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Showing posts from January, 2019

The Subtle Death of Snow

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I was sitting on my desk on a cold afternoon in Thimphu and everyone was expressing their joys and worries about the potential snowfall that day, -Joy, because it’s snow and nothing about these angelic white crystals is frowned upon by anybody, and worries, for the dangerous icy road that will freeze transportation like a corpse. But I like how it keeps us all stranded in our homes, close to the warmth from all sorts of sources ranging from the fancy electric heaters to our loved ones. The last snowfall was a couple of weeks ago, and it spread joy like it spread millions of pictures on the internet. It’s amazing to see how people celebrate snowfall in ways beyond the pictures they take. For instance, snowfall in our culture promises good harvests and fortunes for the whole year and an omen such as this is taken so seriously that if there was no snowfall, we begin to suspect our fortunes. Also, snow is an important element of the climate cycle that balances the earth’s temperature. ...
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What is Time?

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Just a picture taken two months ago A few years ago, I wrote this article about how confused and how many questions I had before going to college. I was going to start a completely new adventure in my life, travelling more than five hundred kilometers from home, in a sub-tropical climate only to challenge my body that has endured extreme cold but not heat. I was then eighteen, curious and firing with excitement, ready to bring myself out to the world with the teenage motivation. I’d have imagined my college in ten thousand ways and often hoping it not to be less than stairs that opened with passwords and cozy common rooms for study, or a library with deep secrets. I must’ve idealized my college too much but I couldn’t blame because even after reaching the college and seeing what it exactly looked like, or worked, I would secretly hope for something fascinating to happen, at some point. It’s been four years now, and this is my fifth year. And if you ask me, I’m still trying ...
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Kitiphu, an eye to Bumthang

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Kitiphu, at a distance If I were a vulture, I couldn’t possibly have known how high this beautiful mountain touched the sky. Kitiphu is one of the most wonderful ridges I have ever been to. Having Tharpaling monastery, once the seat of Kuenkhen longchen Rabjam, at its feet, this holy mountain stands up to about 7,500 meters above the sea level. I’ve been living in Bumthang ever since I was born but I could make it to Kitiphu only a few weeks ago. Thank god that a reason and a strong determination came up to string some lungdar(prayer flags) on that mountain. The main reason why people go to Kitiphu is to put up prayer flags considering the fact that we gain luck if we do so. I’ve also been told that during the second king’s reign, this mountain used to be a bypass between the then two capitals, Bumthang and Kuenga Rabten(Trongsa). I wonder how people could have been able to walk for days, sleep under trees and cook beside the paths. the mountain ranges we could see from Kitip...
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The Thing about Merit

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There is no such thing as being self-made. I refuse to believe that human beings and anyone for that matter, have any natural capacity to be self-made. Michael Sandel’s “The Tyranny of Merit — What’s Become of the Common Good, ”- is a hard read but had quite an impact on my deeply rooted opinions on, life, basically. The thought of wanting to solve all these misconceptions plagues me to a point where I don’t even put an effort to think. At the risk of sounding like I’ve figured it all out after one book, I put together 2 things I’d like to believe I learned. 1. The irony about self-made people: The concept of ‘self-made’ or self-sufficiency had the heaviest impact on me. What a life-changing experience it was to learn that the more one considers oneself self-made, the harder it is to instill gratitude and humility. And this matters because it is rare to care about the common good without these sentiments. Most of us enjoy the pride we take in the independence we set for ourselves. The ...
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