7 September 2026 Nepal
Right now, in Nepal, we are facing something I have never faced before.
Not one rescue — but multiple potential rescues, unfolding at the same time, in different places, each with its own dangers, uncertainties and lives that may still be saved.
It has made me think about Silkyara.
There, 41 men were underground and we had one seemingly impossible task: bring them home alive.
We passed that test together.
But perhaps passing one great test does not mean the testing is over.
Perhaps sometimes it means we are being entrusted with a greater one.
Western traditions might call this duty: we do what is right because it is our responsibility, even when success is uncertain.
Asian traditions offer another powerful idea: dharma. The test is not simply whether we succeed. It is whether we continue to do what is right when the path becomes harder, the responsibilities multiply, and the outcome cannot be known.
Silkyara taught me never to confuse unlikely with impossible.
Nepal is teaching me something more: when several lives may depend upon us at once, hope must become discipline, compassion must become action, and duty cannot depend upon certainty of success.
East or West, the principle feels the same.
We are measured not only by the lives we save, but by the lives we refuse to abandon.