But, there are reasons why a back road, with only one lane in each direction, might not have been taken even by Robert Frost. The sight of dead deer is not for the faint of the heart. Traffic, however feeble a trickle that might be, can come to a stop if there is any mishap on the road. Or, even when the traffic moves, it can be at a snail's pace because of farm vehicles, like what happened the other day.
I was about six miles away from the destination when the smooth drive was interrupted by brake lights ahead. And then we crawled at between fifteen and twenty miles per hour. Five miles more and my mind worked out the math of the additional time this stretch would take because of the differential of forty miles an hour. (We will find out how good you are at math.) I tell ya, there is no shortage of materials to keep my mind occupied!
Some of us take life the way it unfolds, and then there are others. The driver in the vehicle that was immediately behind me was one of those others. He (yes, it was a male driver) made clear he wanted to pass me by edging the nose of the vehicle into the other lane and then pulling back because of oncoming traffic. I wondered what he could possibly achieve by passing me when there were at least six other vehicles in between me and the farm vehicle in the lead.
And then, just like that he shot into the other lane and jumped back in immediately in front of me. I hit the brakes. I grabbed my cellphone. And clicked.
It was a long line of vehicles behind me. Nobody was going anywhere until the farm vehicle was off the road and, yet, the impatient driver couldn't be patient.
Thus it was on a hot summer day that I was, yet again, reminded of Rumi:
Inside the Great Mystery that is,Perhaps the driver of that Suburban has never thought what Rumi wants us to reflect on.
we don't really own anything.
What is this competition we feel then,
before we go, one at a time, through the same gate?
If only all of us thought more about that competition in daily life at least during the scheduled calendar dates of a Christian's Sunday, or a Hindu's Ekadasi, or a Muslim's Ramadan.
 |
| Caption at the Source: In this photo taken in Sarajevo on Tuesday, July 15, 2014 a restaurant waitress dressed in traditional clothes of Bosnian Muslims prepares food for iftar |
2 comments:
The month of Ramadan is , alas, not used by most Muslims to contemplate, reflect and pray. If you have been in a Muslim majority country during Ramadan, as I have been a few times, you would see that it is one massive party during the night hours.
By the way, what is wrong with competition. Its one of the fundamental laws of nature. Minus the competitive instinct, you would be sitting around a fire in a cave, my friend.
There is competition, and then there is competition ;)
Here I am, an atheist, who apparently contemplates a lot more about life than do many, many true believers!
Right from when I was young, I have been struck by the wide gulf between the mere observances versus the thinking about the big picture on those designated religious dates. To go with my post, and to add to your not contemplating during Ramadan, we can add the lack of contemplating on life during the "ekadasi" or on a Sunday, or Sabbath ....
BTW, speaking of being a caveman, not thinking about life and the big picture could very well mean that we are in Plato's cave, no? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_Cave)
Post a Comment