msamba

In The Lost World of the Kalahari, Laurens van der Post recounts his time living among the indigenous people of the Kalahari Desert. He describes their shock when they discovered that he couldn’t hear the stars. At first, they assumed he was joking or lying. But when they realized he truly couldn’t hear them, they were deeply saddened. To the Bushmen, being unable to hear nature was the most serious affliction a person could have—a sign of profound disconnection from the world around them.

Source: Jan Wellmann on Substack