrying enough curry leaves to camouflage me in the Monty Python skit “How not to be seen”[2], I thought of another time I had been overwhelmed with care and kindness. I was staying in Frankfort, the small town that is the capital of Kentucky. The legislature meets for only one or two months of the year. (That, in itself, says mountains when you compare it to the many grasping politicians and lobbyists we see around us). Their greed is selfishness and not one of our values. The restaurants and the bed and breakfast in that small town were staffed by people that didn’t take themselves too seriously. They were human, they were soft. They were kind. They made allowance for that shuffling, obviously mentally handicapped man on the street corner, talking to himself. A waitress took him a cup of coffee. That is one of our values, too. Tolerance, the handmaiden of kindness.
Looking towards the capitol from Frankfort Cemetery, Frankfort, Kentucky
But there was an even more important aspect of Frankfort that I fear has been lost today. In the centre of town is a hill, the best piece of real estate in town. The hill is not for the self-important, the oligarchs, the rich and well-connected. No, it is a cemetery. For Kentucky’s departed. Daniel Boone and his wife Rebecca rest here, with many other notables and the not-so-notables. Now that’s a value we want, surely! Can you imagine current real estate developers and politicians, with their sycophants, having a zoom meeting and saying, “Hey, gals and guys, let’s not make money ourselves, let’s take the best real estate in town, and show respect to our parents and our own descendants, and set an everlasting memorial for our children, by showing what really matters, and make a cemetery to remember we are only standing on the shoulders of those that have gone before us…” Giving back is a virtue we cherish. If only there were more of it.
Oh yes – one more value. Last night was Hallowe’en. I have faith in the future: Two small boys came trick or treating, one was a skeleton and one a banana. I said “Wow, you’re a big banana.” He replied, “I identify as a mango.” I hope you laughed. Aristotle would want you to say that is funny for two reasons. One, the recognition of the incongruity that he is not a mango, or even a banana, but rather a little boy, and two, for that ability to laugh at oneself. Value humour with good taste – be not a boor or buffoon, nor take yourself too seriously. Be nimble-witted; value the golden mean[3], and laugh. The best value of all.
The essence of India: curry leaf and lentil soup
Contributed by Nigel Scotchmer
[1] Classical Greek has not only the singular and the plural, but a special case for the ‘dual’– those things that come in twos – shoes, ears, eyes, hands, etc. Thus, they have an ability to be precise, to be able to show deference and respect for special cases that are dear to all of us, reflecting a society that cares enough to try to be precise. That’s a value. Do we CARE enough to be precise – or “what’s it madder?”
[3] Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, translation by J. A. K. Thomson (London: Penguin, 1976), 1128a.
