No I ain’t going nowhere, but I have decided to park my words in a different blogging spot…

Check out the new blog entitled 365 Ways to Make a Difference (in Costa Rica and in Your Life)…..

Pura Vida!

Sometimes things just won’t start looking up until you start looking up.  I am now securely moved into my new home and working out of my humble little store where we sell indigenous arts and crafts from various Costa Rican tribes.  The new scaled-down version of my life fits sort of well.  I always thought it was important to think big and be big, a very “American” view of success.  But what really matters is not how “big” you are, but how large an impact you can have. And you can’t have much of an impact if you are always drowning in bills that flow like a river from the “cuenca” of your attempts to be bigger than you really need to be.  This blog has brought me full circle in terms of my thinking and being.  In the course of writing it I have harbored big dreams and visions.  Dreams of being that “go-to guy” for anyone out there interested in Costa Rica.  Well I am that guy, but just in a quieter, humbler and less stressful way.  I hope my love of Costa Rica has shown through these posts.  I mean, I hope my writing has in some ways lived up to the title.  I love where I live, love what I do and love writing with the hope that someone out there will get either a laugh, a message of encouragement, or a hint of what it is like to live in Costa Rica.  My plan is to keep writing. The title of this 365th post is “Nuevo Comienzo” and that is exactly what it brings me to, both in terms of my writing and living here in this tiny little spec of paradise I call home.  Of course, bright and early tomorrow expect Reason #1 all over again.

Pura Vida and thanks for reading me.

Moving again.  I believe I must have one of those multi-personality disorders.  I seem to be a contradiction in terms.  I enjoy the stability of routine, but I am also fond of risk and change.  I try to maintain a healthy lifestyle, but every once and while veer off the warpath with an unhinged eat, drink and be merry attitude.  And so here I sit on the cusp of another move. This will make number four in the last six years.  This move is being driven more by the need to downsize economically than anything else.  And boy do I hate moving.  It is one of the most stressful experiences known to man…well, at least to this man.  But move I will, this weekend to a house about a kilometer from the one I currently occupy!  Go figure.  Actually the move makes sense from an economic perspective, but logistically it seems kind of silly.  All this moving and shaking has me thinking maybe something bigger is on the horizon.  I can’t quite put my finger on it, but the feeling lingers nonetheless.  It seems like a move is a great time to shed a lot of unnecessary accumulation.  Once you organize the resulting clutter, the heroic effort exerted tends to give one a new outlook.  Maybe that is what I am feeling.  After the dark cloud that has been hovering over me the last couple months, I could use a little inspirational daylight.  Maybe this move will provide just that.  Does anyone out there catch my drift?  With Cash gone to the next life and my company severely downsized by downturn, it just seems natural that now is the time to move on.  To what I am not exactly sure, but time has a way of revealing those things.  One thing’s for certain, whatever it is, this blog will be here to tell about it.  Wish me luck!

If you have been following this blog you might know that I lost my dog recently.  He was a two year old beagle named Cash.  He was hit by a car right in front of the house.  Sad, but life goes on.  So much so that Lily convinced me to adopt another pet.  He is a dachshund (here we call them “salchichas,” or “sausage dogs”).  The previous owners claimed that they could no longer keep him in the condo where they lived.  After a few weeks with “Dokie,” it is beginning to become painfully clear why they wanted to give him up.  By the way, I didn’t give him the name Dokie, but I think it must mean, “dog from hell.”  In short, the dog is a terror.  First of all he is completely disobedient right down to the core.  You call him, he runs the other way.  He is still young, so he wants to gnaw everything down to sawdust.  He pees everywhere.  He constantly barks at the slightest movement or noise and won’t stop for hours.  Finally, he is what we call in Costa Rica, a “perro bravo.”  In short, he bites.  He is extremely territorial and anyone new that comes around is viewed as an enemy and a threat.  In fact I believe he might also be blind, because he keeps mistaking me as someone new that comes around.  He bit the housekeeper.  I have never really been enamored with little dogs. They often seem to try to make up for their size by being as mean as possible.  Come to think of it, little people often do the same….just kidding!  One thing Dokie does have is personality.  He trots around on those four little legs with his head held up high and nose to the air as if he were Louis XIV, or some similar audacious monarch.  And he will not eat dog food, oh no.  He demands the stuff right from the table, or garbage can, or else he goes on a three-day hunger strike.  Personally my attitude is, hey if he gets hungry enough he will eat.  But there are others who are more sympathetic and who sneak the damn dog table scraps, further ingraining his high-falutin habit. Is there anything I like about Dokie?  Well, let me think…sure.  When he looks up at you with those big sad eyes that disguise the deviously wicked thoughts that are lurking just behind them, you can’t help but love the little guy.

After yesterday’s incredibly ridiculous post, I thought it would be a good idea to say something remotely intelligent today.  Well, I realize that my writing is more “shades of Dr. Suess” than “shades of Hemingway,” but you gotta admit every once and a while I nail the sucker…don’t I?  Hey, I enjoy writing it and isn’t that what really matters?  Sometimes, I write and then sit back and get a good chuckle out of what I’ve written, like that crazy uncle who is the only one who ever laughs at his own jokes.  It amazes me that more than two years after my first post, I sit here lamenting times of severe economic hardship.  I have seen countless ups and downs over the course of writing in this blog.  I am sure much of that has come through loud and clear.  But the blog has helped me through it all and I am very grateful for that.  But when times are hard, it pays to put things into perspective.  How?  By reflecting on all the great things we have that money really can’t buy.  Things like good health, folks that you love and that love you back, that amazingly creative problem-solving machine that resides between your clown-like ears, your dog (or, God forbid, cat), that roof over your head, a full stomach, and another day to change for the better and make a difference…just to name a few.  Life seems to be, for me at least, in a constant state of metamorphosis and there are stages of it that really seem ugly.  But they pass and something beautiful follows.  The temptation is to allow tough times to define us…as if they were something we deserve for being inept and not as good as those others who seem to be passing through more elegant phases.  But that’s not it, it’s just that you are being re-made into something that at the moment your imagination can’t grasp, but just hold on and you will see.  If there is anyone reading this blog who is going through a tough time, I encourage you to take an inventory of what it is you are blessed with and grateful for.  I usually entitle this list, What I have going for me right now.  The exercise never fails to brighten my spirits and provide some motivation to move forward.  The thing you never want to do and that God never intends for you to do, is to stay stuck.  There are brighter days to come, but you have to move forward to meet them.

Stress sucks.  I mean, literally, it sucks the life and creativity right out of you, doesn’t it?  I have never felt so lacking in creativity, or in any real worthwhile value as a human, as I have lately.  And it sucks to the point where I can hear it…ah…suck.  Sucky, sacky, sooky, sucky, sucks!  That’s what it does.  If it sounds as if I may be a little “fed up” you’re really hitting on all your inert cylinders of perception today, because I am completely 100% fed to the tippy top tippy of my head up!  Ok, now that I let all that out maybe I can make some useful meaning out of this post.  What is it about anyway?  Well how the hell should I know?  I am too busy listening to my life being sucked out to the nether-most regions of nowhere while the rest of you just go about your merry way, oblivious to anything that is going on more than a foot outside your circumference of circumspection.  I know what you’re thinking…that is, get a grip you Costa Rica Goober.  Okay okay, back to my oblivious point.  What is stress anyway?  Isn’t it nothing more than letting the outside world infiltrate our inner peace and tranquility?  Why do we do that?  One word…the lizard brain.  And right now that part of my brain is getting all the action.  Why?  Because I am worried, fearful, depressed, pissed-off, horny (all the time) and in general, well, fed up (I did already mention that one didn’t I?).  So what can I do to silence that amazing sucking sound that is drowning out all other potentially positive stimuli around me?  I am not sure, but I know screaming at the top of my lungs won’t do it (already tried that one).  Jumping off a tall building, or bridge (hey there is that one called “puente de la vieja”) could do the trick, or it might just hurt really bad.  I guess the answer lies in just sucking it up and moving beyond the suck..to continue with this awfully sucky metaphor.  Now really life can’t be all that bad can it?  Of course not!  That is why there is a glint of humor in this post..wink, wink!  Just four more posts to go to magic number 365!!

Saw Inception (here in Costa Rica, Origen), last night, which is DeCaprio’s latest flick.  I normally really like DeCaprio movies, but this one confused the hell out of me.  It involves the idea of “dream sharing.”  To be honest, I never quite understood how that part was accomplished….that, is, how do you get inside the dream of someone else?  It appears that in the film this was accomplished merely by sleeping side by side and sharing a “sedative cocktail.”  Really!  But to tell you the truth, after dreaming about the movie last night, I woke up trying to figure it all out.  Maybe I will even go back and see it again.  I am a bit slow and this whole idea of dreams within dreams within dreams, that is, multiple layers of dreams, is a bit deep for this old boy.  But then there are aspects of the film that seem to reveal the mysterious ways in which dreams work.  Like the way we always wake up just before death and the way real world stimuli can infiltrate dreams.  I actually woke up this morning wanting to reach for DeCaprio’s spinning top to make sure I wasn’t still dreaming.  In seriousness, dreams are something we never pay much conscious attention to. But consider how much of your life is spent in a dream state.  If you figure 8 hours of sleep per night over 80 years, well, let’s say, that’s about 233,600 hours of dreaming, which is 1/3 of the 700,800 hours of our entire lives!  Why do we sometimes remember our dreams and other times we don’t?  Why do we dream what we dream?  What do our dreams really mean?  Why are some dreams pleasant, while others not so?  Is there anyone out there who can answer these questions?  The movie is a slick Hollywood portrayal of the intriguing world of dreams, albeit a bit confusing. Maybe that is because the whole concept of dreams is confusing.  And the final question, the really big one, in what manner do dreams have the potential of affecting our reality?  What if somehow dreams could be recorded and played back for our viewing pleasure (or pain)?  Would that be cool, or maybe frightening, or what?  But “dream sharing” just seems a little too far-fetched….or is it?

I was having a beer with Pablo last night at a preferred watering hole.  This particular place is very “tico” save for the large movie screen that seems to always have American music videos playing from the 80’s or 90’s.  Last night it was mainly Madonna, Britney and similar artists.  This spurred a conversation with Pablo about “artistic quality.”  I commented to my young friend and employee that I preferred musicians who are known more for their work than for their appearance.  These days it seems the opposite is more often true.  That is, that musicians become wildly popular, not for the artistic quality and content of their work, but for the outrageousness of their appearance.  Take Lady Gaga for instance.  What does her music mean?  What is the true purpose of it?  Is it to make some kind of social statement, or to spur and motivate her audience to take humanitarian action?  No, it seems that her strategy is similar to the “shock and awe” that the U.S. military used against Iraq.  That is, be as outrageous as possible (for maximum sensory impact), use repetitive and meaningless lyrics (who cares about that boring stuff anyway), add in a catchy beat and then let the chips fall where they may.  And they seem to be falling right into her pocket book in increasingly enormous quantities.  But Lady Gaga really doesn’t do that much for me, as neither did Madonna, who in her day seemed to employ a similar shock and awe strategy.  I would prefer the likes of say a Dylan.  Granted, old Bobby wasn’t much to look at and really didn’t have that much of a voice, but his songs really meant something. And shouldn’t music do just that…mean something?  It alarms me to see young people today soaking up meaningless and vacuous entertainment.  Where will they get their inspiration from?  I have always been drawn to entertainment, movies and music, that inspire and motivate as opposed to shock and awe.  But I guess I am just old fashioned that way.  Lily hates it when I drag home some Frank Capra movie that was made in the 40’s or 50’s.  Why do you like that “old stuff” she asks?  Well you ain’t exactly no spring chicken is the response that pops into my head in those moments…and stays right there.  No that “old stuff” will continue to be my preferred brand of entertainment for the waning years of my beleaguered existence.

No too pretty, but effective…

I have been listening not too closely to all the controversy surrounding the erection of an Islamic Mosque near “ground zero,” the location of the 911 tragedy.  Of course one has too understand that feelings are still highly sensitive about what occurred on that fateful morning when some 3,000 were murdered by radical Islamic terrorist ideologues (no I don’t feel the least bit queasy about using that term).  That is what happened, pure and simple.  There is no justification under the sun for it.  However, I do not believe the best way to prevent this from happening again is to try stamping out the Islamic faith from before our midst.  It won’t work.  There are many I fear who do believe that is the answer.  Oh they will rationalize and say it is not the “good Muslims” that they want to be rid of, only the bad ones.  But is it not “good Muslims” who want to build this mosque?  I believe the best way to prevent future 911 tragedies is to peel away the layers of hate, mistrust and raw sensitivities and try to get down to those underlying reasons that would have persuaded a few seemingly clean-cut Muslims to hijack airplanes full of fuel and slam them into each of the largest edifices in the largest city in the most powerful country in the world.  Why did they target us, rather than say China or Japan or Russia?  If we weren’t meddling in their affairs would they still have set their sites on the twin towers?  Of course, there are two underlying words that describe why we would be meddling in their affairs…oil and Israel.  We need their oil and we need to protect our greatest ally in the Middle East with deeply rooted ties to the highest facets of U.S. society.  Ok all that is not going to change.  But what kind of message does it send when we try to deny the completely legal and legitimate building of a religious temple near ground zero, especially when that religion happens to be Islam?  Is it a message of conciliation and tolerance, or hate and rejection?  Is more hating and rejecting of their faith going to spur more or less negative and hateful feelings by them towards us?  I write a lot about tolerance in this blog.  I truly believe that peace will be fostered by more of it.  It is time for us to look beyond the fact that the 911 tragedy had its root in religion and seek a level of mutual understanding before we simply blow each other to kingdom come.  Letting this mosque be erected is a step in the right direction.  Don’t you think?

Morrison wrote that “he woke up this morning and got [himself] a beer.”  Why?  Because, of course, “the future is uncertain and the end is always near.”  As I awaken this morning, not to a beer, but to a hot cup of Costa Rican joe, I am reminded how uncertain the future really is.  Lately I have endured a string of “bad luck” that has me a bit shaken.  I have written about some of that in this blog.  Last night I awoke around 3:30 AM with this nagging feeling that maybe it is really all my fault.  I actually posted about arrogance yesterday.  Not my own, but of someone who I feel very betrayed by.  I deleted that post because in the wee hours of this morning I began to have a curious thought.  That is that maybe it is my own arrogance that I need to write about.  The arrogance that leads one to believe in his or her own righteousness at the expense of everyone else.  You see, everyone else is the problem, not me!  But what if it is you?  What if the real problem is your own pig or bull (you pick the livestock) -headedness.  Charging forward without giving heed to the still small voices around you saying be careful, take it easy, or have you ever considered doing it this way?  No, I haven’t.  Why?  Because that idea did not originate within the confines of my capacious cerebrum and therefore it must be wrong.  And then one day we wake up and realize that following nothing but our own overly valued intuition has lead us down a dead-end street.  So what do we do now?  Well we can keep banging our heads against that same wall, hoping for a breakthrough, but all the while ignoring the actual and painful experience of being in every sense of the word “broke.”  Alternatively, we can heed the advice of that somewhat strange innocent bystander who is pointing in the other direction. Who is that guy anyway?  I am not sure, but I have seen him many times before throughout my life, usually in head battering instances like these.  He looks oddly out of place with his sandals, robe and long-hair.  But the kindness of his face betrays a concern and compassion for my plight. Maybe it is his advice that I should take.  Repent and sin no more.  Hmmm, sounds difficult, but worth a try at least.