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06 September 2009
Growing up a stone's throw from New York City, my path to knowledge and understanding of greatness was very much shaped by what lay on the other side of our infamous bridges and tunnels. The rawness of the city was its own education and the taste of the most experienced and bestest and brightest of everything within a four mile strip was nothing short of its own living breathing university. At the ripe ol' age of 21, I was in university getting my doctorate at NYU in Community Psychology, a step on 'an assembly line towards life success' that had been ingrained in me from my Jewish Jersey suburban roots. I had everything I had always been told I needed in order to be happy, on paper. The reality was quite different and I left this great city in the summer of 2001 with a feeling of emptiness as if I had given up on all of humanity, save perhaps my ego-centered self!
I left to travel the world, participating in an array of sustainable development, backpacking, humanitarian and just plain fun jaunts everywhere from Israel to India, from the westernmost tip of the Arabian sea in Bhuj to the top of the northernmost peaks of the Himalayan region of Ladakh. It was there that I trekked through unchartered regions of the Indo-Tibetan border with Fritjof Capra's Web of Life in tote, where I swam bare in the holy lake of Tsomoriri and it was in these mountains that we ran out of food and somehow made it work. And it was on the long and arduous two day bus ride through the mountains and back to 'civilization' that I was informed of the terrible attacks on the World Trade Center.
That night, all the bus's passengers camped out in tents at the river's edge, still an entire day away from phones, newspapers and any contact with my poor Jewish parents! Our group that night was indicative of what our world today has become: 1 Israeli couple fresh out of the army. 1 elderly Hindu couple, 1 German couple. 1 Dutch women. 1 Swiss guy, 1 gay American woman and me. Collectively, we had one short wave radio, a few blankets and the profound shock shared by all as we gripped to voices of every world leader and spokesperson offering their statement. One person rightfully stated that 'we were now at war, and that it would never end'. Though in hindsight, she was right, I had the exact opposite, raw response to the threat of war and how that night to remember would forever change our world.
We were and are all in this together.
If anyone told me that night that our global condition would have gotten to its current state, I wouldn't have believed them. Had I been foretold that the seed that was planted from that evening would grow into my current business venture, I would have splashed a drink in their face and schooled them on the evil ills of capitalism. Yet today, the intricacies of how governments, people, mobile phones, granny smith apples, foreign policy, business practice and even diaper choice - all make a difference and all connect as part of the greater whole. Rethinking this inconvenient truth and how divided we have been leads me to want to choose to take part in the revitalization of both each other and my own backyards, as it is the heart of the vitality of us all. Moreover, this "us' can and will foster the very change I saw and felt that night when a dozen random strangers huddled in a yurt and collectively prayed for a better world.
And so it is perhaps both the greatest shock and no coincidence that this September 11th, 2009, I have some very special and fitting news. Open Venture Society's two signature events, Green Breakfast Club and Green Supper Club, are proud to announce that they have found venues to call home and will both be held in LEED certified buildings in the World Trade Center neighborhood. Our first Green Breakfast Club event will be held on November 2nd at Mercy Corps' Action Center to end world hunger, a LEED platinum certified building that was built right on the remains of ground zero. Everything that crumbles creates the bed of soil for everything that grows out of it. In 2001, I said Kaddish (mourners prayer) at a chabad in Rishikesh for all that perished on that night to remember. This morning I will never forget and so I say both Kaddish and L'chaim (to life), for now that we all share the common thread that we are all in this together, the healing can truly begin.
But still, like dust, I'll rise. ~ Maya Angelou