Replying to LO30769 --
Dear Organlearners,
Maggie Griffin <mgriffin@unm.edu> wrote:
>I have written only a few times to the list but could not resist
>At's beautiful question about why are we living. At said that
>while he was in the hospital he noticed the compassion of
>some of the health care providers and the fear of some of the
>others. He compared these two attitudes to different rivers.
Greetings dear Maggie,
Of all impressions in that high care unit, the one of two rivers
flowing together, but never mixing, had been the overriding one. In
the one stream care, passion and commitment were abundant while in the
other they were so little that i coiuld not observe them.
The past 24 years at university i have become used to the fact that
these two unmixing streams exist in the world of learning, those
lecturers who live for their students and those who live for their own
search careers. But to see it also in the health world came rather as
a shock to me.
>I can only offer my small insight to such a big question.
>Why are we living--so that we can choose which river
>we want to feed.
I am completely with you in the sense that it is part of the answer. I
have also made (1970) such a choice deliberately in the world of
learning. But as for the world of living, it was somewhat different. I
became aware early in the nineties that i had been feeding the stream
of living rather than the stream of dying. But i cannot remember that
i have made any deliberate choice in the past. Perhaps it was because
i was exploring life (already since my days as a toddler) in all its
diversity too much to think of this question. But should i be forced
in future to make such a choice, i know what i will choose and what i
will have to back it up -- care, passion and commitment.
>So happy for your recovery At. May you continue to heal.
Thank you.
With care and best wishes
--At de Lange <amdelange@postino.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa
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