First post stateside, don't ask why. So far, I've just been at a loss. Brasil kicked my ass. I never really expected to want to be there. I never had that much interest for any place on our great Vespuccian landmass south of Mexico. I never expected to fall in love and want to meet it all on its own terms. But I did.
Venturing into the Amazon was supposed to be a vapid, masturbatory, I'm a world traveler kind of thing. I just wanted to get into the jungle, kill me some jungle critters, spend nights in hammocks. What happened instead was a complete about-face. My worldview got shot with an anabolic steroid grade screw. For those of you who know anything about the life of Ernesto Guevara, you may see a pattern emerging here. What caused an Argentine doctor (who very easily could have lived in the lap of luxury) to fall in with Castro and lead an armed coup d'etat? Learning about the economic and environmental rape of the landless South American peasant. Sound familiar?
Which reminds me, the biggest trick ever played on the modern education system, the biggest intentional bamboozling, sham-wowing, and skull-druggery, was making economics seem like a boring, dusty, sexless field of study. The only way to understand the drivers behind global history and human behavior is economics. That's why we as consumers are making all the wrong decisions, anyway. We believe that if the idea of economics enters our heads, we will be cursed to a barren, un-laid existence. In fact it took at least 20 minutes on google image search to find any image that even remotely combined economics and sexiness. And this is the internet.... jeezum crow.
Anyway.
My body having paled sadly, I'm back at Groovy UVM living in the same gross residence hall as last year. Amazing how one can travel thousands of miles, learn a new language, become a practically different person and then return to banality. I still notice the same New Guinea-shaped chip in the paint on my railing.
When seen through those eyes, this is completely depressing. My challenge, should I choose to accept it, is to re-frame this in a positive light, or for those who are pseudo-scientists, think about it differently. I recently finished Lawrence Gonzales' title Deep Survival. He made a point when describing the kind of rationale that keeps those stranded at sea alive. The thinking is this "I am but a minutae of the universe, it developed without me, and the world will be the same when I die. Everything will just keep on flowing." The paint chip will last, at least as long as no one cares enough to repaint the rail. My interpretation is that the important thing isn't our interactions with the world, but our sense of awe at the complexity and vastness that we temporarily inhabit.
Does this inspire or depress you? Guess it all comes down to our mood. Have you had your caffeine today? Are your neuro-transmitters running? You better go catch them.
Other realizations:
- I'm twenty. This means I'm no longer a teen. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Henry Ford, were all 20 when they sincerely entered the fields they would remain in for the rest of their lives. Guess I better act seriously.
- Walking somewhere you'd normally drive makes you think differently. It also makes you smell differently if you don't have deodorant.
- Thelonious Monk is not a monk. nor a truncated monkey. That's his real name, actually his middle name is 'Sphere'. Thelonious Sphere Monk. How cool.
Anyway. The point of creating this blog somewhat escaped me. I intend to have more writings floating for others to read, so I suppose in the meantime this is a place for that.
stay straight, walk true
-F
