I’m sipping coffee in the local chain coffee place close to the university library, where I most often work, these days. Work is later. For now, I’m just sipping coffee, and listening to the soft murmur of baristas going about their morning stocking and coffee making, and the sounds of the weird eclectic muzak that plays here. The playlist makes no sense to me, and follows no theme or genre, but it does repeat and I’ve become sufficiently familiar with it over a handful of weeks to easily tune it out.
It’s a cold morning. It is, in fact, freezing. Too cold for walking in the dark on an icy trail overhung with branches that were recently rain-sodden and are now freezing – and potentially at risk of breaking and falling to the ground unexpectedly. I’ll walk later, sometime after the sun is up and warming things a bit.
I mindlessly run my fingers through my hair, which only has the result of making the static electricity in my hair very obvious, lifting stray strands and creating an uncomfortable sensation as my fingers tangle in the hair and the static. I carefully un-muss my hair. The combination of dry cold air, layers of sweaters, and all this hair, adds up to quite a bit of static and things clinging here and there, or being shocked when I touch some door knob. Winter. The static is a distraction. It’s not important at all.
Somewhere far away (Davos), millionaires and billionaires are patting themselves on the backs for what awesome human beings they are, while they enjoy expensive luxuries and plan how to make themselves even more prosperous in the future. Does any real-world good ever come out of billionaires and power-seekers cavorting and collaborating in private meetings in luxury hotels, making plans for the many millions who have no direct input to the goings on? I’m asking because I don’t know. I somehow doubt it. It would require a legitimate desire to improve the lives of others alongside a genuine willingness to bear the cost of doing so. I somehow doubt that sort of equity and change minded thinking is commonplace among those who have the means and connections to rate an invitation. A person does not acquire vast wealth with that kind of thinking. They can afford to pretend that they got where they are without help, on their own, without exploiting the good will, effort, and desperation, of others. Am I bitter? Not exactly, I’m just over pretending such things have real value to people living ordinary lives, or that wealth hoarding is any sort of virtue.
…The World Economic Forum probably had a lot of promise as proposed (maybe it still does), but how rich does an individual have to be to comfortably afford annual membership (something like $50k per year) and attendance at the event in Davos each year (another $20k or so, I’ve read)? Just some perspective; a lot of regular people are canceling various subscription services these days because they just can’t afford them, or having to choose between bills and medical care. They won’t be represented at Davos.
I sigh to myself. Greed is probably the human character trait I find most vile – and sadly very common. It’s not personal, though, and billionaires frolicking in Davos have more or less nothing at all to do with me, here, now. I don’t even grudge them a good time on the slopes, or a lovely time catching up with their peers and colleagues over a coffee in some pleasant Swiss cafe. Such events generate a lot of click-bait, sound bites, podcast discussions, and celebrity photos, but beyond that, what does it have to do with me? I chuckle over my coffee, and let my thoughts move on.
I once took a tour that stopped in Switzerland when I was a young soldier stationed in Germany. I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to see some of Europe, then. The modest costs I often complained about (soldiers are not paid well) were so worth it!
…And my thoughts move on…
I contemplate my general good fortune in life, and who I have been, and who I have become over time.
…And on…
I think about times I’ve traveled here or there over the years, sampling cultures in other countries, seeing sights, enjoying a chance to touch history – the Rodin Museum, the Louvre, and the Museum D’Orsay in Paris, Holocaust memorials in Germany and Czechia, an open air market in Mexico, the underground city in Montreal, the deserts of Saudia Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq, the beauty of Azores, the Cotswolds, Bavaria, and around and about all over the US. I’ve been fortunate to see so much of the world.
…And on…
My thoughts shift gears from places to people, and I think of the friends I’ve enjoyed sharing the journey with over the years. Some were lasting friendships that continue, some that were more fleeting moments to connect and share and then move on as paths diverged.
…And on…
It’s a nice morning to let my mind wander. I’m content with that, this morning. There is no reason to hurry through my coffee or wring more out of this fragile vessel than this moment here, now, requires. The clock ticks on. I smile, filling up on gratitude. Life hasn’t been without it’s hazards or challenges. There have been hard times, maybe there will be again. The company we keep on life’s journey probably matters a lot more than where our journey takes us. I sit thinking about that awhile.
The people matter most; how we treat each other is how we treat the world.
Soon it will be time to begin again.
Evening Light 