March 9

​I promised to give you another reason for my choice of this town for my Time –Out. My own life has been shaped by a journey across cultures. I could not have imagined my present home, or current way of life, when I was growing up near here.

​ I want a moment to stand back from this intercultural journey – to consider what I have gained and what I have lost. I hope to measure this better here, where in the background, all around me are the traces of thousands and millions of journeys that have gone before.
 
Across this part of the world, people have moved from West to East and from East to West, South to North and North to South.

With the interchange of people there has come trade, new technology and new scientific knowledge. There have come different ways of experiencing the world –through the different social organization of nomads, settlers and the settled.
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There also have come different religious beliefs. In the hills, towns and cities of this region, if you look carefully, you can see traces of Zoroastrian worship, Buddhist temples, Nestorian Christianity and caves where perhaps Sufi wanderers and Taoist hermits once lived, as well as the churches and mosques of today.
 
Perhaps there are no insights to be gained. Perhaps I am engaging in a form of ‘New–Age’ self-indulgence, or traditional magical thinking. We shall see.