I AM BECAUSE YOU ARE!

“I am because you are! You are because we are! A person is a person through others.”  African Ubuntu proverb.
“Quality of Ubuntu gives people resilience, enabling them to survive and emerge still human despite all efforts to dehumanize them.” Desmond Tutu
Ubuntu makes us aware of our responsibility to others, especially to the vulnerable among us. But perhaps more importantly, makes us aware of our responsibility to the world around us, our environment. The understanding that our very existence depends on the nature around us, as we are an undividable part of each other.
As, the American naturalist John Muir said: “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.”
But perhaps it was best said by Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (1788-1805), the German physician, philosopher and poet, in Ode to Freedom – which Ludwig Van Beethoven later used in his 9th symphony; Ode to Joy;
How the magical power of the creator, binds and unites all that man’s selfish practices has divided. And how all mankind can become brothers again and enjoy nature’s bounty together.
Nature, a selfless giver of her goodness, to all her children, deserving or not. As the light of her roaming sun shines on all, giving her kiss and blessing to us all.
Many have tried reminding us of these lessons of nature to no avail.  But as Ubuntu teaches us, indigenous knowledge of the people of the world is valuable and for the future to be tolerable, we must not forget our kinship and our bind to others and the surrounding nature.
Nowhere is this reminder, more applicable than in the practice of medicine.  For despite all our western education, we can find our knowledge inferior to that of the elders of our world.