Located atop the Himalayas, between the two giants, China and India, Bhutan is the roof of the world at 23,000 feet above sea level. Owing to its geography, it has remained isolated through the centuries, with few foreign incursions from its neighbor, India. Even today, the government, a monarchy, has restricted tourists to a few. It was only in 1999 when the government open its doors to televisions.
In isolation, Bhutan has truly evolved from its antiquities to the present. It is rich in cultural traditions, which are uniquely their. Its people are mainly Buddhists , a religion which teaches moderation. It is freed from the material excesses of the modern times, and the woes that these excesses bring. Its people are deeply grounded with the place they come to know, the mountain peaks, which they have the highest, the green, virginal forest, and the fresh air they breathe. It is a Shangri-la for the environmentalists.
Bhutan is the only country that measures its wealth not by the traditional gross national product but by the GNH, or gross national happiness. Material wealth is never an end, it is only the means. The true wealth of nation lies in content and happy people and not by the dollar reserves, nor by the favorable figures of the national balance sheets.
Flashback centuries ago when we have not yet invented machines capable of mass production, when factories were unheard of. We had people dependent on subsistence agriculture, animal husbandry , and crude mining. There was no electricity so the family gathered around a source of light, a candle or a lamp, and the elders told stories to the young, and together, they weaved their dreams, as a family and as a community. In a setting devoid of the luxuries of modern living, when what we presently have were yet inexistent, can you conclude that they were less content and happy than us?
In order to attain material wealth and luxuries, we have to mass produce. Bulldozers and tractors, and not hands toiled the lands, leveling valleys, if not mountains; the fishes we eat have traces of mercury; and even for the vegetarians, the veggies they eat are laced with pesticides. Our mode of travel has graduated from human or animal feet to jets and ships and V6 engines that spew black air for us to inhale. We have even cut-open mountains to put up the road networks.
In mass producing, we have unwittingly destroyed the mother earth. To attain material abundance and luxuries, the mountains have to go bald, the genes have to be altered, the corrals destroyed, and the canopy above us pockmarked causing global warming which in turn causes the insanity of our weather system when winter becomes less cold, and the summer hotter, and in other areas, just like here in the Philippines, a dry spell during the usual typhoon months.
We are like fetuses that destroy the womb that sustain life. Do you expect then the fetuses to survive?
What has the material abundance brought us? Millions have died in Africa and parts of Asia due to hunger. People with emaciated bodies die, yet in rich countries, people die of obesity. The tragedy of it all is that the dogs in the United States have more food and nourishment than the rest of the poor people in the Third World.
Yet, despite their comparative material want, self-inflicted death is unheard of in Bhutan, unlike, say in Japan, and South Korea, when material abundance has not stopped the rising suicide rates. Daniel Kahneman, the 2002 Novel Laureate, in his study, concluded that happiness has no direct link with material abundance. People can be rich but their inner core is hungry, and empty. Of course, we are not saying here that a person who cannot eat three decent meals a day is happier than those who do. Simply, the study reveals that your material wealth does not necessarily translate to happiness and satisfaction.
The search for happiness lies deep inside. When you find meaning in what you do, and can relate to a purpose higher than your self, then you realize your significance on earth. Then you have a meaning, a reason to live for. You then cease to be a driftwood in the sea of humanity.
If happiness is not attained by trade surpluses and dollar reserves, then the premise of governance must be re-drawn. Instead of amassing wealth by exploiting poor countries, the rich nations must look into the total wellness of the citizens, instead of the gross national product, the true index must be highlighted, the gross national happiness. Happiness mind you cannot be attained with the guilty conscience. If a nation attains material affluence by exploiting the poor nations, you have there a national stigma. There is bound to be a reaction from the exploited nations. Terrorism is borne out of the collective injustice perpetrated by the exploiting countries. Poor nations do not beg for a share of the wealth. Their only plea is that the exploitation of their resources cease. Unless this is done, there can be no peace on earth. Citizens of the rich countries cannot be truly amidst fear terror attacks.
Now let us have a reality check. Can we playback father time and choose to live when we have not yet caused the depredations of the earth? Or can we stop right now, and then re-chart our course in history my caring for nature, by becoming Bhutan, by all being Shangri-la again?
Whatever your course of action, think of the fetus in the womb of the mother. If the fetus will cause havoc in the womb, the latter has its natural re-action, almost instinctual, that is, to remove the fetus on its womb by premature delivery. Think of the earth. If we keep destroying it, is has the awesome powers to erase us in the face of the earth, by floods, earthquakes, tornados, tsunamis, droughts. Mother earth too, can be brutally instinctual.
