Pekenio Mundo

Imagine a small house on a mountain ladder built with the effort of a dreamer’s hands. Nail after nail, brick after brick, inch after inch the house was erected and his dream fulfilled. Strong foundations arduously prepared rest unperturbed withstanding the immensity of his ambition. Rough muddy walls stand still, supporting the heavy roof covered with thick straws impermeabled with the transpiration of his forehead. A rustic wooden door heads towards the east, welcoming the morning sun rays. A big ample window faces the north, contemplating the vast and infinite ocean extending all the way towards the horizon. The house is small but spacious, enough to shelter his family and his few possessions. The lack of furniture is not a problem for him; he just possesses the indispensable: a simple hand crafted table with five chairs to share meals altogether, a rudimentary carbon stove, and a kerosene fridge. No more he needs and more he pretends. He has a paramount ambition, yet he wishes few material things; and those few things he wishes, he wishes them little.

Imagine yourself in such a house, built with the intention of living glorious years in solitude, away from the cities, away from wandering and repetitive lives in superficial, materialistic, and corrupted societies; away from any source of acoustic contamination that would disturb and interfere with his longing for harmony with nature. A house built by someone who understands the true values of things in life and what is to live fully enjoying the gifts of nature, pleasures that can’t be found anywhere near an urban conglomerate, and can’t be compared to any of the so called pleasures defined by the mediocre majority.

Countless dreams drawn to perfection. The house was not the result of improvisation but the fruit of years of deliberate planning, for he did not want to leave anything to the caprice of destiny: he was determined to succeed. Time after time his plans were polished every time he would walk by the forest a few miles away from the house, where hundreds of logs were spread in the ground among the fallen leaves. Logs ignored by travelers and passer bys, apparent useless logs with no other possible use but to keep warm during the winter. But for the visionary, these logs contained a dormant home, a dream, and his axe vigorously fought against their oppressive prision. The result was nothing less than his own little world: his Home.

An enviable home. A bubble in some sense, but no more of a bubble than societies themselves. Societies, inventions of men, are bubbles. How could this man live in a bubble, being in harmony with nature, enjoying what God has offered him for free, being closer and more connected to the stars that illuminate his path than what people in the cities might be to a light bulb a short distance above their heads? How could this be a bubble? Who is being more isolated from his own nature: this man from men, or men from nature?

His family lives in it. A family that does not complain for the lack of comforts found in the city and that understands his yearning for isolation, his desire to move away from human stupidity. A family that does not complain for having to walk long distances to get to the nearest town. Children who do not complain for lacking a television, and who at an early age begin to understand and appreciate his father’s dreams.

The place is a paradise for him. Animals, trees, his family, all have found their balance with nature and coexist peacefully respecting each other. Listen! Listen to a distant waterfall feeding an insatiable river running down the mountain. Listen to the wind gently knocking at the door. Can you hear the songs of birds singing at a distance? Contemplate the immensity of the sky! Watch at the clouds tirelessly and persistently coming from the ocean towards the mainland, discharging some of their burden on the mountain ladder, and continuing their journey around the world. Watch to the sky again! Eagles climbing freely to the heights, resting in mountain peaks, and dominating the clouds. So does this man longs to fly high. His soul is thirsty of stars.

The house is small in comparison to the world, but nonetheless is a world of its own. All range of emotions have their place in it, and all kinds of gestures and expressions visit the family. There is no need for hundreds of people to create such an incredible diversity of feelings; only a handful of souls can represent them in their total magnitude.

Happiness. True happiness. Happy and joyful souls with profound emotions. Honest and meaningful smiles of happiness showing the dreamers old wasted teeth, yellowed by time, some fallen, gone forever, others still standing, as strong as their owner’s conviction.

Tears. Rarely, but surely, tears slide down the wrinkled cheeks mistreated by the severe mountain weather. Tears of joy! Tears of accomplishment! Tears of fulfillment!

Sadness. Indeed, he does feel sad from time to time, and nostalgia for those he loved and left behind.

Compassion. Compassion for those who do not understand him. For the highest he rises, the smallest he appears to the eyes of the envious. Many laugh at him. Others would like to follow his steps and strive arduously to imitate him, but always in vain. When they strive the hardest to elevate themselves to the heights and to clarity, the deeper they succumb to the shadows and mediocrity.

He does envy from time to time the comfortable lifestyles that people in the cities take for granted, and a fleeting jealousy emerges from his heart. It is not easy to live in a direct relationship with the drastic and capricious mountain climate, and with the ferocious wind that sometimes violently threatens the structure of the building. When these feelings arise, however, he puts things in perspective, he remembers the reasons for his life elections, and his paramount will in overcoming the hard obstacles that the mountain and its invisible sculptor present him with triumphs over the difficulties, and these ephemerous feelings go away.

Anger. Enmity with the authorities of a nearby town who have decided to expand a railway passing nearby. Uncertainty, anxiety, and fear for the possible spread of the human plague to peaceful and still harmonious places. Hostility against this threatening virulent invasion. Hostility from even the trees that shout with tears in their eyes to go away, to leave them alone, to not bother them, to look for another place! Nature does not welcome them.

And Love. Love for his family. Love for the mountain. Love for Nature. Love for Freedom. For the greatest quality of the dreamer is his heart. And as in many their heart is what ages the first, in others is their spirit, many others are already old in their youth, and there are those who were recently born and already start to die, his heart is strong and full of life to continue beating for many years to come.

A vision of a world. His world.