Stop petting the dolphins

 To the east where there is sunshine

The Mind must turn for the beginning

of the World, in which only love matters

A couple of lines from a poem by Chandran Nair, a poem written by a man who has worked for the World Economic Forum and UNESCO.  Someone who wants to be part of 'saving the world' maybe?  The lines of the poem is written to his wife.

But I am not exploring his life, it is an article written by him in Resurgence - The 'awe industry'  it is about us and our need to explore the world.  Have you never thought it is rather selfish to go exploring the 'wild' wandering through the realms of other creatures as if the land was set out for our pleasure.

Our Western society does it, we have become rich on the back of our colonist past, we can  afford to holiday, to safari, to munro mountains, to wild swim in rivers and lochs.  We become tourists to the far reachings of the Earth, we visit the North and South Poles and pat ourselves on the back for being so brave.  Yet in our wake we strew our rubbish and pollution from the mechanical transport we use.

Some time ago I read a story of how a Norwegian climber had walked past a dying Sherpa on K2.  It was videoed by another two climbers and whether she did do as claimed is anyone's judgement.

But mountain climbing the large Himalayan mountains for some sort of plaudit belongs to the rich, the locals are there to carry the luggage and oxygen people need to brave the summit.  Also we are not prepared to call these mountains by their real names but foist on them our Western names.  

Snowdon has just been renamed in the language of it's Welsh inheritance, Yr Ywddfa, a taking back.  Did you know that Mount Everest is called Sagarmatha/Chomolunga.  True, difficult to say but it belongs to its people, it is not a tourist spot.

I have been in love with the Tibetan culture, or at least the stories that I have read.  I imagine the cold air of the plateaus, the tinkling of the Tibetan prayer wheels as they turn.  Perhaps Tibetan people need  modernity it is not for me to judge but the harshness of Chinese

colonialism reminds us that our culture had the same effect on the countries we 'conquered'

Humans change the world, at the moment disastrously, we are called to slow down our activities in the wake of climate change.  Technology did that the other day when airports were brought to a sudden halt by the computer programme outage.  So a lot of cross and grumbly people demanding compensation probably for the 'outrage' they endured!

I suspect that what I have just written will make some people angry and yet it has to be said in the end, we have to change become less self serving  and learn the word humble.

Mount Kailash