rcdeals68

Hi Tahir. Thank you for your blog posts (including those fascinating Top Tens!), videos, and your books. I just finished "In Arabian Nights" -- delightful, and it's a great pleasure to read about normal people......In that book you write about being told not to give if it's simply to make yourself feel good. Can you comment on what has helped you in learning to "give without buying"?

Not sure this is relevant.......Are you open to Did You Know ‘questions’ on secondary matters concerning In Search of King Solomon’s Mines or Trail of Feathers?.......... Like Did You Know the Queen of Sheba has been equated with Pharaoh Hatshepsut? Or, did you know feathers have been found in many very ancient Peruvian sites, including the floor of a temple chamber in the Andes (according to Peruvian Featherworks, 2012)? (I’ve posted subreddits on these, under keywords: Queen of Sheba Solomon Hatshepsut, and: Peruvian Featherworks.)

You’ve written that the daily hazards of life in the Casablanca shantytown have required that you be extremely alert continuously. Does it ever tire you? Can you comment on some of the benefits of being so alert (in addition to the obvious one of not getting injured)? (I haven't read In Arabian Nights yet; you may address this there.)

I read that "White man, when well cooked, tastes like ripe banana," according to someone in Melanesia or Polynesia......As for first-hand knowledge, the skin around fingernails (mine) tastes banal; while blood sucked from a cut is salty......As for the ethics of cannibalism, is it worthwhile considering this notion? : A cannibal society is no worse than one whose economy is based on slavery, which is also a form of 'eating'/incinerating human tissue against people's will. Perhaps especially where what's mostly maintained by the slavery is the privileges of a dysfunctional elite. (I hope this isn't too polemically put; I think there's something in the notion.)

My father likes to say, "I've lived too long in the Arctic to be an expert on it." I on the other hand suffer from thinking I'm an expert after reading one book (could this be the "Yak kitab, yak pir" syndrome in Dari/Persian?? or even "yak kitab, yak yak." ??) In "In Arabian Nights" is the idea that the wise person knows they are a fool. Can you comment on "knowing you are a fool" in relation to successful travel or living in a new country?