John Swinburn

U.S. culture treats advanced age as a terminal illness and it treats those consumed by the “illness” as disposable. The quicker the better. Mexican culture, from what I understand, has a different perspective. Age equates to experience which, in turn, forms a foundation of wisdom. People fortunate enough to have survived many years of experience are, in Mexico, revered. This morning, as I was thinking about these conflicting cultural perspectives on age, I happened upon a Facebook post that included a few excerpts from a book by Paul Theroux, On the Plain of Snakes: A Mexican Road Trip. One quote from the book, a recitation of a Mexican aphorism, struck me as particularly interesting: Más sabe el diablo por viejo, no que por diablo. Roughly translated into English, that says, “The devil is wise because he is old, not because he’s the devil.”

I wonder how it happens that some cultures hold the aged in high regard, while others view them as used-up, worn-out, and generally in the way? I wish I knew and I wish I knew how to reverse that perspective.  But I don’t. I suppose the best way to try is to model the behaviors one hopes to see in others.

Yet I feel just a tad sheepish about automatically giving respect to someone simply because he or she has managed to say alive for many, many years. I have encountered plenty of people whose lengthy lives are almost certainly accidental; only by pure chance have these people not stepped in front of buses or drowned in the shower. These people exemplify the concept that: “They do not have ninety years of experience; they have one year of experience repeated ninety times.” That is, they have learned nothing of consequence by living so long.

But more people than not do not fall into that category of old and stupid. More people have, in fact, learned a great deal over the course of their lives, thanks to their ability to associate the meaning of different experiences at many different times of their lives. That may be a hard sentence to digest; they can rely on experiences from years ago to help interpret and give meaning to experiences years later. Maybe that helps explain it.

As usual, I’ve wandered off course. Why do our cultures hold such diametrically opposed perspectives about age? And how can our culture change to be more closely aligned with Mexican culture? I suppose the first step is to change our collective attitudes about our cultures and other cultures. That is, we need to acknowledge that our culture is not always “better” and other cultures are not always “worse.” We need to accept that our culture can learn from other cultures and can improve by adopting some of their perspectives and practices.

I suppose we teach children, from an early age, that older people are not as valuable as younger people. We train people to believe we reach our intellectual peaks around age 45 and decline precipitously thereafter. Somewhere along the line, 50 became the new 99; once a person reaches 50, he is unemployable. His knowledge and capabilities leaked from his head and cannot be recovered.

I have no practical solutions. I just write to complain. I have nothing else to contribute. I’m just sucking in air that should have been made available to someone younger.

If I mailed a letter to the ones who have forgotten me, would they open the envelope? Would they bother to read the words it took me so long to put down on paper? Would the effort I made to retrieve old memories matter to the ones who have forgotten me?

I could ask myself the same questions about a letter I might receive from a forgotten someone. I think I know the answers. I would read their words, feeling shame I had forgotten them. I would feel guilt and remorse I had forgotten a person whose tenuous happiness may have rested in part on the knowledge that at least one other person cared enough to remember them. I would have contempt for myself for failing to care enough to take precautions against forgetting someone who needed to be remembered.

And I would remember I, too, have been forgotten. I, too, needed to know at least one other person cared enough to remember me, but chose to forget. Chose to let our shared experiences disappear, replaced by memories of people who mattered.

The reality of forgetting is that people remember what matters. There’s no room for, no need for, guilt that my brain sorts out the wheat from the chaff. Yet when I remember how I ignored someone who may have needed to be noticed, I realize I did not forget what matters; I simply pushed that recollection to the periphery. I remember, even when I want to forget. It is that class of memory that stabs at me, pokes at me, pries at my sense I am, after all, a decent human being. Would a decent human being allow the memory to ebb?

Distance and time and important matters that demand our consideration allow us to forget. If I were paying attention, I would notice I am allowing people who matter to disappear from my life. It happens slowly, at first, but then one day the rare memories simply disappear like a child’s huge blown soap bubble striking a blade of grass.

When I receive that letter, the one from someone I knew long, long ago, I might recall a giant bubble floating in the breeze. In my mind’s eye, I might see the iridescent surface of the bubble change colors as it spins and changes shape in the wind. And I might hear the laughter of young children, delighted at the wondrous thin film separating air from air and dreams from memories. But when the bubble disappears in a silent explosion, laughter turns to sobs and from once bright young eyes tears flow at the inexplicable loss.

***

These thoughts flooded my mind this morning, for reasons that remain unclear. Perhaps I miss people who matter and fear we will allow ourselves to forget one another. Or maybe I remember people who, long after I forgot them, stumbled back into my life for a brief time and then stumbled back out. I do remember some of those people; and I recall some of them seemed to need, deeply, to be remembered. Yet I allowed them to stumble out. Or perhaps I’m the one who stumbled out, again leaving them to assume they have, once again, been forgotten.

Losing touch is not the same as forgetting, but it has the same impact. It says, in effect, “you don’t matter enough for me to make sure you know where I am.” Or, on the other hand, after giving someone your new address and contact information, you might learn you didn’t matter enough for them to keep it. But maybe that’s just absent-mindedness or disorganization. The fact that it can be confused for disregard should be sufficiently cautionary to change bad habits, though.

I readily admit I’m overly sensitive about too many things. Maybe we all are. There are too many people in our lives for anyone to expect everyone we touch to remember our birthdays. But Facebook insists on reminding even people we’ve never met about our birthdays. I read a quote some time ago that I have tried to take to heart, but have had a tough time doing it:

“You probably wouldn’t worry about what people think of you if you could know how seldom they do.” ~ Olin Miller

The thing is, I realize I am not on the minds of most people much, if at all. But I’m concerned (for reasons unknown) that on those rare occasions I’m on someone’s mind, it’s because they are thinking I’m not someone with whom they’d want to spend much time. Of course, I feel the same way about many of them, so there you go. There aren’t many people I like. But those I do, I generally love with a passion. Perhaps the intensity of my admiration and appreciation is scary. It can be scary to me.

***

On a completely different subject, one of my dozens (or hundreds or thousands) of fantasies is to be able to create an educational institution for people between the ages of 17 and 23. Entry into the institution would be competitive and would be based on tests that measure knowledge in several areas, interests, ability to concentrate, and manual dexterity. Students would be exposed to a rigorous curriculum in which they would be expected to demonstrate proficiency. The curriculum would include mathematics, language and literature, chemistry and biology, social sciences (including sociology, government, and politics), and a range of courses in subjects commonly known as “the trades,” including wood-working/shop, mechanics, HVAC, etc, etc.  As students progress through the curriculum, their interests and capabilities would be closely monitored. Students who excel in “college bound” courses would be guided toward college and the subjects that most interest them; students who excel in the trades would be guided toward the trades that most interest them.

Every student, though, would be expected to complete the curriculum with a sufficient grasp of all subjects to enable them to function as contributing members of society. When a kid come out of the school (and college) with a degree in sociology, he or she would be expected to be knowledge about the discipline but also would be sufficiently knowledgeable and capable to change tires, replace spark plugs, troubleshoot HVAC system problems, and handle household welding and plumbing projects. Kids who move into plumbing would be expected to be able to engage in intelligent conversations about societal change, archaeology, literature, and drama.

Pipe dream. Pipe dream. Pipe dream. I wish my “liberal arts” education had exposed me to more of the “trades” than it did. For that matter, I wish I’d been forced to learn more about chemistry and mathematics and engineering. It’s not that I don’t have the wherewithal to learn about those subjects/activities now; I just don’t have sufficient energy and discipline. If I did, I might go to medical school. I wonder if medical schools would accept 66 year olds? I should hope not; we don’t need to invest the kind of money and time required to become a doctor in someone whose time practicing medicine is so certain to be time-limited.

***

Why do I write so much crap when I know few,  if any, people will read any of it and fewer still will read it to the end? Because I have to write. Just spill my guts and, on occasion, unleash my creativity, as dark and dangerous as it can be. I have to. When I was in the hospital last year and after I returned home and had little energy, I couldn’t write as much as I wanted and needed to. That was a dark time; my writing energy was wasted. It’s wasted now, too, but at least there’s the potential of someone worth reading. I’d better get in gear to write and/or select poems for this Wednesday night’s reading. I have thirty minutes. Enough to arouse and rile up the audience.

Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī was a Muslim mathematician and astronomer whose major works introduced Hindu-Arabic numerals and the concepts of algebra into European mathematics. He was appointed astronomer and head of the library of Bagdad’s House of Wisdom around 820 AD.

Until this morning, I had never heard of him. I wonder how many other Arabic scholars whose contributions to mathematics and science and astronomy and the like I have never heard of?  And I wonder why I have never heard of them? I think I know. I think Western culture has purposely ignored the contributions of scholars outside European and pre-European society. Just like the systemic racism that forms many of our institutions today, systemic “culturism” forms our understanding of the history of science and the other “hard” sciences.

This is just a guess, of course. But I’m growing increasingly skeptical of the common explanations of the foundations of modern civilization. And I’m growing increasingly skeptical of documented history. Much of documented history, I fear, is based on doctored evidence. Evidence manipulated to put Western civilization in a more favorable light and Eastern civilization in a less favorable light.

I’m growing less interested in knowing the truth about the “Big Bang” and the evolution of species and more interested in knowing the truth about what has been done to paint a picture of history based not on facts but on culturism. I know; culturism is not a “legitimate” word. But it’s my word, so it’s legitimate to me. I suspect it’s not a word because its legitimacy would lend legitimacy to the idea that cultures lie about themselves and paint others with ugly brushes.

This subject deserves more thought. And I will give it more thought, though I wish it did not merit it.

When the world seems especially bleak, one can improve one’s mood immeasurably by considering all the horrors to which one has not been exposed. For example, as I sit here at my desk, I am thankful I was not awakened before daylight by paramilitary goons who marched me off to my beheading in a public square. And I am grateful a volcanic crater did not suddenly appear beneath my house, dragging me downward to drown in a sea of molten rock. Is that sufficient? Still need a boost? Well, I’m thrilled that I am not experiencing retribution at the antlers of a deer I wounded but did not kill before it gored me. The latter situation actually occurred to a Yellville, Arkansas man a few days ago. He shot a deer and was, with his nephew, preparing to field dress it when the stunned buck attacked, riddling the man with puncture wounds from its antlers. The man later died. The deer has not been found.

I have avoided too many horrible things to allow myself to feel miserable. The list of potentially cataclysmic events that did not take place in my life is literally endless. When compared to the minor disappointments that befall me—I awake to learn Trump did not die while I slept; I discover that children remain in cages at the border; evidence emerges that confirms stupidity is both genetic and contagious in both rural and urban America—I cannot help but feel a deep sense of deviant joy. It’s a sense that “things could be so much worse,” coupled with the realization that “things are likely to get much worse before they get better, if they ever get better.” It’s strange and disturbing, while simultaneously calming and soothing. Hopeless acceptance, that’s what it is.

***

All right, I’ve managed to climb out of the vaporous chamber that kept me half-awake but deeply sedated in a surreal fog.

I spent a good fifteen minutes, maybe more, skimming thirty-to-fifty-year-old editions of the Guadalajara Reporter, formerly known as the Colony Reporter. Though I learned nothing likely to change the course of my life, I stumbled across some interesting tidbits. For example, the occasional burglary, robbery, and even murder took place in and around Ajijic “back in the day.” Of course, those crimes frightened the ex-pat community, but they were rarities. I think. And I learned that Plaza Bugambilias in Ajijic opened roughly thirty-two years ago (if I remember correctly the date of the issue in which I read about the dedication). Plaza Bugambilias is where El Torito is located, in case you wondered.

Looking through old issues of the publication triggered a brief resurgence in my interest in creating and publishing a newspaper and/or magazine. I love the idea for some reason. I always have. But the radical transformation of the ways in which people access and consume their news makes old-style publishing an increasingly risky business. I’m afraid a publication I might launch, or like to launch, would appeal to an old audience, a target readership slipping away with each passing day. But that reality causes me great concern about the future of humanity in general. If younger generations simply skim Facebook for their news, much of which is manufactured for the sole purpose of feeding misinformation to the misinformed, what can we expect of the future? I can only say I am glad I will not be here to witness the unraveling of society. What am I saying? I’m witnessing it already, every day! Doesn’t that sound exactly like the voice of geezerhood?! “Well, in my day, we read newspapers and drank coffee. Nowadays, these young’uns walk around with their heads down, playing video games and drinking Red Bull. It’s a damn shame!”

***

My wife, who awoke several times during the night and got up to read for a while at some point, is now up for the day. She arose around 7:00, a good thirty minutes (at least) before her usual waking hour. I would have expected her to sleep in, given her unsuccessful state of sleep last night. But, not, instead she is up and has offered to prepare a chorizo con juevos breakfast, which I readily accepted as a good idea. So, while she prepares the ingredients for what promises to be a superb desayuno, I will wrap up this latest attempt at humor and heartache, recollection and reverie. I just wish we had some jalapeños or, at least, jalapeño paste, in the house. Chorizo demands it. Alas, I allowed the cupboards to get dangerously low on a staple. Now, we must made do. At least we won’t be forced to eat rancid roadkill possum off of dirty plates and drink typhoid-laced water from rusted cups. That’s something to cheer about.

I spent the last hour or so revising what I thought was an old narrative prose post into a poem. It was a poem all along, every since I wrote it this summer, but I didn’t realize it. Upon reading and rereading it this morning, its poetic attributes became clear to me; it felt more emotional than my typical prose posts (which often feel sterile and hollow, on second and third reading). But it needed work. It needed much of the excess clutter cleared away.

If the writing had been a wooded lot, it would have required a team of brush hogs to create a path from front to back. So I created an imaginary brush hog and cleared enough of the lot to enable me to wander freely about the land to see what I could see. And there was something to see. I saw evidence of who I had once been. I was a writer before I turned the corner this morning, morphing into an editor. An editor with a brush hog.

If the sounds I hear are what I think they are, rain has begun to fall. The ground, then, is wet and there’s no dry place for a brush hog to go. I think I’ll dry my fingers and have more coffee.

I opted not to read the flippant piece today; it was a miserable excuse for writing. So, I replaced it with another miserable excuse for writing. At least the replacement was fiction. I’m disappointed in myself. Why can’t I produce something of which I can be even modestly proud? It’s not that my standards are high. It’s that my abilities are plummeting to earth, as if I’d jumped from an airplane. That’s an ugly reality.

Today is my 66th birthday. And it feels no different than yesterday and, I dare say, it probably doesn’t feel any different from tomorrow. Just another day of decay.

My mood today has rushed toward the curb, attempting to smash itself against the gutter. I’ve kept away from street’s edge, but only barely. If I can finish a couple of strong pours of tequila, I might be able to go to sleep this evening without encircling my neck with an old necktie. No, I will be able to avoid doing it; I’m in no immediate danger of strangling myself just yet. As long as I can get to sleep and avoid dreams, I will be as fine as fine can be. I just don’t want any more of this damn consciousness until sometime tomorrow. Consciousness tends to be accompanied by sharpness and angles; stuff that makes the brain unhappy to be in the general proximity of awareness. Alcohol is a depressant, I think. At least it works that way when I need hours and hours and hours of unprescribed pain killer. I wonder whether doctors feel strongly about the dangers or, conversely, the values, of alcohol? I’ve never engaged any of them in conversations about it.

It’s just slightly after nine in the evening. That’s late enough, in my book, to try to crash out of consciousness and into a temporary state of suppression. I’ll work on that soon.

Normally, I don’t mind dreams. Tonight, I’d rather not have them. Instead, I just want rest; uninterrupted rest. Eight or ten hours of freedom from the troubling considerations of life on this planet will be most welcome. Tomorrow, I’ll be willing to face it all again. But for tonight, I’d rather just relax and pretend the world doesn’t have any plans to dash my hopes.

Since we returned from our trip earlier than originally planned, I can attend our Writers’ Club meeting today, an informal pot luck affair and read-around. I’m told attendance will be very light, which pleases me in that I have very little luck to put in the pot for lunch. Today, it will be store-bough hummus and multi-seed hard crackers.

I’ve not written a great deal lately, at least not much worth sharing, so I selected a non-fiction stream-of-consciousness piece I wrote early this month for my reading. Reading aloud, even to a small group, will be good practice for my Wednesday Night Poetry reading next week, when I’m the Feature Poet. It’s a little odd that I am on my third night as Feature Poet, in that I am not even remotely prolific at writing poetry. But I do write it and I enjoy both writing and reading/performing it. My challenge for next week is to find some lighter poems to read. Most of my poems emerge from my dark recesses, of which there are plenty. There’s not much light down there, especially of late.

My reading for today is a flippant piece that outlines, and argues for, my plan to travel the country, marketing one-off road-food from a food truck or some such thing. If nothing else, the tiny audience will get a look under the hood of a strange and skeptical (and moderately creative) man.

I’ve been trying, since I arose this morning, to write something of consequence. There’s simply nothing there. Perhaps milestones block my creative path. I’ll lay the blame there, regardless.

I thought it was time to get up, so I got up. That will teach me to think. It was just shy of 4:30. But by the time I realized how early it was, I was beyond going back to sleep.

That was two hours ago. I’ve wasted those two hours on trivial matters that shouldn’t merit any time at all. So it goes. Two hours, irretrievably lost, that could have been spent on something productive, if only contemplative reflection. Instead, they were wasted on worry about things over which I have no control. Madness. Wasteful madness.

Life would be quite different if we could bank hours instead of frittering them away in useless pursuits. I assume life would be different. But maybe not. Maybe we would make the same mindless choices. So, here’s another idiotic waste of time: playing “what if” in a game over which we have absolutely no control. Madness.

The truly maddening aspect of wasting time is that it’s a choice we need not make. We could choose, instead, to pursue our dreams; you know, rather than satisfy ourselves with dreaming them. I think we hesitate and fail to act because we assume our dreams are beyond our capacity to achieve them. Or we are afraid of trying and failing. Or we worry that our dreams might not last; we convince ourselves our dreams are just temporary fantasies we’ll grow out of…or come to realize they weren’t our dreams at all. On occasion, I read about people who invest years to become doctors or lawyers, only to discover the time was spent pursuing drudgery. Maybe that’s why I have always tended to avoid going all out in pursuit of career dreams; I wanted to avoid the realization I invested my life in meaningless drivel. The realization came too late.

The time is almost seven, so I will stop this alternate time waster and drink my coffee.

I did not join the family for the expedition into Tlaquepaque yesterday, due to my concern that my gut might not cooperate. As it happened, though, I was over the worst of the “bug” by the time the trip began. I rested, watched “Inside Bill’s Brain” (I think that’s the name…a documentary about Bill Gates), and otherwise chilled. I washed a load of laundry and showered and shaved. ”Twas a slow-moving morning. By 2:00 pm, I was ready for food, so I walked down to lakeside and had nachos at an open-air restaurant.

When the crowd returned, a couple of my nephews zipped by to give me a ride to my brother’s house. As usual, we feasted on far more food than I needed; I feel that overindulgence again this morning. I could not sleep past 4:30, so I arose and went downstairs to try to get over my gluttony. No coffee, not even water. Just sitting and hoping I will feel better in time for our 10:00 am pedicure appointments. We shall see.

Food can become an enemy when consumed in the absence of sufficient discipline. And, though it can join alcohol as a happy social lubricant, food’s tendency to fill every empty social space overwhelm’s the body’s ability to process the experience. I write these words as a lesson to myself; though whether the lesson will stick now, after umpteen times (to the seventh power) is questionable.

Last night, my sister and my youngest nephew and I had a brief conversation about friendship. It was one of those conversations that could have gone on for hours, but the dinner bell interrupted. The conversation would have evolved, I think, into a discussion involving the degree to which mental intimacy, personal interests, trust, risk, diversity, and a willingness to put another’s interests ahead of one’s own are required for deep friendships to develop. And, I suspect, the dialog would have explored how friendship differs from “acquaintanceship,” if the latter exists as an early phase of friendship. My guess is that we would have talked about the absolute necessity for a common definition of friendship between potential friends in order for friendship to evolve. That last element of the conversation is one to which I think few people give much thought. We’ve all read stories in which some version of the utterance, “I thought you were my friend,” is either said or thought by a character disappointed by a “friend’s” behavior. That disappointment stems from either a shattered trust or a disparity in understanding the commitments intrinsic to friendship. Friendship is, to me, an interesting subject because true friendship (in my definition) is extremely rare. I see a lot of moderately deep acquaintanceship, but not much concrete friendship. It all depends on one’s expectations, I suppose, and the degree to which one is either an idealist or a pragmatist. Pragmatism seems so bleak and so vacant; idealism is the currency of romantics. Well, this has turned into an overly-long paragraph.

Since we arrived in Ajijic last week, several explosions take place nearby in the early hours of every morning. They sound very close, like the fireworks are set off just outside our windows, but the narrow streets and close proximities of buildings might make the sounds deceiving. I have heard various explanations for these early morning blasts, but none have completely satisfied my curiosity. I think I will make it my mission to find out not only why the blasts are taking place but who is responsible…children, adults, religious scholars, ordnance experts…?

The bed in which we’ve been sleeping these last several days (and in which we will sleep for several more) is hard. My shoulders are unhappy with the unyielding mattress. So, our return home will be welcome from that perspective. But we have one more night in a motel after we leave Ajijic and before we get home. We get back to Dallas late Thursday afternoon; then, the next morning, we head back to HSV. What a quick trip!

Discomfort and an occasional stab of pain interrupted last night’s sleep on a too-frequent basis. My undisciplined and unchecked craving for food and booze may be to blame. Or, the dip in the pool could be at fault. Whatever it was, is. I remain not quite me, so I am not sure I will join the family group that’s off to Tlaquepaque this morning. Our planned departure is still three hours away, so time will tell.

I’m not quite me in another sense, though they may be related. My interest in everything…the entire world around me…is low this morning. I don’t care to listen to the news. I have no interest in ambling around the neighborhood. I’m not even interested in catching up with friends. Nothing appeals to me. My only interest at the moment is sleep, but that’s not an option because I cannot get comfortable no matter how I twist and turn. Writing this isn’t even appealing; I suppose it’s an almost automatic reflex at this hour, though. But I don’t care whether I finish it nor whether I post it, even if I complete the piece.

I tried to snap out of this…I don’t know what…by imagining that I had suddenly come into a huge fortune, enabling me to begin a realistic search for my personal Shangri-La. I guess that would be fantasizing. My reaction to the effort: “What a pointless waste of time.” And then the natural follow-on became: “Everything is pointless in the long haul.” And that’s true. We can, and probably should, delude ourselves into thinking we, and the world around us, matter. But a hard, unbiased assessment probably reveals the truth.

Yet, if nothing matters, how have we stumbled along for several thousand years convincing ourselves otherwise? No, there must be something I’m missing. Oddly, though, I don’t particularly care whether that’s the case or not.

I think leadership, whether of tribes or nations or entire societies, steers us collectively toward progress or ruin. At present, that leadership is steering us into a bottomless chasm that will, if we allow it to happen, swallow us and leave little evidence we were here. Trump, Putin, Assad, Erdogan, Johnston, et al. These and many other world leaders are incompetent and self-absorbed, an ugly and untenable mix in a world society teetering on the edge of collapse. At a time when the world is desperate for visionary leadership, we instead have drunken pack mules hidden inside the bodies of would-be dictators. I should care.

I suppose I care. Just not enough. People who care enough do something to change the world, even when that something puts them at great risk. The rest of us whine and lavish praise on our armed forces, as if our armed forces are going to protect us from the likes of Trump and our own inability to confront and overcome our fears. We’ve been brainwashed into thinking the armed forces will save us from dictatorship; our structure of government was designed to prevent that very thing from happening. The armed forces are not the bad guys, they are just under the inviolable command of the bad guys.

Enough of this crap. I will sit and stew without recording every boil and bubble.

This morning, we commence our second full day in Ajijic. Staying in an AirBnB is a different experience, in many ways,  from staying at my brother’s house. Though the rental is quite nice, it doesn’t begin to match the feeling that I am “home” at my brother’s place. We went to his place yesterday, where my sister-in-law was in the midst of planning for my brother’s eightieth birthday bash; the moment I walked in, a sense of relaxation washed over me; it was an odd but extremely comforting feeling. The reason we are staying in a rental is this: there are more guests than beds. Two other brothers, my nephew and his wife, and another nephew (birthday boy’s son) are taking the guest beds. My brother’s other son is staying with friends. My wife and my sister and I are in the rental. Another crowd, family of my brother’s friend who also is celebrating his eightieth, is being accommodated elsewhere. Quite the logistical challenge; fortunately, my sister-in-law is up to it. Today is the day of the big celebration…and then some rest.

As I discovered during our recent trip to the Balkans, I am not up to a lot of walking, especially on inclines or stairs. That situation, not to mention extremely rough cobblestone streets and crumbling, narrow sidewalks, makes exploring Ajijic a real challenge. I will adapt. My brother and sister-in-law have offered to let me use their car; I might. Our rental has a one car garage. But other matters argue against it. We shall see.

Last night, over a magnificent dinner at a new Cuban/Caribbean restaurant (Sabor Caribe Ajijic, open-air, in a magical setting), I asked my wife whether she would object if I were to find a three month rental in Ajijic and spend time here…just exploring and deciding whether I could adapt to life here. She said she would not, so long as I did not expect her to come along. I told her I would rather she join me, but she is not prepared to do it. So, my dilemma is this: do I explore a possibility that could enchant me and draw me in, knowing I could not pursue the possibility without upending our lives, or do I forgo the possibility and forever wonder what I might have missed?

I have much to mull over. But, then, I always do.

Skepticism invades my brain. It’s a unique skepticism that constantly grows, thanks to the kudzu of evidence  of the innate biases present in all news sources. I’m not referring just to American or Western news sources; I assert that bias infects all news sources. It’s natural, I think. News is presented within the framework of the news organization’s understanding of the society in which it functions. If one’s framework of understanding was built in America by Americans, it’s logical to assume the framework will be biased; it’s “slant” probably will paint a rosier picture of its host society than another news source, one from an “enemy” country for example, might. Iranian or Bosnian or Peruvian news, similarly, are biased because of their frameworks of understanding.

With that as a backdrop, I am skeptical of what I read and hear. Everything. And I’m growing more skeptical every day. I don’t automatically believe what I read or hear on CNN, the New York Times, Fox News, or NPR. Nor do I fully buy into BBC online, Sarajevo Today, the Toronto Star, or Today Venezuela. But I find the news offered by each source informative, if not necessarily completely factual. I learn things I wouldn’t know if I limited my consumption of news to the ones various political parties want me to mainline. Today, for example, I learned by reading an article in the Sarajevo Times (an English-language newspaper) that the relationship between Iran and Bosnia and Herzegovina is strong and growing stronger. And I learned that Chinese President Xi Jinping is viewed, at least by Sarajevo Times (ST) editorial writers, as far more responsible, intelligent, and future-focused than Western leaders.  The paper says the recent “clash of civilizations worldview in the West…is dangerously irresponsible.” I can’t agree more.  Yet I’m skeptical of ST, too, and I read its pronouncements with a healthy assumption that the paper, like others, has a significant credibility deficit.

I suppose my skepticism arises, in part, from the fact that I have to rely on English-language versions of newspapers and television news and other such source. The fact that these news outlets are designed for an English-speaking audience suggests some built-in bias. And I’m always afraid of translations, when stories were not written initially in English; translations seem always to miss the message between the lines. When I discuss a translated article with a native speaker who has read the original (admittedly an extremely rare occurrence), I sometimes pick up on subtle messages that aren’t relayed in the translated version.

The bias in U.S. media is absolutely obvious in some areas. For example, I think it’s impossible to find a single reputable source of news in the U.S. that isn’t inherently biased against Venezuela, Iran, Iraq, China, Russia, and any other country our “leaders” have labeled the “enemy.” Our media accepts that those countries are the “bad” that contrasts with our “good.” Reporting about the embargo against Venezuela, for example, almost always deal with the impact (or lack thereof) of the embargo on the political situation in that country; the unwritten but obvious position of the news media is that the embargo is good. Because it’s “us.” Rarely is the embargo’s impact on Venezuelan citizens examined; how often do we learn about a mother who cannot afford (or simply cannot get access to) diabetes medications for her daughter, thanks to the embargo? Another example of bias slaps me in the face whenever I open a browser window with FoxNews. The pro-Trump drivel is so utterly obvious and appallingly biased that it’s almost impossible to read or watch; but I do, because I want to know what horseshit is being fed to the deeply unthinking masses (I guess I’m rather biased, too, yes?). But the same is true with CNN. CNN once seemed pretty straightforwardly “news and nothing but news. ” Today, it is a biased rag that looks exactly like a propaganda machine. I don’t know what changed. Is it my perspective of what I read and see and hear or, instead, is the content different? Perhaps a bit of both.

Yet none of them (the reputable media) are “fake news,” as the moron who thinks he’s king spouts. They’re just biased; they offer news through a filter that appeals to their sensibilities.

Speaking of Sarajevo, during our recent tour of the Balkans, I got a taste of how one’s perspectives are colored by one’s environment. I grew up in an environment in which Josip Broz Tito was painted as a brutal dictator, a monster responsible for the suffering of Yugoslavians (I touched on this recently, so this paragraph is something of a rehash). Through the lens of many people who lived in the former Yugoslavia during his reign, though, he was a revered leader who brought stability and comfort. Could the reports from news media in Yugoslavia have influenced Yugoslavians’ perspective of the man’s leadership? Of course. And could American news coverage have influenced our views of his leadership? Undoubtedly. In both cases, though, I think it bears considering the extent to which the powers of government to influence news media might have played a part. Might, hell. They do. Governments’ willingness to release information (or not) and the quality and content and scope of information released has to play an enormous role in how we see the world. In my view, that’s not talked about enough. We ought to openly question the extent to which the news that reaches us is manipulated, either overtly or covertly, through government influence. I’m not suggesting the media is government controlled (it is, of course, in some places), but I do suggest the media often has no choice but to accept what it’s told as “truth” when, in fact, it may be entirely manufactured.

In today’s environment, in which the President openly challenges the legitimacy of the media and asserts that any questions or comments that challenge his supremacy are “fake,” I’m afraid the very real biases of the media are being blown into monstrous, artificial assertions that the media is a machine designed to lie for the sole purpose of bringing down the President. The manipulator-in-chief is attempting to use the flaws in the media as entry points for his axes; a tiny crack attracts the blade of his pick like a magnet.

Yes, I’m wandering all over creation with this post. I started on a road that diverged in the wood and took one that led me on a spiral; then it took me across a hatch-work of intersecting paths where all the answers I sought, trodden underfoot, were no longer recognizable. All I want are answers, yet questions are all I find.

That little Frost reference has triggered in me a desire to write some poetry. I think I shall. But not here. Not yet.

An article on CNN’s website, explaining why McDonald’s doesn’t sell McRib sandwiches year-round, spurred an idea. (First, I’ve never had a McRib sandwich and have no interest in trying one; but that’s beside the point.)

Actually, I’m impressed with McDonald’s rationale. It’s a marketing ploy based in large part on the concept of scarcity; scarcity tends to build hype, making an item attractive. On the one hand, that sort of manipulative behavior pisses me off; corporations should not exploit customers’ vulnerability in such matters. But on the other hand, I have to acknowledge that it’s a brilliant marketing tactic. [I have this love-hate relationship with successful marketing strategies; I loathe the corporate greed that marketing embodies, but I love the intellectual business acumen marketing can demonstrate.]

But I haven’t gotten to my idea yet. Okay, let me get to it. The idea is to create a travel route across the United States, with a four-day to five-day stop in carefully selected cities and towns. Before arriving in each city or town, I would take out ads in the local media in which I would promote a “limited time offering” of some  gimmicky special fast-food that would have some special significance to the location. I would then prepare large quantities of this gimmicky item to sell at my pop-up “food truck” (for lack of a better term). I would be sure my ads note that the food will be available for only a few days, but will be back (again for a very limited time) in a year or so.

After I have collected and counted my money, I will pack up and move on to the next location, taking great care to pump up interest in my next food product with heavy advertising. I can envision enormous sales of my super-special products: tamales in one town, hot dogs in another, ćevapčići in yet another, etc., etc. From town to town, I might simply modify some of my more popular items. For example, if my lamb-based hot dogs (which I might call “Sheep Dogs” as part of the marketing plan) were especially well-received in a community in which lamb is consumed in large quantities, I might create lamb-based ćevapčići sticks, flavored with vindaloo spices, in a town with similar meat consumption and a large population of immigrants from the Indian subcontinent. You know, marketing. Market research. Quantifying the customer. All those markety things. What might I call those lamb log sort of things? “Sheep Spears.” That might work. Might not.

As I consider this idea, it occurs to me that the concept may have been born as much out of my wanderlust as my intrigue with food-focused marketing. Today’s idea may simply be a somewhat softer expression of yesterday’s exercise in abject location-locked frustration. I wonder whether I’d get tired of traveling from town to town? Maybe. But if I were to pack as light as I’d like, and had ready access to a washing machine and drier (or a clothes line), it wouldn’t be such a challenge. Of course I’d want each town to have a seedy bar where everyone is friendly and welcoming; though I’d want to be comfortable in absolute isolation when I desire it (which would be quite frequent, I think). And the motels would have to be cheap, clean, and comfortable. I would hope these towns would have libraries, too, with quiet rooms where I could go do research on the demographics of the next town.

It occurs to me I’d like to have places where people can sit and eat, under umbrellas, after they buy from me. Maybe I would give them discounts if they bring their own utensils; you know, bowls or plates and forks. That would add to the unique environment and would save me money and time in clean-up. “Bring your own bowl and spoon for a $0.50 discount on John’s Hot-Head Chile!” I’ll have to work this thing out, of course, before I launch my cross-country tour. Where I’ll go, what I’ll serve, how I’ll get my products, where I’ll store them, where I’ll cook and the locations from which I’ll serve. And all the rest.

Like so many other of my ideas, I think this one may be one of those that I call my “launch and leave” endeavors. I’d love to get it started, but I’m afraid my interest would wane quite fast. The way it does with almost everything in which I’m interested. I get sidetracked. I lose interest; or maybe it’s passion I lose. Whatever it is, the spark or the ember or the burning flame gets quenched and I’m left with the ashes of an idea that no longer seems particularly appealing. My enthusiasm ebbs until it finally reaches bottom. It happens fast, too, like the tides of the Bay of Fundy.

I don’t have the personality to promote this idea. I couldn’t do it on an ongoing basis, anyway. I can’t present a cheerful presence when I don’t feel cheerful. You have to be able to make people feel good about buying from you. And you can’t do that when your facial expressions betray depression or boredom or hopelessness. My face suggests I’m in the midst of those emotions even when I’m perfectly content. The face of a serial killer itching for his next victim. No one’s ever told me I have that face, but sometimes I look in the mirror and am frightened by who I see; I can’t call the police because I might be held for observation. “He said he was afraid the guy in the mirror was going to kill him,” the officer would tell the judge. And the judge would say, “I’d cut you loose, sir, if only to get another taste of your ćevapčići sticks, but I can’t in good conscience risk letting you go, only to learn later you’d been murdered.”

It’s not funny, really. I think many of my ideas are, or could be, million-dollar endeavors, but they would require intense, long-term follow-through. I can lose interest in a sneeze half-way through the experience, so I’m afraid I am condemned to be on the lookout for my ideas being implemented successfully. I watch as someone else becomes wealthy enough to buy an isolated Pacific island, while I imagine myself sitting by the side of the road with a flat tire outside Valentine, Nebraska, stranded and broke. I might like Valentine, Nebraska. I might not.

I understand that the post office in Valentine, Nebraska gets enormous increases in mail volume around Valentine’s Day as people send their materials there so they can be postmarked “Valentine.” If that can’t excite me, nothing can.

Perhaps we just needed a little urging to embark on a road trip. The road trip I’ve been wanting to take ever since we moved to Arkansas 5+ years ago.  Whether the trip materializes remains to be seen, but at least its outline appears to be taking shape in our plans.  Yeah. That’s happened before, though.

Upon our return from Mexico (we’re driving to Dallas, leaving our car there, then flying back from Guadaljara), we’ll spend a day or two in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. We may then head up to Fort Smith for a day or two to visit with friends there. But a look at our calendar this morning asserts that the term “road trip” clearly cannot apply to this brief journey; I have a delayed propane service scheduled during the week I had hoped to be “on the road.” And, the following day, an appointment with my oncologist screams at me. So, the best case is a very brief visit in Dallas and a very brief visit in Fort Smith and a quick drive home to get back in the habit of allowing our lives to be ruled by the calendar.

We’ve escaped the calendar before, though. We spent seventeen days in Europe last month. And we’ve demanded a seven-day release from calendar duties for the Mexico trip. So we know it can be done. We just have to commit to doing it. I can make that commitment. I can change appointments or cancel and reschedule them. I can treat the calendar like a suggestion, not like an unbending master who controls me as if I were a slave. But the calendar isn’t the only issue. I’ll leave it at that.

I’m growing increasingly frustrated with artificial obligations. That is, unnecessary commitments that purport to own my time. These demands on my time sometimes remind me of bad jokes, enhanced in the extreme: “Oh, I would so love to get together with you for lunch, but I have an appointment that day to have the lower half of my left ear lobe photographed. And you know how hard it is to get on the ear-photographer’s schedule.” Some of the demands on my time/our time seem to be just as critical as having an ear-picture done.

Yet some of the obligations, once made, deserve to be met, without complaint. I agreed to the appointments with Dr. Chen and Dr. Chu; even though I don’t like the time they take, I agreed to them, so that’s that. And I readily agreed to be the feature poet for Wednesday Night Poetry at the end of the month; for several reasons, I need to fulfill that obligation. And there are more. Not all mine, personally, but obligations that involve me in some form or another.

Carving a week or two or, God forbid, an entire month out of our schedule seems damn near an impossible task.  Maybe, though, I can find a way to carve a week or two for myself, alone. I am, after all, the one who seems to be going stark-raving mad in the face of servitude to the almighty calendar. Is it outside the realm of reason to free myself from the clutches of the calendar for just a week? Would I be forgiven for breaking the shackles of bondage and escaping just long enough to breathe free for a time?

But I don’t know whether I’m suited to solo road trippery. Though I am a loner through and through, I need company. That’s odd, I think. I prefer my own company most of the time and am perfectly happy to avoid crowds and even to stay away from small groups of likable people; but I need human contact. And not just any human contact. I need contact that permits me to be the misanthropic geezer, with allowances for intermittent periods of intense humanitarianism. I am, without a doubt, a hard person to be around. A hard person to like. Maybe even an impossible person to like. I know I couldn’t stand being around someone like me; at least not for long. Fortunately, I don’t have to listen to myself talk. I don’t have to put up with endless rants and complaints about the faults of humans as a species.

Looking at myself from a distance, as a dispassionate observer, I see someone who resembles a nickel. One side of the nickel is hard and sharp. When it hits the hard surface of a concrete street, it makes a loud, metallic sound that hurts the ears of everyone in close proximity. That side of the nickel preens itself to maintain that hard, dangerous, appearance; it grooms itself to look and sound dangerous. To warn people away from getting too close.

The other side of the nickel has spent its lifetime intentionally wearing its hard surface to a soft patina that’s pleasing to the touch. Where the other side of the coin is sharp dangerous, this side is worn and welcoming. This side is tattered by time and exposure to the rough edges of the world; its satiny sheen offers a warm, emotional embrace to those who need to escape a hard world.

My mood this morning is, in a word or two, sour and sad. I have no business recording all this angst and anger for the world to see, except that it will serve, later, as a reminder of just how bitter and upset and angry I can feel; even when I can’t put my finger on anything specific that causes those emotions to well up. Fortunately, this sort of mood is relatively rare and short-lived; at least it has been until now. I can only hope this, too, shall pass.