[brushfoot]

In summary, a wealthy westerner travels the world, asking the poor for favors. He eventually comes to believe that enlightened spirituality rests primarily on gratitude. (One can't imagine why.)

He then proceeds to passive-aggressively browbeat readers who aren't as grateful as he is for the "lucky ticket called being alive."

Has it occurred to him that perhaps it was his ticket that was lucky? It certainly seems luckier than that of the Filipino family who opened their "last can of tinned meat" to feed him, a volitional vagabond.

If there's anything worth reading here, it's the reminder that altruism is more prevalent than individualists sometimes expect. The rest is frankly stomach-turning.

[kashyapc]

Yeah, while the article is beautifully and poetically written (he's a reputed magazine editor after all), it comes across naive to extrapolate his good fortune to "you just have to be open enough to let the miracle happen to you". (I know, I'm simplifying here a bit.)

Obviously, there's some truth to it, but there are many unspoken variables that worked in his favor that he doesn't bother to acknowledge them. Some other comments also touched on it.

I'm not being cynical here. I myself have had incredibly good fortune in experiencing the kindness of strangers, both in the East and the West, and I do my best to reciprocate. But I'm acutely aware of how invisible factors that are not in my control helped facilitate some of the good fortune that came my way. I can't merrily attribute it all to my own "openness to experience"!

KK inhales his own good fortune too deeply.