The Belly of the Beast (audio version)

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8 Things I Learned This Time Around

So I have been away from home for eight months. The first six I spent living, working, and burning on a low budget cruise ship in the Caribbean. Afterwards I traveled to Peru for a month. I hiked Machu Picchu via the Salkantay Pass. I rode all night on the back of a potato truck. I shot short documentary videos. Then I flew to Panama and did it all again. I went to wildlife refuges. I saw how locals captured rare birds. I made promotional videos in a place where communities are living in a near-survival state. I once paid a man ten dollars for a day’s work, then went and had a fifteen-dollar lunch.

These are the handful of lessons that I have learned this time around that I will never forget:

1. Choices not feelings make the person

I almost had an awesome, loving, and fulfilling relationship with a girl on the ship. But she used men and she used me. I once hurt her badly for a complicated, but ultimately forgivable offense. When forgiveness wasn’t offered I showed up at her room one night and broke down next to her bed. She laughed at me and called me “a sorry thirty year-old man still crying in the sandbox.” It was one of the most humiliating events of my entire life.

She once wrote me: "David there are a number of things I want to accomplish in life but none more than this: I want to be a positive difference in peoples' lives. I want to people say 'my life was better because [her name] was in it.' I'm telling you this because you did it. My life is better, I am better because you shared your life with me."

If I had learned that choices not feelings make the person I would have known that this woman was not for me because she did not know how not to use people. Unfortunately for me, I saw everything wonderful about her. She meant well, she knew she was screwing up and felt remorse, but this did not change the fact that she chose to use people. This lesson was painful and cost me some of my romantic idealism.

2. I have more strength than I know

I was afraid of hiking the 5-day Salkantay Pass to Machu Picchu because I have had foot problems for years. I avoid certain activities. When I go to museums sometimes I check out a wheel chair so that I can actually enjoy the experience. A grueling one hundred kilometer hike was something I had never ventured.

Maybe that girl from the ship was in my head a little when she said, “I wasn’t man enough for her.” I smiled then as I told her, “You don’t get me. I don’t believe in hope anymore. When I can’t run, I’ll walk, and when I can’t walk any longer, I will crawl.

Those were just words until tested on Salkantay.

The first two days I barely slept because of the early schedule and the cold, and for the rest of the days I did not sleep well. At the end of the second day I jammed my knee going downhill. I limped into camp that evening and the entire next day. My speed was reduced by at least a third. The fourth day our guide told us that we would be splitting up and that I would be going with the group opting out of the rigorous all-day up and downhill terrain. “Your knee is bad, you’ll never make it,” he said. My good friend Alfredo couldn’t believe I would go on. He angrily argued, “You’re going to ruin the rest of your travels if you keep going.”

But nothing was going to stop me, though I truly didn’t know if I could make it. I only knew that if I couldn’t keep up I would walk slower, and when I couldn’t walk I would crawl. Thankfully, it didn’t come to this. But I was prepared for the worst.

My limp was causing stress on other joints and great blisters formed on my heels from the awkward maneuvering. At some points the only way I could have any speed going down hill was to walk backwards. By the time I arrived at Aguas Calientes at the foot of Machu Picchu I had pushed myself harder than ever before. The next day, I still hiked the Inca steps for two hours the next day to Machu Picchu.

In a postcard picture of the ruins of Machu Picchu you will notice a majestic mountain in the background. That’s Wayan Picchu. We had a special pass to climb to the top of that as well, but I was already done. I got patted on my back for my effort. I had reached Machu Picchu - my goal. I was in too much pain to continue any farther and I said to myself “next time.” Next time I am here I will climb Wayan Picchu. Next time. These are deadly words.

There happened to be a clinic at the site. I staggered in and the nurse bandaged me up in five different places. I hiked Wayan Picchu. I did it all.

As I write this two months later, my injuries have healed, but the evidence of the great blisters on my heels may last for years. My feet hurt almost the whole trek, but from blisters and not where I had expected them to hurt. I can no longer consider my feet the limitation they once were. And the eight hours of sleep I felt I needed every night just to function? I’ll be good to my body still, but it is never going to stop me again.

3. There is more to life

The cruise ship sickened me. How many countless days did I stand at the bow burning for a different life? After traveling it is hard to see anything redemptive in the cruise ship experience. It’s a lot of fun for many people. There’s lots of food, alcohol, and entertainment, but the problem is that these are all the spiritual equivalent of empty calories.

It has taken me a long time to come around from my weakened spiritual state in that place. Many weeks into my trip to Peru I was deep in the rural countryside of the Northern Highlands. My friend Roger and I were riding on the back of a cuatro por cuatro (4x4). We kept on going higher into the clouds around switchbacks that opened up into a great white nothingness. At times I could see for miles. As I stood up in the back with the wind in my face I suddenly found myself. “There you are!” I thought. Next I thought, “well where the fuck have you been?”

You know what is really fun? Rediscovering who you are. And you can’t do that on a cruise ship. Food, alcohol, and cheap entertainment cannot take the place of travel, good conversation, and art. To those who have been feeling that there is more to life, know that there is and that by simply feeling this you are already on your way.

4. I can have fun anywhere

Often Ilmars would throw me a softy. “What are we going to do today David?” This thirty-two year old father would say giddily. I always had a plan.

My friends Milko, Ilmars, and I got into all sorts of trouble: attempting to hike through impossibly thick foliage on a tropical island, jumping off of Jamaican waterfalls, hitting on cute bartenders, inventing new ways to take a shot and cause a scene, playing American football on the beach, sampling all sorts of tequila at the hacienda (granted most of our adventures involved tequila). Alcohol must have been part of the reason why, when the Spa girls were dancing on the platform on the pole at Fat Tuesdays, I joined in. Granted I kicked one of the girls in the face while doing an upside-down slide, but video evidence suggests that it was a mere brush and she played the sympathy card.

“I never thought of you as that kind of person” one enamored friend remarked. I can’t take the credit. It was Milko and Ilmars and their constant “YES.” I always promised adventure, but I never promised they would like it. Many times it didn’t quite compare to my imagination, but the times it did go down as planned were some of my best times at sea. I wasn’t always the fun one though. It was those two who were flirting with the cute bartender and jibing me for not joining in. Indeed, more than guilting me for not doing a shot with them – they hung their friendship on it. “Oh, Milko, he won’t take one shot,” Ilmars would say. “I guess he’s not really our friend.” Milko would respond, “We thought he was our friend but we were wrong.” I could never take just one shot, the next round was on me, and then they owed me one. The madness began. I miss those guys.

They were the regulars for Sopranos night, sometimes the only students in my English class, and several departmental favors occurred between us. So many on the ship are shut-ins, carving out a tiny nook of life somewhere between the crew bar and the beach. That was me for a while too, but now I am convinced I can have a blast wherever I go, even a parking lot or an empty room. All I need is a “yes, let’s do it” and the rollercoaster begins.

5. If I am not happy with myself, then I am not in the right place or the right time.

My experience traveling through Latin America and my experience on the ship are in direct contrast with each other. In one I felt comfortable and the other, completely out of place. Yet, when I look back on my experience I can justify placing myself in both situations and find purpose in each. Indeed, I had come to the ship to make a documentary, and when I was doing this I felt I was where I should be.

In retrospect, it is strange to me that I would feel so incredibly out of place doing something that I had chosen to do. One would think that if you’re doing this life thing right, then you always have a sense that you are on track. I would argue quite the contrary, “Sometimes it's necessary to go a long distance out of the way in order to come back a short distance correctly.” (Edward Albee)

Though the path may be difficult, long, or unfamiliar, and though the markings may be few, it does not portend that you are off course. Like a poorly indicated highway exit sometimes we feel that we have drifted off course, but this is often not the case. The important thing is to have a direction and to have faith. The next time I feel lost, at least I can say, “I have been this way before.”

6. What you do is vastly more important that how you do it.

When I was in Panama I was invited to do some work for a non-profit organization in Bocas del Toro called Operation Safe Drinking Water. OSDW is a simple organization with a simple mission – to provide safe drinking water to indigenous island populations by installing plastic tanks that catch rainwater off the roofs.

Joe and Maribel Bass run the organization. Here’s how it started: a friend told Joe about the horrible near-survival situation of the Guaymi Indians in Bocas Del Toro. They had no access to doctors, they could barely find enough food to sustain themselves, and most importantly, they were drinking out of dirty puddles – pardon the expression but I shit you not – they were drinking and some still drink from dirty muddy stagnant parasite infested puddles. Guaymi children and adults suffer worms, dysentery, infections, and high mortality rates that directly affect their ability to educate, participate politically, escape poverty, better their communities, and create a better future for their children.

So Joe and Maribel Bass decide to rent a piece of land in the archipelago of Bocas del Toro. They borrow a boat and start raising money to install the $900 tanks. Joe doesn’t even speak Spanish, so his ability to communicate is limited. Not only do they install rainwater catchment tanks with the help of donations and American volunteers, but they also use their facility as a clinic, their boat serves as the only ambulance in the region, they deliver basic foodstuffs to the villages, and they even have set up a scholarship program to help a few capable children go to high school or even college and to give the dream of a better life and the motivation to achieve it to all of them.

In my opinion, Joe and Maribel are superheroes. They have saved many lives and, as I have personally seen, they have given countless children a reason to smile.

Anybody could do this type of work. You could do it. I could do it. Any of the numerous Americans now living in retirement bliss in Bocas del Toro could do it. But what make Joe and Maribel exceptional is that they did it. What you do is vastly more important than how you do it.

7. What you own owns you.

Now that I am back in the US I’ve realized something. Ingrained in me is a thought process that makes me think, “What do I need?” when I walk into a mall. I felt it a few days ago and had to block it out. I am grateful that I now possess knowledge only shared by a very small segment of society. After living in a small cabin on a cruise ship for a year, and then out of a backpack for two months, I already know exactly what I need: a video camera, my computer, and a couple of pairs of underwear (awkward to ask to borrow).

At first it was scary and even a little self-pitying to think that all I had in the world I carried on my back, but soon I felt incredibly free. So much so that I am committed to non-ownership from this point forward. Why? Because everything I own is just another form of noise that prevents me from appreciating life. Most of the things I own I don’t really use or appreciate. They’re just stuff that hurts me when it breaks or is taken away. We don’t like loosing stuff and it is hard to throw it away.

I realized that when I came back to my grandma’s house and went through all of my stuff in her basement. In the last couple of weeks ago I lost many precious hours of my life rummaging through my stuff: sorting stuff, cleaning stuff, selling stuff – all of it just soaking up my time and vitality. You know what I commit to? I commit to owning a place so un-precious to me that when it burns down I won’t bat an eye. Un-precious to me because I will be constantly vigilant in making the distinction between what is important to me and stuff.

That doesn’t mean I won’t (one day) buy a fancy car or a nice home entertainment system, but simply that I won’t let them become dear to me. I won’t let myself identify them as a part of me. They won’t own me.

It’s a hard process, throwing out so many memories, collectibles, things that were once precious to me. I’ll never collect again, because as anyone who had a childhood baseball card collection knows – you eventually grow out of it. I am instilled with that knowledge now. And let’s make a distinction; throwing out a representation of a memory is not throwing out the memory itself. We don’t need all of our memories anyway, and letting go of the physical representations of some of the lesser ones, just puts more meaning into the ones we choose to keep. Besides, there is only a very finite amount of time I want to rummage around in the past when life is in the present, it’s ready for me, and it’s waiting to be enjoyed.

8. There is no right place or right time

For the first time in a long time I am happy. Not surface happy. I am genuinely happy despite the circumstances. I gained a lot of perspective during my travels. People’s first reaction is that, since I saw so much poverty, I must feel grateful for what I have. I do feel grateful, but this is not the reason I am happy. There must be a better way to put this, but I am happy because I just don’t give a damn anymore.

It was not so much the perspective I gained as much as the perspective that I lost. I saw so many people living different lifestyles with different goals and ideas of success that my Northern American ideations became, well, outdated. I limited myself by letting my dreams define me and my happiness to the point where would not be happy unless I achieved them. I was so attached to them that I would not be able to deviate from them to ever reach that real valid place that is “better than anything I could have dreamed up.”

Besides I am so hopelessly off track from where I thought I would be at thirty, that it is completely and utterly pointless to try to push myself down those old and worn out roads! I say this with a bittersweet heart, but also with a genuine smile. There are new roads that I just do not want to miss. Even the words “road” and “track” do us a conceptual injustice. In America there is a track – grades 1-2-3-4-5, then you go to college, then you get a job, then you have kids, and somewhere, maybe, at some point you’ve reached your destination. You’ve made it. You can finally be happy. From the back of the studio audience of spirits watching over your life only one will clap his hands and let out a blasé “yay. Way to go stupid.” You’ve squandered your whole life putting your happiness somewhere outside of your control.

If you know me, then you already know I believe in big dreams and the courage to achieve them, but I now believe that dreams are guidelines and not destinations. And I have faith that enjoying every moment of the process increases your chances of getting you where you want to go.

I choose to believe that I have everything I need, rather than that I never have enough. I try to remember to wake up every day grateful for what I have got. This is not some spiritual awakening (as I understood them), or some enlightenment that I have been blessed with. It’s just practical.

And the secret to life as I now know it:

Simply to remember to remember.

Two Glasses

Breakfast in the Park

It's a peaceful morning in the city.  I sit in a quaint little café at the edge of the park and indulge in the Style section of the New York Times.  There's a right way and a wrong way to start your day, and I have stumbled, very happily, on a workable solution.  I take another sip of green tea, turn the page, and feel very lucky to have found this little place.

            It wasn't easy considering that every morning I wake up on the same low-budget cruise ship traveling from mini-mall to mini-mall throughout the Caribbean.  I am really on the Lido Deck, having spooned my food from the buffet after standing in line.   I am surrounded by fat men in swimsuits and other varieties of crass displays.  The tune "Summer Lovin'" from Grease, part of the regular music loop, kicks in a little too loudly, and threatens to steal me away from my tiny little café.  I take another sip of my drink relieved how the green tea masks the briny flavor of the tap water.

            I have found a great deal of contentment in finally knowing that I have in some way overcome this coarse, gaudy, and intellectually bereft environment.  I am already hearing that long "ahhhh" of relief, once I do find that peaceful part of the city and sit under the yellow awning of that pleasant smelling café.  There will be a smile on my face as I remember wearing the tacky red or yellow colored shirts and doing the assortment of mindless labors I must do to get through the day.

            If there is anything I have learned this time around it is that we are responsible for cultivating our own joy and that happiness does not coming from things or anyone else than ourselves.  Not that they can't help – significantly of course.  I think particularly of first-time (and last-time) cruiser and new exceptional friend, Lacey, and how much I enjoy our email exchanges as she struggles to keep sanity while overworking herself.  I also think, quite warmly, of Jo, who is doing acupuncture on a ship in the Pacific and the cozy feeling I get from knowing that she thinks about me sometimes before she goes to sleep at night.

            Today's good start will pass and I am sure to be mired in stress, ambition, longing, and all the rest, but I think this better mood is starting to stick.  I have become a much more efficient and effective person, plotting all sorts of filmmaking schemes while at sea.  Today I'll work at setting some major milestones and deadlines to keep myself on track and tonight I might go out for a celebration at the crew bar.  I won't stay to late though.  I think my party-till-you-drop days are mostly over.  You can have the party or you can have the café in the morning and the day that follows such a start, but you can't have both.