I used to assume that the direction of ‘progress’ was somehow inevitable, not to be questioned. I passively accepted a new road through the middle of the park, a steel-and-glass bank where a 200 year old church had stood…and the fact that life seemed to get harder and faster with each day. I do not anymore. In Ladakh I have learned that there is more than one path into the future and I have had the privilege to witness another, saner, way of life – a ptter of existence based on the coevolution between human being and the earth…
I have seen that community and a close relationship with the land can enrich human life beyond all comparison with the material wealth or technological sophistication. I have learned that another way is possible… It may seem absurd to believe that a “primitive” culture in the Himalaya has anything to teach our industrialized society. But our search for a future that works keeps spiraling back to an ancient connection between ourselves and the earth, an interconnectedness that ancient cultures have never abandoned. Ancient Futures by Helena Norberg-HodgeFrom Three Cups of Tea by by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin