It was Adul, the stateless descendant of a Wa ethnic tribal branch once known for headhunting, who played a critical role in the rescue, acting as interpreter for the British divers.
.. Proficient in English, Thai, Burmese, Mandarin and Wa, Adul politely communicated to the British divers his squad’s greatest needs: food and clarity on just how long they had stayed alive.
.. the Wild Boars’ 18-day ordeal came to an end. In a three-day rescue mission, Adul and 12 others were safely extracted from the cave by a team of dozens of divers, doctors and support staff.
.. Located not far from where Thailand, Myanmar and Laos meet in the Golden Triangle
.. The Golden Triangle is a smuggling center, and a sanctuary for members of various ethnic militias that have spent decades pushing for autonomy from a government in Myanmar that routinely represses them.
.. Three of the trapped soccer players, as well as their coach, Ekkapol Chantawong, are stateless ethnic minorities, accustomed to slipping across the border to Myanmar one day and returning for a soccer game in Thailand the next.
.. Their presence undercuts a Thai sense of nationhood that is girded by a triumvirate of institutions: the military, the monarchy and the Buddhist monastery.
.. With the English he used to communicate with the British divers on July 2, Adul was crucial in ensuring the safety of the Wild Boars. He is the top student in his class at the Ban Wiang Phan School in Mae Sai. His academic record and sporting prowess have earned him free tuition and daily lunch.
.. “Stateless children have a fighting spirit that makes them want to excel,” he said. “Adul is the best of the best.”
.. At least 440,000 stateless people live in Thailand, many of whom are victims of Myanmar’s long years of ethnic strife, according to the United Nations refugee agency. Human rights groups say the true number could be as high as 3 million — in a nation of nearly 70 million — even though the Thai government has refused to ratify the United Nations convention guaranteeing rights for refugees.
.. A stateless member of the ethnic Shan minority, Mr. Ekkapol has long experience caring for children. After his parents died in Myanmar when he was a young boy, he entered the Buddhist monkhood in Thailand for nearly a decade, a common option for orphans untethered from financial support.
20-Somethings Embrace Clean Living
Young adults seeking control in uncertain times find their fun in knitting, meditation, vegetables
They drink less alcohol, eat more vegetables, cut back on meat, meditate often, enjoy knitting and make their own pour-over coffee. Meet the “clean lifers,” the young adults who revel in dodging the indulgences of their elders.
.. Many young adults, having grown up during the recession, pursue healthful living as a way to find balance amid the global uncertainty that continues today.
.. So-called clean lifers, typically educated 20- to 29-year-olds, pursue healthy living as a way of asserting control and finding comfort in an unstable world
.. “They feel they can make a difference, and this influences their spending choices,”
.. “This means more saying no: no to alcohol; no to unhealthy habits; no to animal-based products and, increasingly, no to unmeasured or uninformed spending.”
.. In the past people ages 35 to 50 were the biggest users of Calm.com Inc.’s meditation app, but recently those in their 20s have matched them in numbers.
.. “This age group is influenced by their peers, especially on social media, and within that there’s this echo chamber continuously talking about meditation, mindfulness and healthy living,”
.. “Talking about how drunk you got the night before used to be a badge of honor, but this new generation would roll their eyes at that.”
.. Ms. Brown isn’t a vegetarian, but says she likes having the option and lately has asked friends for vegan cookbook recommendations. She visits farmers markets about twice a month for produce and regularly makes her own peanut butter. “It’s nothing too special, but it has less sugar and it tastes a little fresher,” she says.
.. Young adults are in particular need because many of their parents didn’t cook meals from scratch, Mr. Ediger says. “They might not have learned recipes or how to follow recipes.”.. Young adults now use pour-over coffeemakers at twice the rate of the general population and are replacing their electric-drip machines with the simple porcelain devices.. “There’s nothing more minimalist than a pour-over cone on top of a cup with a filter and coffee and pure water poured on top of it,” he says. “It’s a very Zen-like, ritualistic process.”.. Young knitters and crocheters, ages 18 to 34, are learning the craft at about twice the rate of those aged 35 to 54.. Most yarn crafters say it gives them a sense of accomplishment and helps them cope with stress, she says... Young adults seeking to balance indulgence with portion control helped drive sales of Chicago Metallic’s Slice Solutions brownie pan set, which includes dividers to create 18 brownies... “Millennials and Gen Zers have a much greater sense of balance, they’re less guilty about indulgences because they’re better to their bodies every day,” says Mr. Mirabile. “With boomers, we didn’t start working out until things started falling apart.”.. When hanging out with friends, Ms. Desai prefers doing an activity, and has hung her completed artwork in her home. “There’s a sense of accomplishment when you have a good time and you complete something,”Comments:.. Reluctant millennial here. Some of this behavior, as commenters pointed out, is virtue signaling, and I have to roll my eyes at transparently hipster activities like yoga and urban knitting, but other than that, much of this seems healthy and indicative of people who are a lot more conscientious about their lifestyle. Some of this is a reaction to the shallowness of the smartphone-addicted lifestyle.
.. You know, back around the mid-60’s we had a group of young people who were going to ‘change the world’, they protested the Vietnam war, advocated lots of free sex, along with all the other hippie nonsense of the day. Those people are now running many of our universities and businesses. Didn’t work out that great for the rest of us, nor will these twits be of much benefit.
Wonder how they feel about the legalization of weed and other drugs?
.. Consuming less, perhaps, but every bit as self-absorbed as Millennials and Boomers.
Richard Rohr Meditation: Incarnation and Indwelling
The only time Jesus talks about future time is when he tells us not to worry about it (see Matthew 6:25-34). Don’t worry about times and seasons, don’t worry about when God will return, don’t worry about tomorrow.
Thinking about the future keeps us in our heads, far from presence. Jesus talks about the past in terms of forgiving it. Some say forgiveness is central to his whole message. Jesus tells us to hand the past over to the mercy and action of God. We do not need to keep replaying the past, atoning for it, or agonizing about it.
.. Yet, as practitioners of meditation have discovered, the mind can only do two things: replay the past and plan or worry about the future. The mind is always bored in the present. So it must be trained to stop running backward and forward. This is the role of contemplation.
Richard Rohr: The Third Eye
In the early medieval period, two Christian philosophers offered names for three different ways of seeing, and these names had a great influence on scholars and seekers in the Western tradition. Hugh of St. Victor (1078-1141) and Richard of St. Victor (1123-1173) wrote that humanity was given three different sets of eyes, each building on the previous one. The first eye was the eye of the flesh (thought or sight), the second was the eye of reason (meditation or reflection), and the third was the intuitive eye of true understanding (contemplation).
But it’s also a reaction to the Boomer generation, which for the most part is terribly unhealthy (and set an awful example for their progeny.) My parents are both in good shape, but they’re outliers who barely qualify for the Boomer label, anyway (being a teenager at some point in the 60s is a prerequisite.) Growing up around obese, leather-skinned Boomers who make lots of bad decisions (and threw their offspring under the Debt Bus) has a way of motivating young people toward a better lifestyle.