As I type I am at 34,000 feet, doing 516mph, 902 miles from Montreal above Goose Bay, Labrador. Oh, and it’s -47C outside and sunny for the weather-curious.
I’m in an Executive Class ‘pod’ on an Air Canada Airbus-somethingorother traveling from Paris to Montreal. I just woke up from a nap having consumed the better part of a bottle of Drappier Champagne, a glass of Bordeaux, a glass of port, foie gras, a nice salad that included micro-greens, beef tenderloin, a selection of cheeses, ice cream and chocolates all served course-by-course by smiling, attentive flight attendants. I get hot, moist towelettes regularly. The ‘pod’ part means I have my own compartment with a seat that has seven adjustment buttons. The one marked “zzz” turns it into a flat bed more than long and wide enough for my 6’2” frame. Short of a private jet, travel doesn’t get much more opulent on this planet.
Do I deserve this luxury? Did I work harder for it or possess some special attributes that 99.99% of the world didn’t and doesn’t?
A few weeks back I was in one of the least fortunate parts of Tegucigalpa in Honduras. I visited the hut of a lady nicknamed Conchita. The 12’ by 10’ hut was made of various pieces of scrap metal, wood and some plastic and the floor was uneven dirt. There was a bed that looked about a century old with a mattress that looked like it was from the US Civil War. There were a couple of chairs and a few knick-knacks here and there. I saw no taps and I don’t know where Conchita's toilet was, but my inability to speak Spanish didn’t allow me to figure out the plumbing details. I’m estimating Conchita is in her eighties. She is thin and beautiful with spectacular long white hair. She wore what I am sure is her one and only dress and I can’t remember what, if anything, she wore on her feet. She is cheeky, laughs and cries alternately moment by moment, and asked my host, Alejandra, “who the good looking guy was”. Flirting with me aside, I’m pretty sure she was considered a "hottie" in her day. Not long ago her lifelong husband fell down the steep, twisty, rain-eroded 'path' that leads to their home and spent four months trying to recuperate in the bed. Then he died.
Conchita doesn’t work and has no income, no family and no support from the state. She relies on others for most everything in these, the twilight years of her life. There are free clinics for her to use, but no way to travel to them unless someone from outside the slum offers. It is rare to see any vehicle in her neighbourhood.
What did I do that Conchita didn’t in deciding our fates? Was there a fork in the road where, had we chosen each other’s path, she could be looking down at Goose Bay waiting for her pre-landing snack of grilled chicken and I could be sitting on her bed hungry?
Is there a better way? Though the gap between rich and poor in the world seems to be widening, it is nothing new to our species.
I was recently in Avignon gazing at the magnificent Palais des Papes (Palace of the Popes). It is a massive building, thrown up in the 12th century to house the three sitting popes who had fled Rome. Where similar buildings took a hundred years or more to construct in those days, this one was knocked off in thirty years. Imagine the resources, both backbreaking and financial, to pull something like that off. I’m pretty sure there was an abundance of poverty and hunger surrounding that palace while the church poured resources into housing its three CEOs.
Back to 34,000 ft ….. why me and not Conchita? Near as I can figure, there are three main reasons.
- Luck - I was born into a solidly middle-class Canadian home. I never wanted for anything from that perspective - nutrition, education, love and support, a stable/sensible government.
- Hard work - I chose a trade and applied myself to it, though I have by no means worked any harder than most of the world does.
- Luck - I met and married a very hardworking lady who travels a ton in her work (thus the spin-off Air Canada upgrade to the pod for lowly old me).
Luck, hard work, and luck. Is it right that some of us have so much while a couple of billion don’t? There are plenty of directions we could go on this. From a scientific standpoint, the entire cosmos (including you) is made up of vibrating molecules all linked together. The "one love" Bob Marley sang of means to me that if someone somewhere is hurting, I am hurting. There is the opposite end of the spectrum too. The one that says that not helping others is simply wrong. There is even a religious approach, though why the world's major religions all agree that helping others is good, yet the pope still lives in a palace, is beyond me.
A book landed on my lap recently that explores just this question, and does it very well. In The Eyes Of Anahita, by Calgary author Hugo Bonjean, describes itself as an adventure in search of humanity. Prompted by his son's question of, "Dad, why do people have to pay for food" the book's central character explores impoverished areas of South America in a quest to answer his own riddle of, "Are human beings being human". Bonjean's novel echoes my belief that globalism isn't working if the western world is getting richer at the expense of the third world. I believe there is nothing wrong with wealth per se - some will have talents in-demand and some will work harder than others. I'm no advocate of an across the board wealth redistribution. There will and should always be some natural discrepancy driven by innovators. (Hey ... the USSR failed, right?) But when our wealth actually causes the poverty of others, something is amiss. Bonjean's book contains some great examples of this.
I'm practicing gratitude a little more often since I met Conchita. Though modest by Canadian standards, I live a golden life. And I realize that luck has played a significant role in that happening. In all honesty ..... just how many bad breaks are any of us from not necessarily ending up in Conchita's shoes, but possibly living outdoors like some of our fellow Calgarians do?
