Dispatch Number 14 -Errant Thoughts

Errant Thoughts-


On the Need for Stillness

The importance of idleness. When busy, nothing is clear. I stare at the sea and observe the cactus without anxiety or trashy thoughts about how busy I should be. It helps me see and write. I have a few things in my truck, the essentials to camp in remote places and that is all I own. I think that if I ever loose the truck I will switch to a motorcycle and be even more free because I can carry less with me.

Possessions clutter our minds, the less we own the freer we are and the clearer we think. Less stuff helps us see where we are or more so where we aren't. The most content people I know own the least crap. Some dream of owning more stuff and I think from a bias standpoint, "Don't they know they have already arrived?"


Just stop thinking about acquiring possessions and the ease and peace of mind is yours. Bukowski may have put it best, "Everything you own must be able to fit inside one suitcase, then your mind might be free."

On Photos

We used a phrase in business "Death by PowerPoint", it was when a person giving a presentation over relied on the "slide" format to communicate with a group often using one hundred slides or more, the bad ones read their slides to us. This was death to a businessman, but it was a place for us to hide and do nothing while looking busy. Corporate America the shell game. The concept is the same with the personal photograph.

It starts with an innocent, "Oh, I have a shot of that place, wanna see?" Mute politeness has you staring into a microscopic screen on the back of a camera or a microscopic one on a laptop. The mute politeness is interpreted as keen interest and fuels their desire to have you see all their shots. All. The blurry, the poorly framed, those washed out with sun, of dull people and things, over flashed, the whole unedited lot. DELETE is not an option even on the worst of shots.


They mistake their joy of personal memory for yours. It is painful and brutal because with the digital format they take hundreds of shitty pictures, no longer restrained by "developing" film the lid is off. I am weary when others ask if I want to see their pictures. Weary. It would be slightly more bearable IF I could rip through them fast and stop for the eye catchers, but they demand total control over the button dragging it out with "this is snow in...".

Death by amateur photography. Once again confirmed for this traveler that pictures are for the sole memory of the one who took them. After 1,000 pictures you usually have only a few worth sharing, ones that make an impact, that capture the subject, the light, the shade and frame up well. When you show pictures it must be the best of your shots. I noticed that well composed portrait shots with interesting subjects garner the most interest. They tend to be endlessly fascinating to view: the eyes, wrinkles, face, skin, hair, teeth, the chin and the amount of character that comes out under the eyes. A mountain is as uninteresting as the next or a snow flake for that matter. After every 200 shots there are perhaps 5 or fewer that capture it. All the other shots are experimentation trying to capture something that the naked eye sees but the camera does not.


Unhelpful Data

Fuel in Mexico is 50 cents per liter (that's $2.25/gallon)
In Guatemala it is $2.75/gallon
Wash & Fold laundry is $1 per kilogram
A Combi (VW bus shared with others) ride across town is 28 cents
A baguette is 18 cents
Room for two in nothing fancy, but clean is $14 for the night
Dorm room accommodations in a hostel are $4 per night
Excellent plate of food at an Economic Kitchen is $3.75
A taco is 50 cents


Travel

Travel is a place to study death and motion and your own character or lack of it.


On Time and Motivation

The less you do, the less you do. It gets to the point of doing so little that brushing your teeth becomes a relatively big deal, shaving out of the question. Question: where is the balancing point between work and no work for a healthy life?


Over worked. Over rested. I suppose when we grow incurious that spells the end of us in either extreme.

People

The people who know the most seem to do the least.

They only want to hear their own voices, to be heard, to have their voices echo off the poor innocent. Business schemes galore followed by, "Oh, but I can't right now, the economy you know..." Americans whine about money and economy and the Mexican who has to endure this bloated huffer has long been familiar with economic hardship looks upon their poor me song with no sympathy.


The Girl

The girl had no conversation. Next to none. The simplest of questions were met with,"yes" followed by silence. You think it might be you, your chemistry, your humor, then you listen to others try to talk to her and it's, well, the same.


The girl had no conversation in her. Beauty without charm is like food without spices. She must be saving it for somebody. Someday. A rainy day.

Warnings


Paul Theroux said, The warnings filled me with resolve and seemed as hearty to me a salutation. Fear mongering is something people enjoyed doing to me at home, in the Motherland, before I left for Latin America and I find it here again on the road in Mexico. I will admit warnings excite me. The "...do not go here...", or "...it is dangerous in...", phrases have me consulting maps as soon as the conversation is over.

The ones who don't go have the worst to say about a place. Those that do go always tell you to go.


What's Next?

Today is a day for taking things into account. To reflect on the recent past of people and places. To review maps and guide notes from people like Tom. To map out possibilities and let it all influence you. It unfolds and I'm in it.


Travel

Travel requires tremendous energy. Looks easy on the outside. Everything familiar is stripped away. Always moving, having to quickly learn a village or city. To be a stranger everywhere you go. Childlike, defenseless and dim and having to learn a language. Childlike and dependent. The level of concentration to speak a second language is immense, it is also immensely rewarding to communicate in a language that is not you own, the experience fulfills endless curiosity of what you see everyday -none of it familiar.


More Unhelpful Data

I have not looked at a weather report in six months.
Have watched tv twice.
Have not used a digital map like Yahoo or an electronic navigational device like GPS.
Traveled solo 4 times.
Gained what I believe is 10 pounds (about 5kg) on the Mexican diet of tortillas, rice, beans, sweets, brown colored Wonder bread and Coca-Cola. Only my Chiropractor knows how I feel.


Warfare

Matt plays his Gameboy war game with single mindedness -marching through cities on a keyboard with tanks and men. This morning while he played I asked if he was,"Winning their hearts and minds?".

Highwayman

A pack of children perhaps four or five years old caught us at a speed bump (tope in Spanish) on the highway in the countryside of Chiapas by pulling a ragged rope across the road to force a stop and extract a toll under duress. These children were highwaymen without horses. It worked and we came to a complete stop and as soon as we halted those little hands came in through my window, needy hands demanding a peso or 5, I can't remember, so we could continue traveling the highway.

I gave one peso and we were on our way, finding humor in it all. Matt one of the travelers with me reminded me that by handing over that peso I was encouraging begging. I conceded the point that I contributed to habitualizing the act. Emboldened I decided to run all future road blocks these little urchins might erect. I have to hope that when I run the next one that the kid with the rope doesn't have it wrapped around his hand -the worst outcome will be the rope gets tangled up on the bumper of the truck and drags the helpless highwayman down the road.

The image is bad: truck bounding down steep mountain road with small bloody hand dangling in tow, villagers screaming bloody murder. Held up by a pack of five year olds who pull rope across a free road to extract a highwayman's toll.


In the Company of Men

In the company of men we act like boys out in the jungle; we pick and pull at nature around us, stopping to look at something every few feet. We see strange mushrooms, birds with massive beaks eating nuts high up in trees, monkeys that have a terrorizing howl, and cascades of water over limestone formations that take on magical amoebic shapes.


In the company of men. A day in the jungle. One of our group, a man named Shoe, picks, pulls, kicks, breaks and inspects anything in his path. He once was an oil driller in the wilderness of Canada, so I guess he can not help it. Shoe walks on everything leaving a subtle but obvious wake, wherever, he treads. At times the solid concrete limestone formations at the falls don't look safe from his exploratory effects.

Stealing

Stealing looks. Everybody does it. It is an awkward kind of theft, you want to stare to satisfy some deep need. To study and appreciate beauty as if 'she' were a museum piece. You look away in haste, you have stolen a look.


Mexican Women

After six months traveling through Mexico having entered from the north in Tijuana and exited in the south into Guatemala I feel comfortable sharing this observation about Mexican women. Their perfect form is brief, from age 15 to 20 years old, after this approximate age the deterioration is rapid and complete. Nubile bodies transform rapidly into pear shaped ones with plump pumpkin faces. They lose it quick. I suppose lack of exercise and the Mexican diet get them early.


Generalizations are generalizations and I have seen plenty of exceptions, however, the description above holds true more than not.

Guatemala

I am in Guatemala now.