Thanksgiving day in the US. Families gather together to give thanks and to eat one of the millions of huge turkeys slaughtered for this time of the year. This got me thinking. Festivities imply lots of food, lots of eating, and necessarily, a significant increase in toilet flushes. ...and, oh yeah! BIDETS!! where are they?
I have probably seen one or two since I got to the US, and that is almost 6 years ago. I am therefore inclined to believe that, in general, people in the US have their xxxxx dirty (no disrespect intended) :P
Do I have goals in life? I do. And very ambitious ones. How am I going to fulfill them? Well, I have some ideas and I will go shaping my plans as I live life to the fullest and consider the circumstances that destiny and/or God present me with. God? Destiny? Or are they random circumstances? Do we have any control over them? This is precisely my inspiration for this month's post. Nothing is guaranteed. We can dedicate long hours and put all our energy towards achieving that so longed objective, but it doesn't fully depend on us. Our determination plays a huge part in overcoming obstacles and succeeding in our endeavors, but there's also a luck factor, a randomness factor, destiny, God's will, or whatever you may want to call it, that plays an important part in the fulfillment or failure of our plans. Nothing is guaranteed. Nothing. And I have experienced this in a number of ways in the last 1 or 2 weeks.
Nothing is guaranteed. I have been working in an IT company since June 2007. I really didn't like what I was doing but the pay was good and it was helping me pay for school, so I had to swallow the bad-tasting work experience in order to continue studying. After a year of working for the company, and right after I got back from New York 2 weeks ago, I got home and checked my emails and learned that my contract would not be renewed. The reason? I don't know. No one talked to me. Maybe they realized I didn't like the job and I would not continue working for them after I graduate. Maybe I was no longer useful for them. Maybe it was too much of a complication since my job was business oriented and as for an IIT requirement my job had to be technical and related to my field of study, so every time I renewed the contract I had to lie and describe in the IIT paperwork that I was working in something I was actually not. There's a new CEO in the company and he probably didn't like this... anyway, they did me a favor. Sooner or later I had to leave the company... but to be honest, I was planning on this job to pay for this semester's tuition. How am I going to pay for school this semester? I don't know. I have no idea. But this is not the first time. Since I got to the US, many times I did not know how I would pay for that semester's tuition, even 1 or 2 weeks before the semester would begin, and somehow I have always been able to pay for it. This time will not be an exception. Nothing is guaranteed, though.
Is financial need going to continue conditioning my life choices as it has done all my life? I promise myself it will not. Not after I graduate.
Nothing is guaranteed. After 5 years living in a small apartment with part of my family, my parents have recently bought a house and we have spent all last week moving our stuff to the new place. It's an old house, pretty ugly I must say, but the price was low and it is in a really nice area, so the idea of my parents is to invest in the lot, construct a new house, and then sell it for a juicy profit.
Last Friday we were all in the Dodge Caravan of my dad going back to the apartment cause the new place still didn't have gas nor hot water, and suddenly a 16 year old girl, who apparently had just learned to drive and had a new and shiny driver license, turned into the street we were driving in and hit us on the front passenger side. It was not a big accident, but the van was rendered undriveable and my mom was injured in the head and sent to the hospital. Fortunately it was just a minor injury, nothing serious – see pics :) - but... think about it. Nothing is guaranteed. Nothing. You could be driving with your family and a drunk driver hits your car killing your parents and ruining your family forever. Anything could happen. Nothing is guaranteed. Nothing. We can have fantastic and ambitious plans, but suddenly something like this could happen and all your dreams would be shattered into pieces, maybe even destroyed forever.
How vulnerable we are. How insignificant we are. How arrogant we are to think that we control our lives. How stupid we are wasting our time in inconsequential and superficial activities that do nothing but just distract us from much more valued and generally neglected things. Things that we learn to value once gone, once we don't have them anymore. This could be your last day, enjoy it :) and do not regret anything that you do.
Since my dad came to the US about 6 years ago (I came one year later) he – we, but mainly he – had never taken any vacations, so now that my mom was in Chicago for a few weeks, he decided to go somewhere warm to relax and spend some time with his wife. Nobody can reason nor explain why, but probably due to some bizarre combination of the stars or some inexplicable whim of destiny, mercy started flowing through his veins and he felt kind of pity for leaving us in the bitter cold of Chicago, so after a few days of laborious persuasion he finally agreed to take us with them =) joking… no persuasion was necessary, gracias Pa!
On December 25th, after a long night of celebration with family and friends, we left Chicago at around 10am and started the road trip. Anyone who knows me a little surely knows that I love traveling, and this trip was no exception :) I totally loved and enjoyed every minute of it. We passed through Indiana, Kentucky (got a ticket there on the way back... bleh...), Tennessee – we rented a cabin and spent a few days in Lookout Mountain – Chattanooga – I almost go hang gliding there but for some reason the company is closed on Wednesdays (????) and the next day it rained pretty heavily, so I couldn’t do it and I’ll have to postpone it until some other time – we drove through Georgia, and finally got to Florida. We spent two days in Sarasota, then drove to Miami for New Year’s Eve (partied and danced all night in the streets of Miami – pretty sweet!) and on our last day we went to the Florida Keys, which are… beautiful…
This post is not about the trip however, but about a lady that we met in Sarasota, and the simple things around us that oftentimes we fail to perceive. After a long day at the beach, Kevin and I were walking around the downtown area and we came across this wonderful lady singing along with her guitar. She had an unbelievably honest, simple, and radiant smile and such a fantastic sweet voice that anyone with an open heart and/or an open mind would have stopped walking to listen to her. This was not the case though... Most of the tourists passing by would just look at her for a fraction of a second and immediately divert the direction of their eyes towards the ‘empty’ show windows, completely oblivious to her music and blatantly ignoring her presence.
Simple beauty is just too good to pass up, so we took a few moments to listen until she finished the song. After a small contribution in the basket she asked us where we were from, and she mentioned that she was originally from Israel and had come to the US when she was very young. From Israel? Oh! I know a song in Spanish from Israel! So I started singing it… I honestly knew it, but at the moment I completely forgot, that the song is actually a cover of the Israelite national anthem with some Bible verses in Spanish. No offense in that though... she actually liked it and we sang it together :)
It was interesting to see the reaction of some tourists passing by. At first, most were indifferent to the lady and wouldn’t even look in her direction, but now they would look at us with surprise and with an unequivocal expression in their faces, they would convey their astonishment and wonder of what the heck were we doing, or an ‘I would never do that’…
But why did we stop to listen to her while most didn’t? This got me thinking. Oftentimes we fail to notice simple but nonetheless amazingly beautiful things due to the fast pace we live our lives in. I am not saying that these tourists didn’t notice her because they were walking fast, because in fact they did notice her and deliberately ignored her, probably due to their superficiality and stupid arrogance. I’m not saying also that we should stop and listen to every person performing in the street, because some are simply terrible, and some stink a lot. But this lady was different. She was poor and her garments were poorly manufactured, but her poverty was noble, and her clothes were clean.
I think I quoted the following phrase before, but I’ll do it again: “Life is what happens while we are busy making other plans”. It’s good to have goals, to strive for ideals, but after we have spent years and years of abnegation, working and sacrificing valuable time to finally attain that yearned goal, then what? To be fair, it does depend on the nature of our goal, but would all these years have been worth it? It is hard to find time to sit back and appreciate the little things in life that mean the most to us. For me at least it is. I always feel like I have so much to do that I just can’t take some time to enjoy these things.
Sometimes I feel that time is an endangered species at the verge of extinction; that those that have it are the lucky ones, but for those of us that don’t, it’s kind of a feeling that time is ferociously consuming our minds… people running back and forth from their homes to their workplace, back to their homes, sleep a few hours, restore some energies, and back to the workplace… people worried about trivial problems… what are their plans for their future? Do they have any? We were born in this society, we were raised watching others play the same game, should we have any? Do we know of any other ways for living our lives? Is there any other way? Think about it. What’s important in life?
We need to learn to appreciate the small and invaluable things that surround us, be around people worth being around, appreciate those that appreciate you, ignore those that don’t – there are millions of people to interact with, why care about those that don’t like you? – enjoy the smell of freshly fallen pine needles, an early-afternoon siesta to recharge depleted batteries, a day where time doesn’t matter, enjoy the sunset as the day draws to a close, admire all animals and insects, and their complexity and equilibrium in nature... these simple things in life are by far the most rewarding and worth our time.
We need to take each day one at a time and enjoy the simple things in life, they should mean the most to us. I am not saying that we should take everything simple and be lazy and unproductive bums. Equilibrium is the rule. But life can be expensive and cause so much strife... these things are free, these simple things are there for us all.
Felicitaciones Alan! A few weeks ago my brother graduated as a professional photographer. The following photographs are not representative of all the ones he has taken nor of his 'magic' with the camera, or maybe they are, but they are pictures I especially like.
Como aclaración, Alan: de los CDs y DVDs que mandaste, tengo una carpeta con 310 fotos que especialmente me gustaron, asi que la selección de estas fotos en particular es meramente resultado de una selección rápida, arbitraria y carente de conocimientos técnicos fotográficos. Asi que, nuevamente, es probable que no hagan justicia a tu talento ;) (pero solo aclaro para que después no rompas las bolas)
Solidarizing myself with the Blog Action Day initiative, here goes a short note on environmental awareness.
To begin with, my general and incomplete definition of Man: Arrogant and intrusive animal that disposes of nature as it pleases, without caring to consider other animals with as much right as ours to live and enjoy nature as they please it.
Of course, this is in general. Is there anybody out there that actually does care about nature? I’m sure there is. In fact, I’m sure there are many. I would go even further and bet that the number of people that actually cares about the environment is by far much more than the number polluting it. But then, what’s the problem? Are we too comfortable with the way we live and too indifferent to actually do something about it? Is our ‘caring’ enough? Evidently, it isn’t.
The world is a very unequal place. In general, the people suffering the greatest and harshest consequences due to the destructive activity of man in nature are those living in the poorest regions of the world, those who depend on the generosity of nature to make use of its resources and be able to subsist, those who live in countries that do not have the necessary legislation, or don’t have the means to restrain industries from indiscriminately polluting the environment, and those in countries that are generally the ones that contaminate the least.
Those in the industrialized countries, on the other hand, are the ones that suffer the least. These countries enjoy advantageous geographic locations, they are the strongest, the richest, and the best equipped and prepared to face the effects of our meddling with the environment. For instance, let’s take the case of global warming: These rich countries are located in their majority in regions of medium latitude, with climates not too cold nor not too warm, and are much more prepared to face these changing global conditions than the most vulnerable and poorest countries near the equator, which suffer the most regardless of the fact that are the least contributors to the accumulation of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
The United States for instance, where agriculture represents only 4% of its economy, can endure a climate change problem with much more flexibility and easiness than, say, Malawi, where 90% of its population lives in rural areas, and 40% of its economy is based on agriculture...
All around the world there are examples that wealth enables some countries to better prepare against the gradual but constant destruction of nature, while poverty and geography condemns the most vulnerable regions of the world to suffer greater damages.
... and how unfair it is… these countries accumulated their wealth, at least in part, throughout a century of burning coal, oil, and other fossil fuels which are the base of their lifestyle and of their industries, and the resultant emissions are responsible for yet another preoccupation to deal with for the poorest countries.
Things that we can do:
* Use alternative sources of energy. * Live in green houses. * Illuminate cities with LEDs. * Use Internet to pay the bills. * Live near the workplace. * Prefer public transportation rather than a car. * And if you need a car, then buy a fuel-efficient one as small as possible according to your needs. * Don’t use plastic bags. * Just use your imagination and common sense, and you'll come up with other ways to help the planet, and ourselves...
I don't feel like writing anything this month... really tired, sleeping 3 hs per day, working at Comarch Inc., taking 6 courses, involved in a project... pretty insane... and it's just the beginning of the semester... so a few cool pictures will have to do the job this month.
[1] Comarch pic-nic. Pretty sweet picture.
[2] Americans don't know what a good barbecue is like... I miss Argentine cuisine!
[3] I will do this.
[4] Monkeys cuddling. Another sweet picture.
[5]And of course, the last pic is in honor to the already amazing performance of Los Pumas in the Rugby World Cup - France 2007.
Argentina 17 : 12 France Rugby World Cup - France 2007
They play for themselves, they play for their team, they play for the pride and the love they have for the shirts on their backs, they play for their country, they play with courage, they play with their hearts, they make me cry... AGUANTE LOS PUMAS CARAJO!!
‘What if’ is a question often posed in the context of counterfactual history; what would have happened if some event would have turned out in a different way? There are countless of inconsequential questions that occupy the time of people that have nothing to do but to waste their time in cheap philosophical thoughts that lead to nowhere; these kinds of questions are good for nothing and just contribute to more idle and ignorant minds in a world already overwhelmed by them.
No doubt, It is oftentimes useful to analyze relevant ‘what if’ questions dealing with events that took place in some certain way, to study previous knowledge, to formulate hypothetical situations, to elucidate possible future events and their outcomes, and to apply any measures and corrections necessary to modify, improve, or make certain that a result will come up as desired.
However, the kinds of questions which I find completely unproductive are those ‘what if…’ questions that introduce hypothetical new factors when reconstructing historic events, making us follow vague train of thoughts to imagine the situations from radically different perspectives, speculate about the resulting consequences of those modified events, and start general, ambiguous, endless, and useless debates from which irrelevant conclusions are spitted out indiscriminately, remaining in the air for a few moments, and soon forgotten... For instance, I feel uneasy and find totally unproductive when people start debating historical events for the sake of cheap philosophizing, and say: what if this or that would have happened? how would the world be like? What if Jesus wouldn’t have been killed? What if Hitler would have won the war? What if Marx wouldn’t have been born? What if Newton wouldn’t have seen the apple fall? What if the father of capitalism, Adam Smith, would have been born in Marx’s country, Germany? What if Marx would have been born in Scotland? (I must admit these last two are pretty interesting to consider) What if…What if…
These events have already happened in a certain way, and their consequences have henceforth already taken place in history; why wonder about different hypothetical outcomes for events which have precise moments in history, precise and definite outcomes, and is therefore senseless analyzing them more than just accepting them as facts?
Not only are these purposeless questions limited to imagining modified historic events, but also there are many philosophical questions from which no rational definite answer could ever be obtained, and this weakness renders them of little practical significance, almost useless. For instance, what if a question that has distressed and entertained philosophers for centuries was solved? What if there’s actually no especial meaning in life? Why not to accept we don’t have predisposed lives and that we give our lives the meaning and purpose we want to? (Why don’t we just assume we are all animals and our life is as meaningful as that of an ant, if we were to place ourselves in the role it plays in its own simple and minuscule ‘society’?) (hehe we are not of that ‘little’ importance, but the analogy makes the point…here religion could come in, but I don’t want to get into that…) If there is only one truth, what is that truth? … What if there are only two truths, what are those two truths?? … What if there are three???…
I must admit it is fun from time to time to divagate in such inconsequential questions just for the sake of imagining the situations and letting our imagination flow freely across the immensity and abstraction of ideas, to try to deform already established facts and events, bend them in the air, remake them as desired, and with the pressure of our insistent and full of imagination thoughts, have a real deterministic effect on them. It is in fact amusing to believe that, for an instant at least, our powerful mind can actually change events determined by a chain of prior occurrences; however, I believe that even though it might be fun, these kinds of questions should not be seriously considered.
Having said this, here are a few ‘what if’ questions for you to think about, and if you have others, feel free to share them in the comments section :)
* What if America would not have been conquered by the Europeans, and the Mayans, Incas, and other Native American civilizations would have prevailed? How different would the present America be?
* What if in Africa there were the same proportion of psychologists and therapists per capita that currently exist in the US? (Millions of children would not only have aids, but also ADD, ADHD, anxiety disorders, stress, autism, depression, etc., etc., etc. - There’s a subtle and very controversial view here. - )
* What if the most transcendental, used, and relied upon invention of humankind, time, would have never been conceived? For instance, what if the world, especially densely populated cities, would live one day without time i.e. no watches, no clocks, just the sun?
* What if powder would have never been invented?
* What if humans walked in four legs?
* What if some people were not so big?
* What if humans were not so stupid?
* What if another one of the best inventions of humankind, the toilette, would have never been invented?
* What if a tree fell and crushed George Bush in the forest? Would anyone care?
* What if we wouldn't need to sleep?
Serious neck injuries would be prevented hahaha! (Mi viejo. Un grande!)
* What if spaghettis and pizzas were not around? What would humanity be like?
* What if Jesus would have left any written legacy?
* What if Irak would have invaded the U.S.?
* What if in an experimental society the 7 capital sins Lust (Luxuria), Gluttony (Gula), Greed (Avaritia), Sloth (Acedia), Wrath (Ira), Envy (Invidia), Pride (Superbia) were not considered sins?
* What if people, instead of labeling this man a rebel/totatalitarian/communist, would know and understand what he fought for?
Here goes an anecdote… this took place in the months of December 2004 and January 2005. Back when I was in Buenos Aires, I would see how guys would take for a walk ten or more dogs at the same time, and I have never seen that in Chicago nor in the suburbs; so I wondered: why don’t I do the same thing here?
I commented this ‘bright’ idea of starting a dog walking service to two other friends, Victor and Edino, both living in Hinsdale, and we decided to push the idea forward. I designed the flyer, we printed a few hundred, and Edino, Kevin (my youngest brother), Alan (another brother - helped once… he was working somewhere else though), and I started distributing them house by house.
It was a pretty ambitious idea to go and distribute the flyer all around Hinsdale, but we were excited and with lots of energy, so not even the cold stopped us… I mean bitter cold… we couldn’t have chosen a better time to do this but during the winter, enthusiastically enjoying freezing temperatures, snow, wet shoes, and the lack of public restrooms… of course, hiding behind some not so visible tree would compensate for that…
We soon realized that our merchandising strategy was doing ok, as a few interested people started calling, but a major logistics problem arose! At first, we had just limited our services to give the dogs a walk, but that significantly narrowed our business opportunities… we were going from house to house distributing these flyers, but we did not have any convenient place where to take care of the dog if the owner would go out of town… Hinsdale is a wealthy area, and it turns out many decide to spend their weekends out of town and need someone to take care of their pet while they are away, so we decided to provide this service as well haha but where? I lived in an apartment, not in Hinsdale, and while Edino did live in Hinsdale, he lived in a very small house not appropriate to bring a dog and take care of it for a few days. We lost a few potential customers for that =P
A few other problems… there is no public transportation to get to Hinsdale except the Metra (which is pretty expensive), and we did not have a car available, so we had to depend on borrowing my father’s van not only to get to Hinsdale, but also to possibly go and pick up a dog. Very impractical… In addition, I was not confident with my English yet, so phone calls were received by Victor; he would take down the information, pass it to us, and we would be responsible for contacting the possible client, answer his questions, and try to explain and sell our services.
Well, due to different reasons, we ended up taking for a walk zero dogs =D Yep, a complete failure! But was it? In retrospective, every time we think about it we now laugh and ridicule ourselves… as in everything, we learnt from it valuable lessons, and even though it didn’t work, I, at least, do not regret having had done it… I would bet that in the future I’ll do something similar to this (perhaps the Schamber bros. working together :) ...), some entrepreneurial enterprise (but of a different nature), a more serious business endeavor, and we will analyze our possibilities much more carefully, study meticulously what others have already done before us, what others are already offering and how can we differentiate from them, what can we offer that will make us unique in the market (?), think about the possible risks, and always with the same huge determination, same perseverance, same strong spirit, as aggressive, competitive, active and hardworking, though with a little bit more intelligentce this time ;P …and I am sure it will turn out to be a complete success!
25 years have passed; I will not write about the history of the islands, nor about the unfair British occupation, nor about the war, nor about the memorable battles there fought, nor about the incompetent Argentine commanders, nor how they underestimated the British reaction to our attempt of recovering them, nor how Chile helped the British during the war, which by the way, it was partly justified for they were threatened by the Argentine military regime and our military superiority (during those years…), since all of this can be read in detail in more serious sources where you would get a much more complete account of what happened.
I will just limit myself to express my complete solidarity with the Argentine soldiers that fought in the conflict against an immensely superior enemy, a much better equipped professional army, but that regardless of their scarce and inappropriate equipment, and that even though many were sent to war without having finished their training, against their will, and with no other option but to fight, they fought with courage, with honor, with their heart, for what they believed theirs, ours, for our nation, for our territory, for their love for our country.
