Gerald D'Cunha

“The apple tree never asks the beech how it shall grow , nor the lion how he shall take his prey.” William Blake   C hetna, my dear friend and an old student (some twenty-five years ago), has been living in America for several years. She is a passionate and relentless mountains hiker. She and dozens of her fellow-hikers hike a new mountain every day! And she, also, shares those colourful pictures and videos on FB and Insta everyday… Just watching those pictures, often, makes my head go dizzy! But then, mountains don’t stop calling Chetna and her fellow- hikers… My friend is not tired of the mountains! (Chetna and her fellow-hikers on one of the mountains)   Today, Chetna had messaged me: “I always feel, that I am notorious for over sharing my hiking stories.” I responded: “Chetna, I think, ‘over sharing’ and ‘under sharing’ are subjective terms. Like, in my case, I share my simple writings every day. Some may call it ‘over sharing’. But then, if writing a...

  “A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog… when you are   just as hungry as the dog.” Jack London   T he other day, I was telling three of my young nephews, how,   in my view, ‘sharing’ was one of the best ways to feel good about ourselves in life. I was telling them, that ‘feeling good about ourselves’, also, meant ‘feeling confident’ in life! What, in my view, ‘sharing’ means? Is there something with all of us, that we can share with others? Do we need to ‘possess’ something first, in order to ‘share’ with others? One of my nephews was of the firm belief, that we were able to share only when we possessed enough… I agreed with him, before I could convey what I had in my mind. S haring – call it ‘Giving’ or ‘Charity’ or ‘Empowering’ or ‘Reaching out’ or ‘Touching lives’ whatever, whatever, whatever – comes from the intangible state of our hearts, rather than the tangible state of our possessions. From this paradigm...