"The question that we ask ourselves is, what protects you? What protects you in this world from sadness and from the loss of an ability to do something? For me, what protects me...is work and love. And I think that those two things cover pretty much every single thing. Because what you do, who you love, what you love, and what you do with your time is really the only question that you have to answer." –Illustrator Maira Kalman
Whisky in hand, like every retired Indian army officer, given to ruminating over history, theology and philosophy calculated to somehow educate his philistine children, my father repeated a story about Buddha (or the "enlightened one"), who was born in the Himalayas around 400 BC.
It was a dimly remembered story but I was glad to hear it again. Buddha, named Siddhartha, was born a prince, into nobility. His father King Suddhodana and his mother Queen Maha Maya, a Koliyan princess, had three palaces built for him. When Siddhartha was a child, a sage prophesied that Buddha would be an ascetic who would live like a beggar, with no possessions, and spread peace and harmony wherever he went. The king, his father, grooming Siddhartha to be a great king, was horrified at the idea. With an abundance of caution he married him off at 16 and shielded him from religious teachings and knowledge of human suffering.
At 29, Siddhartha was allowed to meet his subjects with his trusted charioteer. On the first day, Siddhartha saw a very old bent man, shuffling along slowly. He was shocked, having only been exposed to vigorous, young, beautiful people his whole life. The charioteer told Siddhartha that all people grew old. The next day they encountered a diseased man, and his charioteer told him that everyone gets ill at some time or another. On the third, day Siddhartha saw a decaying corpse. He learned that everyone dies. Everyone decomposes eventually.