Long ago, my favorite therapist said to me, "How would you feel if you knew you weren't my favorite client?"
This question about my place in the world came to mind over the past week as I grappled with how to share the immensity of my 12 days in Bhutan.
It took more than 24 hours via jet plane transversing 15 time zones to get there. And yet Wifi, where it worked, connected me in an instant with Facebook followers everywhere.
A sturdy pack of us trekked to a yak pasture at 12,000 feet where we slept lower than the caretaker monk (solitary, except for his cat) in the monastery built into the cliff above us. If we could have transported ourselves in a line through the sky around the globe to our side of the world, we would have been suspended higher than the highest point in our home state of Oregon.
In every ancient high-altitude valley we visited the dzong, thriving medieval fortresses that house the secular and religious seats of power for the surrounding district, and have for over 500 years.
This land-locked Himalayan nation (surrounded by India and Tibet, aka China) with fewer citizens than our smallish American city (counting the suburbs around the people's Republic of Portlandia), has one of the planet's newest democracies (the king insisted on it in 2007 in what's referred to as "a gift from the golden throne"), and the world's fourth fastest growing economy (thanks to hydropower sales to India). They maintain tight controls on tourism to maximize the benefit and minimize the impact of those curious to see Gross National Happiness in action.
We wondered, and worried, about whether our presence would harm our host country. Being granted an audience with the country's new Prime Minister invited delusions of grandeur. He teased the members of our small American foundation that our personal wealth surely exceeded his country's GDP.
That question of significance - were we too much, not enough, or in fact irrelevant? - echoed, for me, in every temple we visited, every patient explanation by our excellent guides of the complexities of Buddhist philosophy, every encounter with the researchers and engineers and civil servants moving the country forward and the shopkeepers and hotel workers and drivers who hosted us.
What my therapist meant, all those years ago, was not that I wasn't special. But that we all are. The drive to be more special - most special, the best! - is at its core an impulse of separation. My therapist knew that despite my drive to excel and to be recognized for being excellent, my deepest desire was connection.
There's nothing like the dislocation of travel - buildings older and altitudes higher than any back home, body clock and wrist watch diametrically opposed - to strip us down to a naked contemplation of who we are, where we belong, and what matters. It can be terrifying to consider our own insignificance. And a profound relief.
I left Bhutan with a new friend and long-distance colleague (meet Tshering Dendup, with me in the slideshow below) and a sense of the world, my world, as a much, much bigger place to which somehow, at the same time, I am more preciously connected.
This question about my place in the world came to mind over the past week as I grappled with how to share the immensity of my 12 days in Bhutan.
It took more than 24 hours via jet plane transversing 15 time zones to get there. And yet Wifi, where it worked, connected me in an instant with Facebook followers everywhere.
A sturdy pack of us trekked to a yak pasture at 12,000 feet where we slept lower than the caretaker monk (solitary, except for his cat) in the monastery built into the cliff above us. If we could have transported ourselves in a line through the sky around the globe to our side of the world, we would have been suspended higher than the highest point in our home state of Oregon.
In every ancient high-altitude valley we visited the dzong, thriving medieval fortresses that house the secular and religious seats of power for the surrounding district, and have for over 500 years.
This land-locked Himalayan nation (surrounded by India and Tibet, aka China) with fewer citizens than our smallish American city (counting the suburbs around the people's Republic of Portlandia), has one of the planet's newest democracies (the king insisted on it in 2007 in what's referred to as "a gift from the golden throne"), and the world's fourth fastest growing economy (thanks to hydropower sales to India). They maintain tight controls on tourism to maximize the benefit and minimize the impact of those curious to see Gross National Happiness in action.
We wondered, and worried, about whether our presence would harm our host country. Being granted an audience with the country's new Prime Minister invited delusions of grandeur. He teased the members of our small American foundation that our personal wealth surely exceeded his country's GDP.
That question of significance - were we too much, not enough, or in fact irrelevant? - echoed, for me, in every temple we visited, every patient explanation by our excellent guides of the complexities of Buddhist philosophy, every encounter with the researchers and engineers and civil servants moving the country forward and the shopkeepers and hotel workers and drivers who hosted us.
What my therapist meant, all those years ago, was not that I wasn't special. But that we all are. The drive to be more special - most special, the best! - is at its core an impulse of separation. My therapist knew that despite my drive to excel and to be recognized for being excellent, my deepest desire was connection.
There's nothing like the dislocation of travel - buildings older and altitudes higher than any back home, body clock and wrist watch diametrically opposed - to strip us down to a naked contemplation of who we are, where we belong, and what matters. It can be terrifying to consider our own insignificance. And a profound relief.
I left Bhutan with a new friend and long-distance colleague (meet Tshering Dendup, with me in the slideshow below) and a sense of the world, my world, as a much, much bigger place to which somehow, at the same time, I am more preciously connected.
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