The Fourth World

This morning I came upon some words, scrawled hurriedly and buried on my desk:

Jan Morris - People all over the world who believe in kindness are citizens of the fourth world.

The Dalai Lama - My religion is kindness

We are not alone - the only thing that counts is kindness, really.

Searching for more about the travel writer Jan Morris, I came upon quotes from her book Trieste, in which she says that Members of the Fourth World "...come in all colors. They can be Christians or Hindus or Muslims or Jews or pagans or atheists. They can be young or old, men or women, soldiers or pacifists, rich or poor. They may be patriots, but they are never chauvinists. They share with each other, across all nations, common values of humor and understanding.

Among them you know you will not be mocked or resented, because they will not care about your race, your faith, your sex or your nationality, and they suffer fools if not gladly, at least sympathetically. They laugh easily. They are easily grateful. They are never mean. They are not inhibited by fashion, public opinion or political correctness.

....always in a minority, but they form a mighty nation, if they only knew it."

Carlos Amantea, in his review of her book says that Morris... "finds a melancholy there and calls Trieste, which lies along the Adriatic, the last outpost of Italy before the Balkans, 'the Capital of Nowhere."

"And what does [The Fourth World] have to do with Trieste, that decent city that no one can ever find on the map? Those of us in the Fourth World, she says, need a capital, our own nation. What would it be called?

It is the nation of nowhere, and I have come to think that its natural capital is Trieste."