{"id":49067,"date":"2019-11-08T12:34:38","date_gmt":"2019-11-08T11:34:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unisg.it\/?post_type=the-new-gastronomes&#038;p=49067"},"modified":"2019-11-13T15:27:29","modified_gmt":"2019-11-13T14:27:29","slug":"a-talk-with-satish-kumar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unisg.it\/en\/a-talk-with-satish-kumar\/","title":{"rendered":"A Talk with Satish Kumar: Peace Tea, Non-Violence &#038; Elegant Simplicity"},"content":{"rendered":"<hr \/>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The teacup tinkles<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> gently <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">as it is being set down on the glass table by the gentleman in deep green. Satish Kumar\u2019s apparel looks simple yet elegant, inaudibly embodying everything we are about to discuss.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He really is a phenomenon.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> M<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">aybe it is the two and a half years of peace walk that he conducted with a friend, delivering peace tea to world leaders.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Maybe it is<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> his willingness to meet people and to share his adventure stories about non-violent resistance. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Maybe it\u2019s the balance he gets from writing alongside t<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">he care for his apple trees.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Whatever it is, when we sit down to talk with him over a cup of tea \u2013 <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">he chooses a green kind <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2013 we are glued to his lips. Not because he presents very complicated concepts but because of the contrary. He shines elegant simplicity.<\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"A Talk with Satish Kumar\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xV9bTJPGUwE?rel=0&showinfo=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When he talks, Satish uses a lot of repetitions and a calm voice to engage us in his way of thinking. Listening to him speak evokes a warm and fuzzy kind of feeling that makes you believe that everything is going to be alright, even in a crisis. For those curious, yes, he really transmits the trust, love and optimism he is talking about \u2013 but let us start at the beginning.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Like so many stories in this day and age, ours starts with mentions of Greta Thunberg and Fridays For Future: just a few weeks before the global school strike for climate change on Friday, September 21, the 60-year old American novelist Jonathan Franzen published a long article in <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The New Yorker<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. His message was that the striker\u2019s commitment was meaningless, global warming having already gone too far to stop. One should give up, he concluded. And while hundreds of thousands did not give up on this day \u2013 us included \u2013 Franzen\u2019s article is a far from isolated example. In recent times, it has become increasingly common to express the opinion that one could just as easily give up<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> trying <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">to change politics or society for the better:<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It seems like it<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> has become a kind of intellectual manhood rite to publicly state that one dares to stare straight down into the abyss with rationality as the primary weapon.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Reading these words, you easily understand Greta\u2019s anger. It\u2019s easy to see why, when looking at something existential, we seem so easily drawn to big grandiloquent feelings of despair: our brains love panic! It\u2019s one of the first things we want to speak to Satish Kumar about. He, who publicly stated that realism was \u201can outdated, overplayed and wholly exaggerated concept\u201d, now explains that Greta is acting out of fear and that she, along with most of us, needs to change her way of thinking.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-49069\" src=\"https:\/\/www.unisg.it\/assets\/satish_kumar_photo_quote.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"226\" data-wp-editing=\"1\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unisg.it\/assets\/satish_kumar_photo_quote.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/www.unisg.it\/assets\/satish_kumar_photo_quote-300x68.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.unisg.it\/assets\/satish_kumar_photo_quote-768x174.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.unisg.it\/assets\/satish_kumar_photo_quote-800x181.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.unisg.it\/assets\/satish_kumar_photo_quote-400x90.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: #f09429; font-size: 24px;\">\u201cDespair dissipates energy! So, if you want to have energy to act, you need to be optimistic and hopeful. Activism requires optimism! If you want to change the system, it will need to happen out of love!\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If realism is outdated, where does that leave us? We find ourselves in a space of creativity, where the discourse won\u2019t be about whether we have concrete solutions or not and, where it will be impossible to give up. In the space of creativity, we are not bound to quantify our actions<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. U<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">n-concrete <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">actions<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">do not ask for concrete results and we are free to be artists creating hope.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Satish enco<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">urages us to clean up our lives and dig for the essential, away from consumerism, money and greed. To find time for ourselves, for those moments of <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">tranquility<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in which we stare at a tree, in which we care for one another, in which we share meals: \u201cOuter problems come from inner problems! If minds are polluted and corrupted, so are our environments.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And he advocates for us to become \u201cartists of everyday life\u201d, because \u201cnot every artist is a special kind of person, but every person is a special kind of artist.\u201d Schumacher College, of which he is a cofounder, gives an idea of what that means: students living together in a community, growing their own food and cooking for each other alongside their classes. It's all about a balance of body and mind, physical and intellectual.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-49071\" src=\"https:\/\/www.unisg.it\/assets\/elisabeth_berlinhoff_photo_quote.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"226\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unisg.it\/assets\/elisabeth_berlinhoff_photo_quote.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/www.unisg.it\/assets\/elisabeth_berlinhoff_photo_quote-300x68.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.unisg.it\/assets\/elisabeth_berlinhoff_photo_quote-768x174.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.unisg.it\/assets\/elisabeth_berlinhoff_photo_quote-800x181.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.unisg.it\/assets\/elisabeth_berlinhoff_photo_quote-400x90.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><i style=\"color: #f09429; font-size: 24px;\">\"I have to be honest, during his talk, he made the thought of leaving everything behind and returning to the countryside to work with my hands very appealing. I can see that many in our student community would feel the same way, seeking for a balance in their free time.\"<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The holistic approach within UNISG is mostly focused on academic activities, but there is potential. Doing some quick math, it becomes clear that if 450 students were to spend one hour in the garden each week, we would have eleven full time workers instead of just one and the garden next to our classrooms would flourish right along with us.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And while not everyone might have the time to spend an hour in the garden each day, everyone can become an artist of life, for \u201call of us have imagination! Everything we do becomes a work of art. Art should not be a profession of a small elite, imprisoned in art galleries. Every home and every office should be an art museum!\u201d Satish is right!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Before leaving each other, one last question slips out: \u201cHow do these times make you feel?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-49073\" src=\"https:\/\/www.unisg.it\/assets\/pelle_photo_quote.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"226\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unisg.it\/assets\/pelle_photo_quote.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/www.unisg.it\/assets\/pelle_photo_quote-300x68.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.unisg.it\/assets\/pelle_photo_quote-768x174.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.unisg.it\/assets\/pelle_photo_quote-800x181.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.unisg.it\/assets\/pelle_photo_quote-400x90.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><i style=\"color: #f09429; font-size: 24px;\">\"Again, I think I wanted to have it, I wanted the former Jain monk to break it to me about how climate change is terrifying to him, along with some scary data. But instead, Satish Kumar answers in serenity.\"<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI feel that we are living in a good time and in a time where there are many opportunities to put things right. If everything was proper and perfect then there would be no challenge and challenge make us sharpen our language, our communication, our activism, our everything to be more effective! It is a challenging time and therefore it is a difficult time and therefore it is a good time\u201d.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">All of a sudden it seems simple. During the entire conversation this man has been elegantly changing our minds. Even now, he calmly presents the possibility that we are living in a good time. Satish ends his answer with a metaphor: when a mother gives birth to a baby it is a life-or-death experience but without the labour pain there is no mother and there are no children. And we are going through labour pain in this moment, giving birth to a new society, a new worldview, a new way of life, and that is good.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It might sound insulting for someone to call our university a kindergarten but that is what we wish to call it now. We wish to see Greta Lab and the Friday Forums as the kindergarten of this new worldview that we are collectively in labour pain for, our nursery for teaching one another about how to tackle the challenges and where together we learn how to act of love.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With these thoughts in mind, we finish our cups of tea and say our goodbyes to Satish Kumar, who, in the span of just one hour managed to install some sense of peace in us that before was almost unthinkable. Maybe, we muse on our way home, the tea also played its part.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.unisg.it\/en\/programs-admissions\/master-agroecology-food-sovereignty\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-49079\" src=\"https:\/\/www.unisg.it\/assets\/agroecology_1734x734-1024x433.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"433\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unisg.it\/assets\/agroecology_1734x734-1024x433.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.unisg.it\/assets\/agroecology_1734x734-1024x433-300x127.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.unisg.it\/assets\/agroecology_1734x734-1024x433-768x325.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.unisg.it\/assets\/agroecology_1734x734-1024x433-800x338.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.unisg.it\/assets\/agroecology_1734x734-1024x433-400x169.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>Watch the full conference<\/h3>\n<hr \/>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Satish Kumar Conference: Elegant Simplicity\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/AnDDJieM62k?rel=0&showinfo=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The teacup tinkles gently as it is being set down on the glass table by the gentleman in deep green. Satish Kumar\u2019s apparel looks simple yet elegant, inaudibly embodying everything we are about to discuss. He really is a phenomenon. Maybe it is the two and a half years of peace walk that he conducted [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22331,"featured_media":49066,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","show_related_posts":true,"relatore_articolo_journal":"","autore_articolo_journal":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[260],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-people"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unisg.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unisg.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unisg.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unisg.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22331"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unisg.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49067"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unisg.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49067\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49068,"href":"https:\/\/www.unisg.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49067\/revisions\/49068"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unisg.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unisg.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unisg.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unisg.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}