The Bartender

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So if you see a young bartender, one cold winter night at a little pub in Georgia, don't think to yourself: oh, what a boring life he must live, tending a bar, all day every day. He might be a free spirit from somewhere far, traveling the world by bike for three years, working along the way to pay for the rest of the trip. He might camp by the sea in Turkmenistan, ride in the pouring rain in Viet Nam, and he might cross your path somewhere in the desert, tell you a story, and then disappear slowly, down the silk road, on his way to China. If you see a guy in a suit at the world cup, busy with paperwork before the final match, don't think low of him: heavens, how misfortunate he gotta be, he's busy with bureaucracy at the World Cup! No, he might have traveled wide and far, might have been on a road trip from the tip of Africa to Europe, and he might cross your path one warm afternoon in the hustle of a busy city's streets, tell you a story, and then disappear slowly into the mountains. Then if you were by the ocean one day and you could feel the wind lift up your hair, you might remember that poem: "Who has seen the wind? 
Neither I nor you;
But when the leaves hang trembling, 
The wind is passing through." Then you might think of every story you've heard and every person you've known, you will feel sad, but as the wind is passing through, you remember that those people are still breathing, that their stories will live, within you, within the wind, and then you'll be happy that you have known them, happy that you have lived. 

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