Nation of Care Takers

Ever since I received it, I've been thinking about something my brother wrote in a letter and the accompanying gift he sent, a copy of "The Little Prince."  I hope he doesn't mind if I share it;  I feel like it shades so much of what I experience here.  It has made me notice some things and question others in a certain way; but even the questions are still unclear, something which keeps me returning to them and observing more.

He wrote: "I read this [book] because a professor whom I admire quoted it in class.  As I read it I thought often of you.  The quote the professor used was, 'Always remember you're responsible forever for what you have tamed.'  From reading your blog I imagine this idea can be applied to the people of Japan.  From your descriptions it reminds me of a nation of care takers.  I write with sincere respect."

A nation of care takers.  It's so true.  Such a wonderful way of putting it.  Everywhere I go I see care takers.  People who take care of their surroundings, who take care of those they serve, who take care of themselves and their children.  There is a certain courtesy, the expenditure of time and effort for doing things with care.  Taming the world, bringing it under some sort of control through this care.

But what does it mean to tame something?  ("You risk tears if you let yourself be tamed.") Do we decide when we tame another person?  Or when they tame us?  Do we decide when we tame the world and do we allow ourselves to be tamed by it?  What does it mean?

I'm always so touched by the gestures of courtesy.  There are so many of them.  And for whom are they practiced?  Is it only for the one that receives them?  I wonder if there is also something of an inner taming that becomes born of it.  That one may learn to tame themselves as they tame those and the world around them.  Is this true?  

Something winds its way through the fabric of the people here.  Something from which I still have much to learn.