It's difficult to complain about anything while watching the movie "Gandhi." I can moan about the pain in my side while sitting on my nice cushioned chair, typing on my keyboard, air conditioned coolness flowing past my feet - and then watch a man in only a loincloth sitting on a dirt floor in an open hut, preaching the virtues of making one's own cloth.
I can complain about my imperfect personal relationships and struggles with depressed individuals - and the movie shows Gandhi keeping prolonged fasts to protest violence.
I can wail and moan about my personal long list of imperfections - and then watch a person setting his country's ideals higher than his own safety, his own health, his own life - and bring the British Empire to her knees.
Boy, right now I want to go join the Peace Corps - sit in protest - live a life of non-resistance.
Maybe after my nap.
We are living in a foreign country. -Edmond Jabès, The Book of
Questions Image: Edward S. Curtis, Chaiwa, a Tewa Indian girl with a
butterfly whorl ...
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