23 Nov Koan 28

Posted at 10:15h in Framework, Observations by

You here, long time?

More than 40 years back, I found myself in a NYC taxi. Though the driver didn’t greet me, he didn’t seem unfriendly. As he was dressed in clothes from the Indian subcontinent, I assumed he had recently arrived in the States. To get going a conversation, I asked him in mock pidgin English: “You here, long time?” To which he responded in the King’s English: “I have been here 10 years, but I don’t know if that is long or short.” We then both laughed, sharing an enlightening moment.

Ten years is ten years. Long or short are empty categories, like bottomless buckets; yet we continue trying to fill them to make sense of an otherwise seemingly overwhelming world about us.