Pico de Orizaba
Taken from Huatusco, Veracruz, the closest town to Margarita's family's ranch.
Friday, November 25, 2011
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Dead Man Walking; Alive in Mexico
A dead man walking... sacrifice of one life for another. A walking suicide past life left behind. Almost 9 years alive in Mexico living... well... living well... or... living better... Why? You don't understand. Claro que no (certainly not possible for you to understand) that I live almost 9 years in Spanish and I'm writing you in English. What you don't know is that I am translating my Mexican street-learned Spanish thoughts into English ideas and maybe you are offended; not now, but before... my writings before. It's not so much an offense as it is a misunderstanding, misinterpretation... Dead Man Walking is about a rebirth. The problem is that in order to be reborn, you must first die. When you die, you don't take with you friends, family, possessions... You don't even take with you memories. I noticed that over the first 5 years of living here I forgot so much of my English memories; names, places, events, people... My possessions in the U.S. left behind in my mother's house disappeared (stolen or destroyed in a flood)... If you aren't economically wealthy, you can't straddle paises (countries). You don't have friends or family since you can't share each others' lives, time and space. When I left the U.S., not only did I kill myself, I killed you. If a tree falls in the woods but you didn't see or hear it fall, did it fall? The answer is Of Course! But not in your lifetime... It's to say that the tree didn't fall within your experience. Out of Sight; Out of Mind. Popular phrases... in English memories of a former lifetime... Why does one person think about another? It must have something to do with concern or with planning. I can't be concerned about you if we can't share our lives. I can't plan with you if we can't see one another... So why write in English? Why write this? And that's why I struggle with erasing people from my former life with whom I'm "in contant" at the moment... I don't like the I contradiction. I can't plan for sharing time with you. It's a foolish and unsatisfying fantasy.
Dead Man Walking but alive in Mexico... The suicidal finally succeeded in killing himself and now he is alive in Mexico finding success. In Mexico I am not suicidal. As I've written before, in Mexico I am not depressed. In Mexico I am successful. I am very responsible. My success is both economic, creative and social... However, in Mexico I don't have the style of friendships I enjoyed in the U.S.; cultural differences in how people enjoy sharing time with others... Here relationships aren't about enjoying conversation and sharing information and experience. Conversations aren't light-hearted dealing with intellectual, social, spiritual or political issues. They don't generally touch on those subjects... Relationships revolve around sports, alcohol, sex and political-economic opportunities. They don't revolve around warm sharing or true appreciation of the other person or of our connection. Sounds like I'm complaining? I'm explaining...
When I jumped out of my past life I sacrificed warm friendships. My connection with you is based upon the fantasy of maintaining those warm relationships, possible conversations and possible future encounters. Now if I'm always saying that I don't believe in lying to myself or contradictions, then why would I maintain these "relationships" if I killed that past life when I left the U.S. for Mexico? Over the past 8+ years I've been concerned with those contradictions or hypocracies within my mind or so-called actions. Actions referring to removing friends and family from my Facebook friends list. You don't understand why I would do that... You may ask, "Ross, why can't you just leave us there and not offend us by telling us that we aren't worth your friendship?" But, it's not about that. The friendship is worth too much to be dilly dallying floating as smoke or illusions that can never become concrete realities... The truth is that I am dead in your lifetime and my life here is not part of your experience nor will it ever be for the most part... It's a lets put it into perspective.
You read my past, my stories, my vicissitudes in Inglés and you say that I am totally crazy. But you don't know the I within the present story and history. The Ross is not crazy here in Mexico. Maybe he was crazy for coming here; for leaving "his" country, people, culture and language. But, he is so far from crazy here. And that's why I try and remove the confusion by putting "us" (our relationship) into perspective. The straddling the line between the intense reality here and the nothing there is crazy, stupid, foolish, ignorant. I'm 42-years-old. The most important and incredible things I've accomplished in my life I've accomplished here in Mexico. The lesson is being learned here. The accomplishment is being achieved here. But I don't, I can't have you here with me. And I don't think that's what you want either... Thinking about returning to the U.S. with Margarita is a foolish idea; we continue improving our life together HERE. I don't know success in the U.S. and not with you. I may have loved you. But that lived love ended when I left for Mexico. And now where are you? and who are you? Let's keep those realities in perspective. Straddling the line creates confusion easily misinterpreted as mental-illness... You think I obsess with violence, mentioning humans skinned alive, breasts cut off, hearts cut out... people hung from overpasses, people decapitated. But did you notice that Mexican President Felipe Calderon had 4 Ministers of the Interior (Vice Presidents) in 5 years. 2 of them resigned and 2 of them died in air transportation "accidents"... How many American polititions have died in airplane or helicopter crashes? Over the past 5 years how many Mexican Mayors have been assassinated? How many local judges, district attorneys, police chiefs have been killed? Look it up...
And you ask me, But Ross, why do you stay there? And I tell you, Because it's here that I have thrived with Margarita and Margarita my relationship thrives. And maybe it's best to die young thriving than to die old floundering...
In July I felt I was failing with my blog. It became angry. It became hostile. You may have been offended. You may have gotten tired... But it is a work in progress. Life is a work in progress. Didn't you know that? But I am dead. But I am a dead man walking; alive in Mexico... Why did it became angry? Why did it become hostile? I was sharing with you my life that lead to the jumping into the abyss called Mexico; my freefall, trustfall, suicide... I wanted you to understand the success by understanding the "failure". But it's very complex.
When a person lives for success and feels themself a failure, how do they resolve that issue? Does the failure prefer failure? I was exasperated with failure for so many decades. But the truth is a better question, "Was I truly a failure?" and that's why I shared with you the story of my father and his illness and his death which is my illness and the model for living as a man. I shared with you my childhood with my mother and with my sisters and with my elementary, middle-school and high school peers... It's intense. It's horribly difficult. I shared with you my surgeries; not inventions of mine... and the connected physical, spiritual and psychological difficulties afterwards and the living with the future of the disease and the complications... And I live with those complications, difficulties and concerns within my success here in Mexico with Margarita. And I am actually happy with myself. Although you are not happy with me... It's cool. You aren't here to know the truth. You only know your interpretations... But why should I worry about you if you don't truly exist?
I imagine that I write this entry to you, although not really to you... It's not actually an interpersonal writing. It's something I've been thinking about even if you had responded to me over the past few weeks or past few months... The question is "why are we 'connected' on Facebook?" I've been asking myself for the past few months who am I fooling by maintaining our connections on Facebook? What am I afraid of losing if I remove my "friends" from Facebook? And I return to the reality that nothing actually changes in my life if I 'disconnect' from those I will not see... I have one life and that life is the one I am living here in Mexico. It is in Spanish. I don't have international friends here as I had in New York City, friendships in English even if those friends were from non-English speaking countries. I read a ton of books here; all in Spanish. The only English I read is on the internet. The only English I write is on the internet and I spend so little time of my life on the internet. I don't spend my Spanish hours and days complaining. I spend those hours and days planning, constructing, sharing, teaching, producing, thinking about and feeling life and trying to understand the difficult why's that exist here and try to put all the difficulties into a spiritual perspective. But, the difficulties in Mexico aren't really mine, since Margarita and I have succeeded so much over the past 8+ years and especially during the difficult times of the past 3 years. We have some heavy concerns here because the country is in a horribly dire situation. But we keep on trucking and keep on keeping on... I'm concerned about bad things happening, since they are happening all around us. But, so many good things are happening in Margarita and my personal life... Lifes a process. You can't ignore the difficult just because you want peace. You must live and overcome and learn from and understand the difficult in order to gain and truly appreciate the good... But, truthfully, the good is only truly shared with the people in my life; and the people are Margarita and Ross. I wish I could say that it is shared with you. But you aren't here and we aren't there...
Dead Man Walking but alive in Mexico... The suicidal finally succeeded in killing himself and now he is alive in Mexico finding success. In Mexico I am not suicidal. As I've written before, in Mexico I am not depressed. In Mexico I am successful. I am very responsible. My success is both economic, creative and social... However, in Mexico I don't have the style of friendships I enjoyed in the U.S.; cultural differences in how people enjoy sharing time with others... Here relationships aren't about enjoying conversation and sharing information and experience. Conversations aren't light-hearted dealing with intellectual, social, spiritual or political issues. They don't generally touch on those subjects... Relationships revolve around sports, alcohol, sex and political-economic opportunities. They don't revolve around warm sharing or true appreciation of the other person or of our connection. Sounds like I'm complaining? I'm explaining...
When I jumped out of my past life I sacrificed warm friendships. My connection with you is based upon the fantasy of maintaining those warm relationships, possible conversations and possible future encounters. Now if I'm always saying that I don't believe in lying to myself or contradictions, then why would I maintain these "relationships" if I killed that past life when I left the U.S. for Mexico? Over the past 8+ years I've been concerned with those contradictions or hypocracies within my mind or so-called actions. Actions referring to removing friends and family from my Facebook friends list. You don't understand why I would do that... You may ask, "Ross, why can't you just leave us there and not offend us by telling us that we aren't worth your friendship?" But, it's not about that. The friendship is worth too much to be dilly dallying floating as smoke or illusions that can never become concrete realities... The truth is that I am dead in your lifetime and my life here is not part of your experience nor will it ever be for the most part... It's a lets put it into perspective.
You read my past, my stories, my vicissitudes in Inglés and you say that I am totally crazy. But you don't know the I within the present story and history. The Ross is not crazy here in Mexico. Maybe he was crazy for coming here; for leaving "his" country, people, culture and language. But, he is so far from crazy here. And that's why I try and remove the confusion by putting "us" (our relationship) into perspective. The straddling the line between the intense reality here and the nothing there is crazy, stupid, foolish, ignorant. I'm 42-years-old. The most important and incredible things I've accomplished in my life I've accomplished here in Mexico. The lesson is being learned here. The accomplishment is being achieved here. But I don't, I can't have you here with me. And I don't think that's what you want either... Thinking about returning to the U.S. with Margarita is a foolish idea; we continue improving our life together HERE. I don't know success in the U.S. and not with you. I may have loved you. But that lived love ended when I left for Mexico. And now where are you? and who are you? Let's keep those realities in perspective. Straddling the line creates confusion easily misinterpreted as mental-illness... You think I obsess with violence, mentioning humans skinned alive, breasts cut off, hearts cut out... people hung from overpasses, people decapitated. But did you notice that Mexican President Felipe Calderon had 4 Ministers of the Interior (Vice Presidents) in 5 years. 2 of them resigned and 2 of them died in air transportation "accidents"... How many American polititions have died in airplane or helicopter crashes? Over the past 5 years how many Mexican Mayors have been assassinated? How many local judges, district attorneys, police chiefs have been killed? Look it up...
And you ask me, But Ross, why do you stay there? And I tell you, Because it's here that I have thrived with Margarita and Margarita my relationship thrives. And maybe it's best to die young thriving than to die old floundering...
In July I felt I was failing with my blog. It became angry. It became hostile. You may have been offended. You may have gotten tired... But it is a work in progress. Life is a work in progress. Didn't you know that? But I am dead. But I am a dead man walking; alive in Mexico... Why did it became angry? Why did it become hostile? I was sharing with you my life that lead to the jumping into the abyss called Mexico; my freefall, trustfall, suicide... I wanted you to understand the success by understanding the "failure". But it's very complex.
When a person lives for success and feels themself a failure, how do they resolve that issue? Does the failure prefer failure? I was exasperated with failure for so many decades. But the truth is a better question, "Was I truly a failure?" and that's why I shared with you the story of my father and his illness and his death which is my illness and the model for living as a man. I shared with you my childhood with my mother and with my sisters and with my elementary, middle-school and high school peers... It's intense. It's horribly difficult. I shared with you my surgeries; not inventions of mine... and the connected physical, spiritual and psychological difficulties afterwards and the living with the future of the disease and the complications... And I live with those complications, difficulties and concerns within my success here in Mexico with Margarita. And I am actually happy with myself. Although you are not happy with me... It's cool. You aren't here to know the truth. You only know your interpretations... But why should I worry about you if you don't truly exist?
I imagine that I write this entry to you, although not really to you... It's not actually an interpersonal writing. It's something I've been thinking about even if you had responded to me over the past few weeks or past few months... The question is "why are we 'connected' on Facebook?" I've been asking myself for the past few months who am I fooling by maintaining our connections on Facebook? What am I afraid of losing if I remove my "friends" from Facebook? And I return to the reality that nothing actually changes in my life if I 'disconnect' from those I will not see... I have one life and that life is the one I am living here in Mexico. It is in Spanish. I don't have international friends here as I had in New York City, friendships in English even if those friends were from non-English speaking countries. I read a ton of books here; all in Spanish. The only English I read is on the internet. The only English I write is on the internet and I spend so little time of my life on the internet. I don't spend my Spanish hours and days complaining. I spend those hours and days planning, constructing, sharing, teaching, producing, thinking about and feeling life and trying to understand the difficult why's that exist here and try to put all the difficulties into a spiritual perspective. But, the difficulties in Mexico aren't really mine, since Margarita and I have succeeded so much over the past 8+ years and especially during the difficult times of the past 3 years. We have some heavy concerns here because the country is in a horribly dire situation. But we keep on trucking and keep on keeping on... I'm concerned about bad things happening, since they are happening all around us. But, so many good things are happening in Margarita and my personal life... Lifes a process. You can't ignore the difficult just because you want peace. You must live and overcome and learn from and understand the difficult in order to gain and truly appreciate the good... But, truthfully, the good is only truly shared with the people in my life; and the people are Margarita and Ross. I wish I could say that it is shared with you. But you aren't here and we aren't there...
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