Who created this artifact? Man? Woman? Several People? What purpose did it serve? How many generations lived and died before this artifact was discovered? Did they have complex language skills? Who found the artifact, or was it looted from a grave or washed downriver? Who steered it into the museum’s collection so that I could one day admire and study it? (Watercolor Study — Artifact from Museo Bahia de Caraquez/Ecuador)
“Strange is our situation here upon earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to a divine purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: That we are here for the sake of others…for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy. Many times a day, I realize how much my outer and inner life is built upon the labors of people, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received and am still receiving.”
― Albert Einstein, Living Philosophies
This quote from Einstein’s Living Philosophies prompted me to pause and consider my life, the lives of my friends and loved ones and the casual strangers we meet each day. I pondered every man-made article ‘built upon the labors of people both living and dead’ in the room around me. I wondered about the nameless people that affected my particular point in life at this very moment. Who whacked the bamboo that now serves as the walls of this cabanya? Was the hard work of construction mixed with sweat and shared laughter as the workers saw the vision take form?
Working hard or hardly working?!
