I opened an art gallery in a commercial center located here in San Jose, Costa Rica.  Granted starting any new business is tough and this particular commercial center has seen its better days.  Even so, it amazes me to see throngs of tourists walking by without the slightest bit of interest.  It amazes me because the gallery has some really interesting stuff.  After all, they are in Costa Rica, so you would think that something as authentically Costa Rican as a piece of hand-crafted indigenous art would be of some interest?  Of course there are those who are wide eyed and wowed by my Brunka masks, my Maleku rain sticks and tambors and other items that are hand-carved from exotic tropical forest woods and intricately painted with scenes of Costa Rica’s amazing biodiversity.  But those are the exceptions.  So my question this morning for those disinterested folks is this…what exactly ARE you interested in?  It seems like the answer would be eating, or drinking, or maybe buying a cheap souvenir made in China, but that has the Imperial logo on it.  The world is an interesting place.  Costa Rica is really interesting for an amazing variety of reasons that go much further than just a place to come to get drunk, get laid and do a canopy tour.  If all this sounds like sour grapes because my store is not selling like I want it to, well then I guess my point is not coming across. Which is, GET INTERESTED!  If not in my stuff, then for god sakes, in “something.”  Something other than yourself, that is.  A deep curiosity about life and about why things are is to me what makes it all so, well, worth living.  It is not all about work, eat, drink, sex, occasional vacation, more work, more eating, drinking, sex, etc., etc.  Some people seem to come to Costa Rica to do the same basic crap they do back home, but just to do it in a more exotic setting.  To me being bored, or in Spanish, “aburrido,” (a phrase I hear too often from Lily’s teenage kids) is simply to have a lack of curiosity about life. So get curious, get interested, and stop being bored (resist that “lizard,” remember?).  You can do it!  And then get your soon to be fat-ass into my store, or at least visit us online.

Tags: Costa Rican artisans, The Lizard Brain

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