A Walk in the Snow
By Bill, posted on 01/29/2007
On a winter day in 1985 I was sitting on the floor in New York City's Grand Central Station reading a book. They let you do that at Grand Central. At Port Authority, the bus station, the police would come over and make you stand. But they didn't seem to mind at Grand Central.
A man who was clearly homeless sat next to me. A very large black man. I didn't want him there. He smelled bad.
He asked if he could read my book.
I have a thing about books -- about knowledge -- so I couldn't refuse. I opened the book wider and moved it between us. He tried to grab it but I wouldn't let him explaining that we had to share it.
He held out his other hand clad in two pairs of torn gloves. Said hand was holding three sausages.
"I stole these" he offered, looking at the sausages and then to the grand arch ceiling. "I'm not a thief but I have to eat," he continued. "It's hard out here. Real Hard. But I thank God 'cause most out here got it worse than me."
For years I used this story as an object lesson. I'm not sure what that is but it sounds right. It made me feel good to tell the story. I felt like I had been singled out for an important experience.
But now I realize that I had been missing the point. That man had something very few people possess: Humility.
You cannot have wisdom without humility. Of all the states of being humility is the hardest gained and the easiest lost. Anger and frustration will banish it quickly. Without humility intelligence becomes arrogance and ambition, avarice. Nasty things those.
At one point in my life I had obtained a measure of humility. It's not important how. Some of it has been lost but some remains. I have learned that the more you try to hold on to humility the more it slips away. You can only gain it by discarding other things to make room.
Tonight is another cold winter night. It's about 18 degrees with 6 inches of snow on the ground as I walk out to the chicken coop. Tonight they need both food and water. I call it the double-whammy and it means a lot more trudging in the snow tolerating the unfaltering frigid wind. A triple-whammy is far worse. That's when either the feed bin or the water barrel in the barn are empty. That means a good bit of hauling added to more trudging. If both are empty why then you got yourself a quadruple-whammy. But with a little planning I've been able to avoid those for a few years.
This trip to the coop happens at least twice a day. No choice here. In rain or snow, in sickness or in health, out I go. After over three years I would expect to dread this sojourn -- but I don't (at least not after I get myself out the door).
You see, no matter how my day went, how much money I might have in the bank, how successful my business was that day (or not) I still have to go walk in chicken crap... The exact way humans have been doing for thousands of years.
As I walk back into the warm house there's no way to avoid discarding a few things. A little self-importance perhaps. Maybe a tiny bit of ego.
Yes, it's humbling. I think that's why I like it.
I do have one regret from my experience back in 1985. I wish I had given him my book.
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