There is a proverb that says that the best way to judge a man is not by the way he treats his equals, but by the way he treats his inferiors. If you treat your servants or employees badly, it is a poor reflection on you; that the true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.

Indeed we cannot truly assess the size and measure of man, until we can see the effects of his absence after he is gone. I can only believe that this measure can only be told in human terms. The existence of man was not intended for him to be the pillager of natural resources; the polluter of environment; nor the architect of atrocious wars or the creation of meaningless financial empires; nor the purveyor of everything else that is worst and harmful to ourselves but rather that man who’s existence, however fleeting, is of vital significance to others and everything else around him.

In the movie The Bucket List, Carter (Morgan Freeman) makes a very interesting statement: “It’s difficult to understand the sum of a person’s life, some people would tell you it’s measured by the ones left behind, some believe it can be measured in faith, some say by love, other folks say life has no meaning at all……Me, I believe you measure yourself by the people who measure themselves by you.”

Myself I agree with that view and also believe I know a way to check if you are going in that direction: See how many stories you have to tell. With the passing of time you should have more stories to remember, and to tell, about the people you touched with your presence and, most importantly, the people that touched you. A life worth living is a life that gives you many stories to tell.

“A man must travel. On his own, not through stories, images, books or TV. He must travel alone, using his own feet and eyes, to understand what he has. So one day he can plant his trees and appreciate them. He must experience the cold to appreciate the heat. Or the other way around. Feel the distance and lack of shelter to feel well in his own home. A man must travel to break through this arrogance that makes us see the world as we imagine it, not like it really is; and makes us professors and experts of what we never saw, while we should be students, and just go see it.” – Amyr Klink

Sometimes riding around rush hour in the afternoon I look at the driver’s faces… very few are smiling. Quite the opposite. Bad attitudes, driving home in a hurry, kids screaming in the back seat. I don’t want their lives.

Or those that would love to stay longer at the party, that would love to escape for a couple of days, camping or just riding into the sunset…. but they “have” to be at work early in the morning.

Sometimes I want to shake them. Scream through the glass that separates our worlds. I want to rattle the bars that hold them back. But I can’t, and I shouldn’t. It’s not my duty, and it is not my right.

I will not steal from anyone the opportunity to gain his/her own freedom. But oh buy how I wish I met more people like I have been meeting, many from the couch surfing community, that travel and go out and know how the world looks like. How I enjoy talking to those that know there is something more than work and bills and taxes to care for.

So many spend their lives going from work to home to work to home, in an endless cycle, in silent desperation. Ensnarled in obligations with clients and bosses and creditors, while all they would really like to do is… you tell me.

“(…) I would like to repeat the advice I gave you before, in that I think you really should make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing, or been too hesitant to attempt. So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.
(…)
You are wrong if you think Joy emanates only or principally from human relationships. God has placed it all around us. It is in everything and anything we might experience. We just have to have the courage to turn against our habitual lifestyle and engage in unconventional living.
My point is that you do not need me or anyone else around to bring this new kind of light in your life. It is simply waiting out there for you to grasp it, and all you have to do is reach for it. The only person you are fighting is yourself and your stubbornness to engage in new circumstances.”

— Christopher Johnson McCandless a.k.a. “Alex Supertramp” in a letter to acquaintance Ronald A. Franz
— Jon Krakauer (Into the Wild)

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