08/09/2021
There is a whole lot of profound yet simple truth here.
I recently heard a story about an anthropologist who went to live with Inuit in the arctic. He tried to live as they lived, wore the same clothes, ate the same food and slept in the same sort of shelter.
One day he went on a walrus hunt but lacking the requisite hunting skills he returned empty handed. He was left both cold and hungry with no meat to eat or fat to burn to warm his shelter.
Soon an Inuit companion arrived with 600lbs of walrus meat on a sledge to give to him. The anthropologist was extremely thankful and expressed his gratitude to his friend. He would not accept his offer of thanks and as the westerner insisted more and more he became angry at the implication.
"When I have something then I will give it, when I have nothing then I will receive" he explained. We are human beings and we are all one together.
“To offer thanks for this is to set up a transaction that separates you from me. I do not give in order to receive something in return.”
The thought of this ran deep in me, that so much in western culture is based on transactions. That certain actions and thoughts immediately create a debt that must be paid, or an expectation that there is an imbalance at play or even an injustice that can only be made right again by someone repaying a debt.
Somehow our lives are riven with these transactions and there seems to be a clear link between them and causes for dissatisfaction and unhappiness. How mundane events such as not receiving thanks, recognition or simply a wave for letting the driver of a car through in heavy traffic can colour your sense of justice for many moments, even hours afterwards.
I am not talking about being grateful, indeed that is an important principle with which to appreciate life.
No, these transactions range from the very subtle to the obvious and when noticed appear to be everywhere. Each one of them serves to separate us from each other as though we are all individuals without any common purpose.
If it is truly possible to see us all as one then there wouldn't be any need for transactional thankfulness or any requirement to separate you from me. And with that realisation will come true gratefulness.