I woke up this morning before 6, spending another thirty
minutes or so awake, but not so awake as to actually get out of bed. As is always
the case during my first few days acclimatizing at high altitude, I have woken
up, like clockwork, on an hourly basis during the night. The first time this
happened, way back in the fall of 2008, I was a little bit freaked out. Now it’s
just become part of the process. It should go away in a few days. Funny, how
this blog so often delves into the most tedious matters of my biological
wellbeing…anyways, it is my third time in Ladakh, and I find myself finally acknowledging
that which I knew was fast approaching, but refused to see. Ladakh is beginning
to lose its luster. Actually, I take that back. I have barely even scratched the
surface of Ladakh’s beauty and culture, there is so much more to experience, so
much more to see. On the other hand, Leh, Ladakh’s capital, and its surrounding
environs have become, dare I say, familiar. Don’t get me wrong, I still love
Leh, but as I begin round three of my misadventures here, it is now obvious
that a great deal of this city’s almost frightening majesty has evaporated as
its familiarity has grown.
This is
only natural, but I have never wanted to admit to it. Part of the reason I have
become so enthralled by India, and Ladakh, and Nepal, and the hinterlands of
Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism stems from their oriental splendor (I can see my
professors cringing now). When I first encountered India, and Ladakh shortly
thereafter, it was foreign, exotic, and frightening. My senses were bombarded
by a million new sights and sounds. As I endured new lows of suffering, I was
also propelled to new heights of joy and fulfillment. There was a lot of crying
and a lot of laughter, all of it pure and resplendent. I have clung to these
first experiences, and in doing so, as the Buddha cautioned, I have only
brought suffering upon myself and in some cases, those around me.
Let me now attempt to bring this
back to my present quandaries concerning my existential relationship with Leh. My
first experiences in India, and the lengthy (and ongoing) soul-searching that
followed have led me to at least two conclusions: the first is that I am a Buddhist;
the second is that deep down I am a nomad, a pioneer. I am desperately in
search of that feeling of unfamiliarity and excitement. I long to climb new
mountains, travel new roads, wade through new rivers, meet new people (clichéd),
and face new demons. The notion of spending the rest of my life in a single
context is absolutely terrifying. I know why this is, and why, if I am ever to
be more than a Buddhist in name only, I must confront and ultimately liberate
myself from such fears. This world is but an illusion, an infinite flux of
causes and constituents devoid of permanence or inherent meaning. No wonder
then that as I familiarize myself with the illusion, and Ladakh is part of this
illusion, the uncomfortable truth reveals itself: my desperate need for new
experiences is only a stop-gap measure, a means of finding temporary happiness
on the long and arduous road to the state beyond suffering, nirvana. I didn’t
mean for this to turn so negative, but I guess it fits, giving my uncomfortable
realization.
On an unrelated note, I told myself
that this time in Ladakh, I am not going to get so frustrated by tourists. Israelis,
the French, whoever, let them go about their experience as I go about mine. Now
I told myself this, and have been pretty open minded and non-judgmental over
the last couple of days, but just now, as I sit in my good friend Namgial’s
coffee house, I again find myself quite pissed off at my tourist kin. A white
male, early-mid 50’s, Italian by the sound of his accent comes up to the counter;
his tone is dismissive, as is his body language. It is obvious that he suffers
from old Europe syndrome, and that these archaic, uncivilized people are
beneath him. He begins complaining that he has not received his coffee, some
weird chimerical half Americano, half Macchiato, but in a certain type of cup
with a side of espresso. He badgers Namgial’s employee, a very nice young
Ladakhi woman who is less than five feet tall and cannot weigh more than 90 lbs
soaking wet, “Where is my coffee? Twenty minutes ago I ordered a coffee, what
is taking so long? It does not take twenty minutes to make a coffee. This is
ridiculous!” Having sufficiently swung his dick around, he goes back outside to
smoke a cigarette. I don’t know how long it actually took to get his coffee. I don’t
think it was twenty minutes, but it doesn’t really matter. Besides simply being
an asshole to this very nice lady, Steve Job’s Italian doppelganger needs to
pull his head out if his ass and look around. He is in India, in a trans-Himalayan
cold desert. That he can even get coffee here is a miracle (and also a curse)
of industrialized civilization. If he can’t wait twenty minutes to get his
coffee, because he is clearly so busy on his vacation, he should have went somewhere
with a Starbucks. But that too, would no doubt be beneath him. Tourists aren’t
dicks, some dicks are just tourists.
Okay, with that out of my system I
can get on with my life and you can get on with ours.
- Doug B.
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