Out of Pod Experience

Here's a place to tell about good, not-so-good, or at least memorable people you've met along the way. I'll start with John K, a life maestro....

"Well, I was the president of the uni art club, and we'd scheduled a party in an old stone barn outside of London. Eric Burden & the Animals were supposed to play, but they cancelled. I was stuck, but the promoter recommend an alternative, The Pink Floyd Sound. Nobody had heard of them then, but we were stuck, we'd already paid.

So everybody road the train and came to the barn, and were having a good time, but after while they were milling around and waiting for the band. So I went upstairs to the loft, and said, 'Guys, everybody's waiting, can you play now?' But they were all lying on the floor, stoned on opium or, you know. I had to keep at it to make them get up. But eventually they did, and when they did, it just blew the art club away. 'Set the Controls to the Heart of the Sun,' everyone was just stunned. It was fantastic."

-John K., fine artist, ink stiple illustrator of the official London Kew Gardens catalog of plants, set designer producer of theatrical productions for disabled people, smooth waltzer, master costumer, all-around brilliant eccentric gnome-like guy. I may have to post some more John K. stories

TL:DR One moment can change your life.

This is going to be rather long so please bear with me here.

Many many moons ago when i was in the navy, we were scheduled to go to Visakhapatnam and Madras in India as part of a 4 month deployment.

Back then when we would go to a port we would have some of our currency exchanged via our ship for a better rate. But this time,hours after we had arrived in Madras, our currency on the boat still had not yet been exchanged. So we were kinda stuck. My friend and i wandered around Madras on foot and broke until we came across a Taxi driver we ended up nicknaming "Smiling Jack" because he only had 3 teeth. He drove an immaculate old black Taxi with the license plate 2345. (Yeah, i still remember it like it was yesterday).

Well, after a bit of conversation, Jack decided to drive us around. When we told him we had no money yet he told us the he would meet us here and to just pay him tomorrow. (Couldn't believe he was going to trust us right?) So he ends up taking us around the highlights of Madras and drops us off back at our ship that afternoon.

Next morning our money has been exchanged and as we head ashore, sure enough, there is Smiling Jack. So we end up paying him what we all agreed and i think the equivalent of say $10 our currency. So nothing much right? Anyway, he then offers to take us all around Madras, places we never would have seen. So whatever we did, we made sure he got to do as well. If we got a haircut, we got him one too. If we had a meal, we made sure he got fed as well. (Some restaurants wouldn't let him in so we made them go to him in his taxi and deliver the meal there. If we bought an item, we got him something too. It was awesome. He took us to the best places to buy a nice rug and all these other back-alley places a tourist would never know about. He was laughing, we were laughing, we had the best time with this guy. A genuine, unassuming and pleasant fellow.

At the end of a very long day we asked him if we could meet his family, because he talked about them a lot.. So he figured why not and headed out that way. We pulled up next to a mud and straw shack on the side of the road with one power cable running from a pole down through his thatch roof and a sheet for a door. My friend and i got out and approached. As he stood there holding the sheet back we could see the state of the place. Old aluminum pots, crappy chairs, threadbare rugs on a dirt floor and generally stuff we would throw away in the first world.

But let me tell you something right now..........................The PRIDE on that man's face when he smiled and said "Welcome to my home, this is my family." I felt like i was physically slapped. It was a moment in my life that has stayed with me for over 20 years and i have no doubt will be there forever more. I never felt more small, arrogant, stupid, self-absorbed and just plain sick to my own stomach. You see, all that long deployment all i could think about was getting back and playing with the new cell phone i was getting and the brand new 6 head Hi-Fi VCR i had won in a raffle days before my deployment.

This guy had nothing, literally nothing bar the basic staples of life. But the pride, the PRIDE in what he had in his home and his family has stuck with me for the rest of my life. It was then i realized that i never had it so good. I had free food, free accommodation, free medical, dental and trips around the world. I had an apartment, car, motorcycle, great pay and all these other things at home to go back to.

Anyway, after staying for a while and even having a meal, we needed to head back for duty later that night. After he took us back and we asked him how much we owed him, he told us nothing. NOTHING!?!??!??! Wtf? He told us that he enjoyed the day immensely and thanked us for feeding him and the little things we got for him. He then shook our hands warmly, wished us the best, got in his cab and drove away. My friend and i stood there like a pair of stunned idiots.

Next afternoon after we got up i found my friend and we both looked at each other, "Yeah, i didn't sleep much either"....was pretty much the expression we both wore. Our ship was leaving that evening and we decided to go and find Jack.

It took us 2 hours of waiting at the taxi stand we originally saw him at. But when he saw us his smile was infectious. My friend and i took out rolls of 1000 Rupee notes and handed it all to him. The money to us was nothing, nothing at all. We were at sea for 2 weeks and when we went ashore again we had another big pay coming anyway. But to him it was everything and you should have seen his face. The look of sheer confusion and his incredulous expression at the rolls of Rupee notes we placed in his hand. He was genuinely speechless and you could see tears running down his face and his hands were shaking so much. He said he couldn't take this, he just couldn't. But we made sure he did and i told him this.

"There is no way i can repay you for the gift that you gave me. I hope this helps you and your family."

He taught me not to take what i had for granted, to stop constantly seeking more and more for the sake of more and more. I wasn't happy, even with everything i had in my life. My attitude dramatically changed that day and i looked at everything in my life with a new light.

His actions in his life spoke more deeply to me than anyone ever could.

He was the kindest man i ever met and he radically changed the way i looked at life. I'll never forget him.

There are circles on the internet in which men are advised that travelling in this world can be the most enlightening thing you can do, and it's a cure for the kind of solipsistic narcissism that infests and sickens western society.