My Thoughts on Changes

I wonder why, with so many interesting things happening around me and beyond, is it so difficult to sit down and just write about it. Anything. How does some people actually learn to organize their ideas and pour them effortlessly down in fluid writing? For me, most of the time, although I love to write, it feels like I rather volunteer for a good flogging than enjoying some nice blogging. Writer’s block? No, I don’t think so. It feels more like lack of will and motivation. Still, in the back of your mind, you know there is a blog waiting to be filled with some serious thoughts and experiences – not that those would ever come from me but I can hope, right? – and then guilt sets in, like you are forgetting to call your mom or something like that.
Then, to “facilitate” my blog life, I had the brilliant idea of creating another blog for my Spanish thoughts… Go figure. It seems that masochism is one of my personality treats.
More on this later? Perhaps…

Don Pablo, mi amigo y consejero, así como llego a mi vida, salido de la nada para caer en ella, así se fue. El día de su partida, 24 de abril, la noticia me encontró dentro de mi; ensimismado en quehaceres que no me permitieron digerirle. Como que no pasó. Como que todavía estaba su presencia alrededor. Quizás sea así. Quizás algo quedó detrás; omnipresente e intangible, pero aquí, cerca de uno; susurrando consejos, de aquellos que son pedidos y de los que no lo son.
Pablo Gonzalez nació en 1946, en la Ciudad de las Piñas, Barceloneta, Puerto Rico. Ciudad con playas de arenas negras y los manantiales de agua fresca más pura de toda la isla. Su compleaños, 25 de Julio, fecha imposible de olvidar para mi, era compartido con mi hija Amarís. Padre de familia, tenía responsabilidades y preocupaciones tan mundanas como las mias; con una esposa que le amaba, un hijo ya crecido y otro que bordea los diez. Pero don Pablo era también otra cosa. Don Pablo era un ser que vivía en dos mundos; un manosanta, un chamán; a la vez el portal a un lugar que no se encuentra en esta realidad y el viajero que le cruza a placer. Don Pablo era un ejemplo viviente de una realidad que nos está vedada. Amigo de Orixás, intercedía ante Exu, charlaba con Xangó y era amante de Iemanjá.
¿Cómo se reemplaza uno de estos seres que te cuentan cosas de un mundo que vive más allá de tu visión? Alguien que parece mirar detrás de escena la obra de tu vida. Alguien que te alimenta los sueños con imagenes fantásticas de espiritus que se compiten entre si el tablero de una realidad que está de éste lado. Alguien que te sana el espíritu cuando este necesita ser sanado. ¿Cómo hago ahora para saber que es lo que Ogum u Obatalá quieren de mi? ¿Cómo se que Iemanjá me escucha, que me quiere, que está contenta conmigo?
Muchos andan por ahí que visten el mismo sayo, sin embargo, uno no debe salir a buscarlos. Para mi don Pablo pasó, no fue buscado, fue sino el producto de mis acciones. Un día estaba allí. Yo, en el banquillo. El, testigo, abogado y fiscal de mis haceres. Yo, el juez. Una noche, como tantas otras, viajó a ese plano que visitaba a menudo para charlar con dioses, semidioses y otros espíritus. Esa noche decidió quedarse. Esa noche le pidió al pálido jinete, a cuya espalda cabalgaba por ese mundo, que no le devolviera. La muerte, ese pálido jinete, amigo inseparable, se obligó a conceder.
Don Pablo, mi amigo, de este lado el vacío es como hambre. Desde donde esté, no se olvide de volver un día a para charlar conmigo. Cierto es, nos volveremos a encontrar.

Main Entry: ex is ten tial ism
Pronunciation: -‘ten(t)-sh&-“li-z&m
Function: noun: a chiefly 20th century philosophical movement embracing diverse doctrines but centering on analysis of individual existence in an unfathomable universe and the plight of the individual who must assume ultimate responsibility for his acts of free will without any certain knowledge of what is right or wrong or good or bad

I decided to start a new blog in my site for Spanish language musings only. I believe that although the two languages, English and Spanish, are not mutually exclusive in a given place, it could be a little confusing to follow one’s train of thoughts if I jump from one to the other, unless of course, the reader is also bilingual. That is something I cannot assume.
The new blog is at: Lear, Bitacora Existencial
Now, why the existentialism theme in the blogs? The reason is that I am trying to find a voice that is able to explain why I see things the way I do. I found a very good quote about the definition of existentialism at Existentialism: A Primer:

Existentialism is about being a saint without God; being your own hero, without all the sanction and support of religion or society.
– Anita Brookner (b. 1938), British novelist, art historian. Interview in Writers at Work, Eighth Series, ed. George Plimpton (1988).

I am a firm believer that life is what we make of it and that the strategy is to stay one step ahead of those things that would interfere with the goals we set forth for ourselves. In this blog, as well as the one in Spanish, I will ponder upon many things I see and experience in my life. You may ask in what part of that equation does the I Ching fits in. The answer is that the I Ching plays a very important role in my life and the pursuit of those goals. It is a helpful tool to make decisions I can live with and, why not, its understanding, is a personal goal by itself.

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so ;
For those, whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy picture[s] be,
Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery.
Thou’rt slave to Fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,
And better than thy stroke ; why swell’st thou then ?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And Death shall be no more ; Death, thou shalt die.

John Donne (1572-1631)

A few days ago we were coming back home from yet another auction and we took some of the back roads. The day was cold but beautiful for a drive around the fields of Salem county in New Jersey. Salem is where the oldest colony settlements in New Jersey are to be found and history, as it pertains to the European colonization of this country, is rife.
Photography is the “art of seeing”. Over the years, although I don’t consider myself a school taught professional, I have developed what I humbly consider a respectable eye for photography. For that I mean not that I have mastered all the technicalities of the trade, but that I have an eye able to find subjects worthy of being photographed. Or that is what I’d like to think. Be it as it may, I have very good peripheral vision and I’m constantly scanning, left and right, for something that would make me take the lid off my camera. My wife thinks this is distracting when you are at the wheel of your car. I suppose a passenger can’t but pray for a safe arrival when a driver’s field of interest on the road is about 160° as opposed to a “safe” 60° field of vision. She has been trying to find some horse blinders that would fit me. Oh well, everybody is a critic…

Many times this practice pays off. Just over a road I have traveled many times before, and in which I’ve never noticed anything interesting, I spotted for the first time something that made me hit the brakes: the tiniest formal cemetery I have ever seen.
This little plot of hallowed land measured some 10 feet by 5 feet and had eight graves in it. Some of the headstones were very small, made of limestone and corroded beyond any legibility. It made me think of babies buried there.

The whole sight was so curious and compelling that I took several pictures from different angles. The only headstone I was able to read though was of a man called Nathaniel Stretch and he lived from 1792 to 1870. It was very hard to read and had to play some Photoshop tricks to actually bring the writing up (see the negative picture below).
I would say it is safe to assume that the other graves are of close family members. The only thing I found about Mr. Stretch is that at one time he owned the famous Hancock House situated in what is now known as Lower Alloway Creek. He sold that house for $4,200 in 1848. The tiny cemetery is only a few miles away from the house. If I find some will and the proper mood I will do some further research at the Salem County Historical Society and see who this man really was.

The whole affair was a good example of synchronicity with something I had just read. It is a critic in the New York Review of Books, by W.S. Merwin, of a book by Robert Pogue Harrison called The Dominion of the Dead
Mr. Harrison has some very interesting premises in his book about death and how humanity deals with it. One of those premises is that Humanity

“is not a species (Homo Sapiens is a species); it is a way of being mortal and relating to the dead. To be human means above all to bury.”

Furthermore, he quotes Giambattista Vico as reminding us in his “The New Science” that the Latin word humanitas comes first of all from the word humando which means burying. Interestingly, in Spanish we use the word “inhumar” for burying the dead.
What’s interesting in all this is that I read the article after taking the pictures. Even though I am fond of them as photographic objects, that day I wasn’t looking for cemeteries compelled by the article. It just found me and I had only intended to add the pictures to my collection. When I read the article, I thought: “what a great example of some of Mr. Harrison’s expositions”. As he says in the final chapter:

“While it is true that we speak with the words of the dead, it is equally true that the dead speak in and through the voices of the living. We inherit their words so as to lend them voice.”

Mr. Nathaniel Stretch and his close family, whoever he was in real life as a person, has found an unintended voice some 134 years after his death.
Cheers to you Nathaniel. Live long.

Last Saturday I went to an Estate Auction. I’m always visiting auctions. I am a “Hi, my name is Luis and I’m an auction junkie…” type of guy. Some of the times I’m just curious about what may be there, some others I go because there are books advertised. The present case had both characteristics.
This auction was different in many ways from others though. For once, I took my camera with me. Even though my cameras are always at arm’s reach, this was a first. The other interesting thing was the items that were there for auction. The place was full of Egyptian articles and esoteric books about Kabala and ancient Egypt religious practices. Quite amazing indeed.
There is something magical about Estate Auctions. If you step aside from the obvious reason you go to an auction, if you place yourself as an observer, the proverbial fly on the wall, you would experience something very different. Auctions are the epitome of object immortality while at the same time are a vision of the future. It is our own mortality that dances at the tune of the auctioneer’s voice. Left behind possessions are but a surreal echo of a person’s life. I think that if I wasn’t so fascinated by some of the items one sometimes finds at auctions I would stand in awe in their presence as if they were religious relics. I cannot but wonder what drove some of the deceased to collect many of the curious items we can find.
This lady, I found out, died in 1999 of lung cancer. The auction was held at her house and her husband was there – a witness to the common past of this lady with her personal possessions – taking himself pictures of it all. As if this was his own rite of passage. Perhaps an incomplete one at that. A not so clean break with the past. This is alright, I cannot find fault in creating memories. Memories, after all, are the ultimate possession.
All of it makes me wonder if I could ever find a practical use in my own life for what Joel Biroco said in his online journal:

I do think possessions weigh you down, give you too much that’s too trivial to think about. One day I will inherit what my parents spent their lives slaving for. Not a massive amount, but enough to last a long time if I go to live in a place where food and shelter is cheap, such as Asia. Then perhaps my accumulated skills at living light and desiring little may come into their own. Perhaps then I will stop marking time, as it were, and start living. Oh, I don’t say I am not living now, I’m just very very curious about what I’m actually living for

The goal is very noble indeed. Present society is so stuck on accumulation that we’ve become overgrown squirrels preparing for a hibernation that never seems to happen. When the date is actually upon us, material possessions do actually lose their appeal. Unless you are an ancient Egyptian – and this lady, if we go by what she had in life, appears to have been one in spirit – whereby your possessions accompany you to the afterlife, they are always checked at the door, thank you. On the other hand, I really wish that, as a tribute to her beliefs in life, some of the things that were at the auction, actually had made it to her side in the coffin.
Many times I wish I had the ascetic mentality that Joel seems to be developing. Easier said than done. Baggage is already way beyond my control and I am already bound to fatten some auctioneer’s wallet.
Mortality is nothing but an opportunity for those left among the living to keep accumulating from left behind possessions. All of it to eventually feed those that will most certainly come to their own Estate Auctions.

There are sacred things and there are SACRED things. You just don’t mess with sushi unless you are a pro at Russian Roulete!!

I’ve still got it! How do you like the new design for this blog?
I hadn’t designed web sites since 1995 when I created what at that moment was the first site for a Steamship Agency in the U.S. The company was “Gulf and Atlantic Maritime Services, Inc.” and is now defunct. It has since merged with the giant A.P. Moller back in 2000. The domain name was “gnamaritime.com” and is a name that has been expired for a few years already.
I just did an experiment to see if I could find the old site at the WayBack Machine in the Archive.org site. Surprise, surprise! It was there. Here is how my site looked like in 1995: Gulf and Atlantic
Pitiful, eh? Compared to today’s designs and tools available to create sites, the darn thing looks more primitive than an undiscovered Amazonian tribe, but, believe me, it was not only cutting edge at the time but the very first site for a Shipping Agency in the U.S. plus one of the first ones in the world for shipping related services. At that time the Web was completely new and almost unexplored for business promotion. I just wish I hadn’t had so many other responsibilities at the time that took me away from web designing and programming. Who knows, you may had been reading the musings of a Yahoo like ticoon by now… Wishful thinking? Well…There are so many, self-made web-millionaire weirdoes out there that one more weirdo would fit right in. Water under the bridge…
Which brings me to today’s posting. I had originally “borrowed” a design for this blog from another one using Movable Type. That design was completely done with HTML Tables and contained the most obscure coding you can imagine. At the end of the day, I had changed so many things in there that the code was completely unrecognizable from the original “borrowed” design. If you believe me that it was obscure to begin with, the end result was right down akin to Egyptian hieroglyphs before the discovery of the Rosetta Stone…
Finally, I decided to “refresh” my web design knowledge. A few books, design oriented web site readings and Dreamweaver’s learning curves later, here is the result. Now the whole blog is based on CSS and XHTML. With the exception of the Calendar section, it contains no HTML Tables. It even passed the W3 compatibility check! See the links to the validation site to the left and check it out.
You can also check my Home Page. That is the portal to a new site I designed that will host an I Ching Forum, among other themes, in Spanish.
If you use Movable Type for your blog and like this design, you can download it from here. Just customize it to your needs.

I must give it to them, these guys are persistent. I suppose this kind of scam must work for the perpetrators or otherwise not so many people would be wasting so much time and bandwidth in this kind of crap. I even read somewhere that this is an actual industry in Nigeria with traceable income in the overall GDP.
There must also be an unending supply of suckers out there who actually reply to this kind of correspondence. Well, good luck guys!!! Who knows, maybe some distant cousin will get the 20 millions and cut me in the profits. I am sure I will not…
Would somebody please put this guy Musere out of his misery?
By the way Mr. Musere, please check your spelling. It does not look very professional in business transactions to have these kind of errors. Besides, aren’t there 20 million reasons to look good?
====================================
Email:rmusere@mailtobe.com
Dear Andrade,
Compliments.
My name is MR. ROLAND MUSERE, a close confidant of Mr.Martin Andrade,a
foreign national but who was resident engineer who was into heavy duty
farm equipment maintenance and supplies in Zimbabwe. Since his death I
have made several enquiries to your embassy to locate any of my friend’s
extended relatives, this has also proved unsuccessful.
After these several unsuccessful attempts, I decided to trace his last
name over the Internet, to locate any member of his family hence I
contacted you. I have contacted you to assist in repatriating the money
left behind by my friend before they get confisicated or declared
unserviceable by the security company where this huge deposits were
lodged.
…. read on

Continue reading →