Apologies…I seem to have done a bad job of ‘cutting and’!!! I meant to say that you put together some essential points that I think are very important and relevant today …..
Enjoy everything and I hope you have got over the ‘business’ of the impact of high altitude on your physical self! I was not too affected by it apart from mild headaches….for a day or two. I’m not sure where you will be going but I was particularly captured by the spell of Hemis Monastery….go well. Thank you for a great piece of work.
It’s really inspiring and you offered me a few great ideas today, as I have coincidentally been thinking for a quite while about BINARIES and how these seem to be emerging even more than ever, as the world - yes, the world - appears to revolve around them, as it battles and resists complexity and complementarity, as it seems here in the West, that ‘singularity’ is under threat, hence the age old notion that we must fight against all things that threaten that particular, god. We have other names for it - fascism, racism and so on.
I know from my own enculturation that there is much more than a tidy simplification to it.
We avoid complexity as a result -and - to the detriment of us all. I like your idea too, that ‘what was lost in translation was not just knowledge but a way of being.’ You go on to say that ‘the colonial habit of BINARY THINKING (my capitals) still exists.
I wonder if you have articulated and identified a particular problem within the West that is less understood than many of us realise?!
You are probably in Ladakh as we read this today. That was a ‘magic switch’ for me as you highlighted a time and place for me, in the late 90s when Leh did not have traffic lights in its small town back then and seemed to be a portal to ‘Shangrilah’. I loved the scent of juniper as I arrived at Leh airport and then everything fell into place! Call me romantic or sentimental…. I don’t mind!
The sense of a thin skin between this world and other worlds was extraordinarily strong and potent. That was some of my biggest impressions from that time of a world, I had just entered. No doubt not quite the same today…but the gompas will be what they always were …..
Thank you very much for a very thoughtful and beautifully written piece. If you have written anything else, I would love to know what it is…..Juley …
You describe that amazing talent I have noted many many times that Indians in particular have, of ‘translanguaging’ - it seems commonplace there but is quite a skill in many ways anywhere else in the world….certainly here in Europe. You use the word ‘complementarity’ and yes, that seems to me to be the KEY……this is a peculiarly or a particularly, Asian ‘thing’ in my experience and yes, this is so true.
Win, your reading is so generous and thoughtful - thank you so much and apologies for the delay in getting back to you. As you know, I'm up in Ladakh right now and wanted to take time to write back.
You've touched on something I've been grappling with: how the West's discomfort with complementarity isn't just philosophical but almost physiological, i.e., the need to resolve contradictions rather than inhabit them feels like an anxiety response that's been institutionalized. And you're right that it's getting worse - every algorithm seems designed to sort us into binaries, every political discourse demands we pick a side.
What struck me about your Leh memories is how place can shift our capacity for complexity. I arrived here last week and already feel it - maybe it's the altitude, maybe it's the Buddhist influence, but the pressure to categorize feels thinner up here.
Juley to you too - and thank you for reading with such attention. These dispatches are my attempt to think through return after years away. Next Wednesday, I'll be writing some reflections from Ladakh. Hope you enjoy those too.
That last line!
Thanks so much Minaz!
Apologies…I seem to have done a bad job of ‘cutting and’!!! I meant to say that you put together some essential points that I think are very important and relevant today …..
Enjoy everything and I hope you have got over the ‘business’ of the impact of high altitude on your physical self! I was not too affected by it apart from mild headaches….for a day or two. I’m not sure where you will be going but I was particularly captured by the spell of Hemis Monastery….go well. Thank you for a great piece of work.
Thank you - I, thankfully, have been fine so far. I stayed at Thiksey the first 5 days and did visit Hemis too. Both are beautiful.
Nishad - I have so enjoyed reading your post.
It’s really inspiring and you offered me a few great ideas today, as I have coincidentally been thinking for a quite while about BINARIES and how these seem to be emerging even more than ever, as the world - yes, the world - appears to revolve around them, as it battles and resists complexity and complementarity, as it seems here in the West, that ‘singularity’ is under threat, hence the age old notion that we must fight against all things that threaten that particular, god. We have other names for it - fascism, racism and so on.
I know from my own enculturation that there is much more than a tidy simplification to it.
We avoid complexity as a result -and - to the detriment of us all. I like your idea too, that ‘what was lost in translation was not just knowledge but a way of being.’ You go on to say that ‘the colonial habit of BINARY THINKING (my capitals) still exists.
I wonder if you have articulated and identified a particular problem within the West that is less understood than many of us realise?!
You are probably in Ladakh as we read this today. That was a ‘magic switch’ for me as you highlighted a time and place for me, in the late 90s when Leh did not have traffic lights in its small town back then and seemed to be a portal to ‘Shangrilah’. I loved the scent of juniper as I arrived at Leh airport and then everything fell into place! Call me romantic or sentimental…. I don’t mind!
The sense of a thin skin between this world and other worlds was extraordinarily strong and potent. That was some of my biggest impressions from that time of a world, I had just entered. No doubt not quite the same today…but the gompas will be what they always were …..
Thank you very much for a very thoughtful and beautifully written piece. If you have written anything else, I would love to know what it is…..Juley …
You describe that amazing talent I have noted many many times that Indians in particular have, of ‘translanguaging’ - it seems commonplace there but is quite a skill in many ways anywhere else in the world….certainly here in Europe. You use the word ‘complementarity’ and yes, that seems to me to be the KEY……this is a peculiarly or a particularly, Asian ‘thing’ in my experience and yes, this is so true.
Complementarity. Trans language and mutuality.
I do get the point that
Win, your reading is so generous and thoughtful - thank you so much and apologies for the delay in getting back to you. As you know, I'm up in Ladakh right now and wanted to take time to write back.
You've touched on something I've been grappling with: how the West's discomfort with complementarity isn't just philosophical but almost physiological, i.e., the need to resolve contradictions rather than inhabit them feels like an anxiety response that's been institutionalized. And you're right that it's getting worse - every algorithm seems designed to sort us into binaries, every political discourse demands we pick a side.
What struck me about your Leh memories is how place can shift our capacity for complexity. I arrived here last week and already feel it - maybe it's the altitude, maybe it's the Buddhist influence, but the pressure to categorize feels thinner up here.
Juley to you too - and thank you for reading with such attention. These dispatches are my attempt to think through return after years away. Next Wednesday, I'll be writing some reflections from Ladakh. Hope you enjoy those too.