I am a Minority - Let's Build a Boat

Let's Build a Boat from VisionQuest Pictures on Vimeo.

I have been slowly digesting the fact that I am a minority, a dot and a jot in the script that is made by the world's powerful institutions. Sometimes it even becomes difficult for me to breathe as I feel crushed like a commuter in the local train. I am in the midst of a surging crowd and yet I feel lonely. No one seems to be interested in my concerns because I don't hold out any rosy promises - no wealth, no power, no fame: not even a good dream. I don't even come across as a beggar whom people can pity on.


I have left the train. As the video above notes - it's confined to the tracks and it has a momentum which is difficult to stop. I have to discover a new land, a new journey, and as Andre Girde exhorts us, I have decided to lose sight of the shore for a very long time. 


I am now in the process of building a boat, a small boat guided only by the winds and the waves of the sea. My soul is the compass. It's not as accurate as the GPS (Global Positioning System) mobile set but it's who I am, denuded of all technology. It's time now to take a call - to feel the wind on my cheeks and the sun beating on my bare back. I have switched off my gadgets and tuned in to the elements; speak to them directly.


But, this is no fairy tale. I still need money to run NEEV - salaries to be paid out and a market in which to sell our products. The challenge is to live this dichotomy; participate in the market and yet not be guided by it. It's a challenge to build the boat of NEEV and invite people to be part of this journey, without a shore in sight. This challenge can only be met with an elevated consciousness. No seminars, workshops and conventions on social entrepreneurship or climate change seem to address this inner compass. The spiritual organizations do it but by creating a nonnegotiable rift between the inner and outer life of man. This, only produces schizophrenia at the least, and spiritual snobbery at worst. 


I believe, as humans, we all still have a consciousness; not pledged to money and bartered in the market. Like me, I am sure there are people who are in search for a sacred future; people who are willing to step out of the train and build a boat. We have a few of them already, at NEEV, who have gathered courage to at least step out and be part of a minority. 


Life in the boat is not easy either. There are a different set of challenges - challenges of listening to each other, of surviving the harsh pressures of market without being harsh on each other, of learning to share extremely limited resources; continuing the journey despite every friend, family member and the market howling at you to join back their fraternity. Security, the apostle of the middle class is sacrificed for the winds and the sea. The challenge is to construct an inner guide map of purpose and meaning which does not hinge on personal pleasure or gain. At the extreme, its about withstanding failure, disdain and ridicule without losing faith in one's vision.

And when you have been through all this, you have to dare to speak out; with full knowledge that your's is the voice of minority, susceptible to be lost in the roar of the marketplace !