Agreements

Often I’m running into trouble like a mosquito into a Mack truck with my fellow humans about my ideas and opinions, head-on. And it starts so promising; “Oh, I like the way you think” and “how interesting, I never looked at it that way and then comes this: “I don’t agree”.
As if I share my views with others to have them agree or disagree. I couldn’t give a fiddle. I’m not looking for converts or followers, a herd of sheep to look after. I’ll leave that to theologians and politicians. Let them be happy with sheep and use their wool and lead them to the slaughterhouse.
If they need to agree, why don’t people just tell me what they want to hear so they have me telling them what they already know and support their opinions and beliefs? But I notice that humans need others to tell them what they want to hear so they can feel safe and secure in their own views and opinions no matter how stupid or smart. Don’t look to me for any kind of support of ideologically infested craziness.
Long ago I found out that I didn’t learn anything by listening to others sprouting my own views but for the majority of people this seems to be the normal thing to do. We come up with an idea or someone planted it sometime into our heads and then we keep playing with it until we really believe it is the truth. It then becomes a point of view from which we measure and evaluate other ideas, accepting or dismissing them by agreeing or disagreeing, depending if it fits into our point of view or not. I think that only when we listen without agreeing or disagreeing can we learn new things.
Now, I am not free of points of views and when I listen to other people’s opinions and I become aware of wanting to agree or disagree I stop and exam why I do that. Invariably I discover identification with my own ideas and the need to defend or cherish them. However, ideas can be made and discarded in a blink of an eye without loosing anything of importance but we are so proud of our “product” that when someone dares to question it, we go to war.
I became aware of this odd behavior when I had a conversation with a couple of mixed culture. During our pleasant chat I noticed how a tension came up between the couple and when I asked if there was something the matter they explained to me that they had a different view about what people need to do to be happy and then they laid out their ideas. Her idea was not his and when I asked why love was not sufficient to be happy and why it was important for one to go along with the others point of view when all that really mattered was the love they shared, both defended their ideas with teeth and claws.
This couple was very indicative for how the world got to the point of self-destruction over ideas. Love and peace are sacrificed for ideas. Love is a feeling and an attitude of acceptance and so is peace. It has nothing to do with ideologies. Even an atheist knows love and peace but we mix-up ideas with feelings and then ideologies and dogmas create an attitude of who is right and all is lost. Love is not an idea neither is peace. We fight over who is right when it is about what is right.
And so it is also when we are on the same playing field. We’ve all had experiences how we seem to go along just great, we feel one with each other, in fact so much that we know what the other thinks or is going to say, and then we feel that the other is taking over and takes all the stage and we diminish to virtually nothing. So in order to be noticed we stir up some controversy. Then when our idea is being opposed, we start to defend it because after all it is our “product” and so the war is on.
Let ideas be ideas without the need to agree or disagree, see if it works for you, if not, see it as what it is, another view and if it is working, TA-DAA, you’ve just learned something new.
There is a view in the world that we need to agree on things to accomplish things and I can see the value in that when we set out for a task to do like building a bridge, a house or have a common goal, when ideas need to be coordinated to have the desired result but it needs to be restricted to the result to accomplish the task and not to satisfy feelings.
If we need to have others to make us feel good, to have them to be in agreement with us, then that’s a sure sign of fear and of our own incompetence and it would be wise to look for different ideas to learn from and those ideas are not going to be the kind we already know. Our ideas got us into the situations of incompetence and fear in the first place and will not help to get out of them but will get us deeper into it. So the question is: What are we going to do other than what we did so far?
Someone said: Doing the same things you’ve always done will get you the same things you’ve always got, therefore we could define ultimate stupidity by doing the same things we’ve always done but expecting different results.
I’d like to point out that pushing takes us sometimes to places except through doors marked “PULL”.
By insisting on doing things the way I believed to be the only right way to do it, I got into some real hairy situations.
In my youth I did get into fights like most boys and I learned a few tricks to walk away from a confrontation victoriously. But in one instance I run into a guy who previously was beaten by me and knew my trick to grab his wrist and diving under his arm and thus ending up behind him with his arm twisted up on his back.
This time he knew what to do and when I grabbed his wrist and dove, he simply turned with me and I ended up looking into his face with my both hands on his wrist while his other hand in form of a fist reshaped my nose. I needed a new technique along with a new nose and realized that there are many ways to skin a cat, not the same cat though.
A suggestion to have more peace in the world is that when we let go of our ideas as an important fact of life and strife for harmony and tolerance instead, the frictions in the world will be lessened and we could begin to promote a better understanding of each other.
Agreeing or disagreeing only creates friction that will lead to conflict and argumentations and if we look at the world today, that is what we have now and it is not advancing peace. So let’s focus on Love and Peace like the idea was in the 60ties but never got carried through.
When we put our intentions toward harmony and peace in all our dealings with others and looking for a way where no-one walks away feeling like a looser but all feel they won, then we are on the right track. It is not an easy task but it’s doable. What we need is to put more effort into it and examine why we need to be right. Set up a dialogue and listen to each other.
Just think: Even a terrorist fights to create peace. We may not approve of the method but behind it is the desire to have peace. So what the hell is the problem? That’s what we’re fighting for too but fighting can never create peace. It’s like fornicating for virginity.
Only peace can create peace. Wars ended only because they run out of resources and people and were too weak to continue but not because the lack of ideas. And the wars have always been about ideas. One group did not agree with another. Look into any family conflict, what are the reasons for arguing? Ideas that one person has and the other does not.
When they put their efforts into solving a situation, all of sudden things go smoothly.
That is called agreement for a common goal and not common feelings. I once had to tell an employer to tell me what to do not how to do it. What mattered was the end result, not the method but this fool was insisting that I should do it the way he did the job even though my job was better and easier than his way.
He told me that he did it his way for more than twenty years and if it were good for him, it would be good for me too. I replied that his forefathers dragged their knuckles in the dust and I wanted to know if he was doing that also.
It seems to me that people feel security only when others following their lead and maybe feel their leadership is threatened when others find other ways. Perhaps they think when their clique see different approaches they will secede and leave them behind and instead of adapting new ways they try to force their methods on the group. They want us to agree with their ways so they can feel secure.
That’s how traditions are created and it is one of the most retarded ways to keep people in line and isn’t it funny how well it works? When someone mentions traditions almost everybody pays reverence and nobody dares to question its validity. We abandon common sense and good judgments in favor for tradition. We agree to stupidities because it is a tradition.
It is time to wake up from “Zombie-ism” and question tradition, established procedures and customs. Let’s start fresh and ask why it is important to follow someone’s lead and ideas.
There are possible necessities to come together under one leader for a given task but once the task is finished be an individual again and stay away from habits, they only create a rut and it takes a lot of effort to get out of them. Have the guts to be you because it is impossible to be somebody else.
I heard a story about a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest and all the contestants have gotten onto the stage, did their little gig, including Charlie Chaplin, and then someone else was declared the original. That other was more real than the real Charlie Chaplin.
This is how people are more attached to ideas how things should be instead of how they really are. But do remember: Life is not a “should be” affair. It is what it is and no agreements are necessary to the authentic individual. That is what it means to follow your own heart and as long as no one is harmed physically or repressed in the enfoldment of their individuality, we are on the right track.

Mosquito fodder

As much as people talk about holidays, a place in the sun, relax and drink Margaritas, it is marred, no, not only by pushy street hustlers and relentless vendors but insects of all kinds. Admit it, you want to squash ‘em, hit ‘em, shoot ’em, poison ‘em drown ‘em in short; terminate ‘em. Now, I’m not sure who you are thinking about, but for now let’s stay with the bugs, the kind that is using more than two legs to get around and even fly.
We find them in the jungle, the streets but mainly our rooms seem to have an irresistible attraction for them and so our dishes loaded with yummy stuff. Sometimes I wonder how many insects per spoon I get to consume in a sitting. At night they are the talk of the town and movie stars wish to be talked about as much. We humans are also very popular with the bugs as we can testify in the morning in front of a mirror. When nature’s call is becoming hard to ignore in the middle of the night and staying in bed is not really an option, we wake up to the sound of our crunchy foot steps from our half-sleep. Yup, it was a not fast enough cockroach. After returning to our bed, fighting off Mexican kamikaze mosquito squads is taking up the rest of the night until we fall into an exhausted sleep. No wonder that some folks can’t recognise themselves in the mirror and look for a familiar face who could possibly identify them.
Our repertoire to control this insect plague has been limited to swatting, waving and some commercially available means to keep them at bay.
But there is a new development here and how we combat our insect population. We tried insecticides, repellents, lights, zappers, chemicals, acids and even basic hand to hand, mano a mano strategies but the odds are in favour of the marauders. They come in masses in all sizes, forms and shapes, invading our habitat and pillage shamelessly our food supplies and even leave with huge quantities of our lifeblood. What they leave behind is bumps, welts, blisters and a mounting desire to take revenge. For peace loving and all life respecting beings this is a great challenge and even though we know that eventually the life force will return, hopefully in more benign form, it is with heavy heart that we conduct our killing. ( we all know this is a lie.)
In our search for effective measures we came upon several means to get rid of the invaders, all deadly. And when even one of the enemy is vanquished we have a devilish delight over our success. We make jokes about the way the got squashed, electrocuted or poisoned before or after they had breakfast.
-Oh look. This one tried to get away with your blood. And see how flat she is now? Quick! Wash the blood of your hands or they will have evidence against you in a Court of Law. Or; This one is so ugly now that even her mother will not want her back.
Wow! Nice and crispy. Want a taste?
Others get mashed so bad, even god would have trouble to reassemble them.
When we get lucky to spray them, we remain close to the Legs-up-and-kicking, spinning and doing the Pilates workout exercises infected bug to our own risk to health just to see them meeting their Maker.
Due to concerns to our health, we came across a new method of eliminating our adversary. Booze! Yes, you read right. Booze like in alcohol. We went to a Drugstore and bought a bottle of 90% pure alcohol, filled it into a spray bottle and lay in ambush for our victims. It’s just like in some bars Down Town where the girls in their sexy outfits wait for a suitable and unsuspecting tourist, rushes them and shoots and shoots and shoots Tequila down their throats while blowing a whistle. The victim does seem to like this and staggers away with an euphoric grin on his face singing a Mariachi tune, Ay-yay-a-yay, on top of his lungs.
We think it is great. We throw a party, invite all the critters, free booze, all you can get, get them sloshed and watch them die on alcohol, It’s a killer party. The few who get away will have a hang-over that will last them for the rest of their life. And what more, they die happy, possibly with a song and a grin on their face or whatever you may call that frontal part of their head. But for sure they have a more pleasant passing then before. We hope word gets around and we will be host to many of their kind. The other bugs, you know the type I did not talk about, are not invited but we will think of something as to what to do with them.

Cynic

Andre Schwartz Page 1 6/24/08

Cynic?


Most of my life I had observed the difference between words and deeds and found humans. It amuses me how one person makes a speech and another needs to interpret what he meant and a third again understands it differently.
One only need to read a letter from their partner when in a good mood and then again when in a bad mood. The meaning changes dramatically.
Allow me to digress a little to demonstrate what I mean.
A member of a religious organization gave a magazine to me and on the title page was a sentence that said: “Is there a God who cares?” Because I wanted to make a point to them how they made a choice to get the meaning they wanted from the written text and to explain how anything written can be understood any way you feel like to suit a purpose, I emphasized each word differently. Here we go.
“Is there a God who cares?” –Well, is there?
“Is there a God who cares?” –Maybe somewhere else?
“Is there a God who cares?” –Perhaps many more?
“Is there a God who cares?” –Could it be something else?
“Is there a God who cares?” – Many don’t care.
“Is there a God who cares?” –Ask some battle worn Veteran.
And just for good measures: Is there a God? Who cares! -Look at some Governments leadership.
Bush’s most idiotic remark after 9/11 “You are either with us or you are against us” is harder to misconstrue.
Given that one must read the rest of the book to get the gist of the meaning, we must admit that even the following sentences can be likewise changed and this is known since people can read. We need to write books to clarify the meaning of just one sentence.
When I learned to speak the Russian language, I heard the warning: Beware of the intonation! How true!
Meaning of written words, unless spoken, is free for interpretation by clever people to manipulate others.
We seem to be the only species on this planet that practice interpretations with diligence.
It cannot be the brain that allows for this unique phenomenon because most members of the animal kingdom have that too, so it has to be something other than that.
But then again, it is possible that because they do not speak a human language and we cannot understand their sounds that we presume they don’t make that distinction and it may also be that they do make a difference between words and meaning but we will never really know until we decipher their speech.
Just for fun let’s assume that humans are the only species that have that ability and have the dubious talent to have words and meaning differing. Now, why is that?
What was the God who presumably gave us this ability thinking?
And if we were created in his likeness would that not imply that he has the same ability? What if he also said one thing and meant another?
Now that puts things in a different light. Here is a lying, conniving, scheming human created by an all-knowing Being putting shame on his creator or is it possible the proverb “The apple does not fall far from the apple tree is wrong?”
(This is the moment when religious fanatics would want to crucify me.)
Or perhaps the Greek Gods were portrayed correctly as being mischievous and we overlooked that and created a God that is so annoyingly good and noble so we can feel guilty about being humans? Food for thought.
It may sound heretical what I’m asking here but I have come to the conclusion that I’m free, even to the point of mocking believes and Gods.
“Fear thy God,” what a stupid thing to do when He or She is UNCONDITIONALLY loving. Any laws or commandments create conditional love. Is that not understood yet? If we must fear something, it better be our own ignorance.
I think that real freedom is the absence of fear and not blind devotion to some books that humans claim to have been inspired by one of the Gods.
There is no freedom in fear, only slavish obedience. And if there is a God, and I mean if, he, she or it has given men freedom as it presumably has itself, then I’m free to do as I please and only need to be aware of cause and effect and the freedom of choice is mine. So God or Gods are above insults or jokes of humans and don’t need champions to defend them. I think that only humans feel the need to defend there believes out of insecurity.
The Thesaurus describes a cynic as someone who makes joke of the human nature but this is not my intent.
cyn·i·cal or cyn·ic adj
1. doubting or contemptuous of human nature or of the motives, goodness, or sincerity of others
2. mocking, scornful, or sneering
cyn·ic n
1. somebody who believes that human actions are insincere and motivated by self-interest
2. somebody sneering and sarcastic

Encarta® World English Dictionary © 1999 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Developed for Microsoft by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

There really is no need to be making jokes of humans because most of them are not capable to understand a good joke anyway. It has not always been so.
It is the humans who are doing a good job themselves to be the butt of jokes so there is no need for me to do that. We tend to take ourselves too serious to recognise our being as a cosmic joke.
However, I do like to put a mirror in humanities face so we can see what it is we’re doing. There may be a way out of this labyrinth but only if we can see where we are. As far as I see there is no other way but to examine our actions and believes and watch carefully what we say and what we do. Anything else is untruth if the word is not the same as the deed. Actions demonstrate meaning much better than explanations.
But often I found that when things are pointed out to humans that are harmful to growth, inhuman, or plain stupid, they get really upset with the person who points it out but not with the conditions.
In a country not so far away I discovered an interesting attitude that got me thinking about some fundamental differences between the cultures.
What I observed was this: Many public places where equipped with boxes that had inquiry forms about the performance and conditions they encountered. This forms had been collected and then analyzed by a group of people who then suggested to the responsible people what needed to be corrected and what worked well. To mine and other peoples astonishment the criticism has been addressed and changes been made to suit the needs when possible without having had to tell visitors if they did not like what they found to go back where they came from.
I would call that an enlightened approach. But when pride of ones heritage or tradition gets in the way, it is amazing how things get out of hand.
We don’t have to look far to find heritage and traditions clash. It is being upheld like a high virtue and it is the bloodiest thing that exists.
Look at the Middle East, North and South America, Northern Ireland, Asia, Europe and Africa or wherever you care to look, including our own environment of the family that we think so much to be a sanctuary.
Everywhere people fight over ideas they are so proud of that others need to die for them. And it’s mostly about ideas and not necessities like food and water.
We consider a natural catastrophe a tragedy, far from it. What we are doing to others in the name of some ideas is a tragedy. Earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis and sometimes a visit from mothers in law are catastrophes.
Why do we have to have a country, a nationality or religion? Did you ever see a nationality? What is that? Does it make you look different? If you were born in outer space or in the middle of the Pacific what nationality would you have? Would you know it? What can it be used for that we could not do without? What if you were blind? Would you know the race of another or that they have three heads?
Would you encounter a God? What God would you find without anybody talking to you about it? Did you really hear a God talking to you? Did Jesus die on a cross on some other planet to “save” our souls? Had Buddha proclaimed the nature of suffering on the planet Nanu-Nanu also? What Golem herder wrote a Koran on the Pleiades?
You know, individuals have been sent into mental hospitals, and rightly so, if they claim to hear voices but when you claim it is God talking, saying to harm or kill others, it’s okay? Each religious group is asking their God to aid them in a conflict and never to cease it. Are we all nuts?
Asking questions like this gets you a title or an untimely death: Sir Heretic, Lord Rebell-rouser or Earl Anarchist. Go for it. At least it will open your mind and you may find yourself in a mental prison imposed by Religions, Politics and Superstition.
Each one of them is teaching and conditioning their flock to accept their dogmas, which includes saying one thing and doing another, to be phoney. If then they are called to accountability, they are ready to tell us, they did not mean to do that or have been misunderstood.
They claim to be Christians, Moslems, Hindus, Buddhists, Hebrews, just to name a few but as the teachings say: By their actions shall you know them. Words are cheap and membership is easy.
I would very much like to be light-hearted and be more relaxed about the things I observe around me but I see more and more how old folks get robbed, cloned out of their life savings and cheated. Others are overcharging for services, embezzling money and exploiting their position. I see corruption in every facet of human behaviour and it makes me wonder where this will go.
Too often I hear: The Government is corrupt. Monkey muffins!!! They are representatives in power of a corrupt population.
If this makes me cynical then so be it but I will not stand by and take it with a shrug of my shoulders and say:
“Well, this is their culture or this is the way it is, better yet, why do you try to change the world?
I know it’s not right and they know it. No excuses accepted. Would you care to change this trend of indifference in the world or do nothing and let it be? If we don’t speak up we condone it and they will think it’s okay what they do and when we do speak up, we will be called shit disturbers or cynics. Changes come about only through actions and this changes need to start with every single individual.
Let’s put an end to indifference and apathy and start caring. There are too many using the words: “ I don’t care” and those deserve to live in a world of their own creation but those who care should not have to be part of it.
Why not be called names by those who want to be living in a world of crime, hatred, dishonesty and desolation? It would be an honour.
When I’m sitting in a boat with perhaps a hundred others and a few fools start to put holes into the hull and the boat begins to sink, would you not have the right to stop them? A few of those fools are destroying our air, water and our whole planet for profit. Once it is gone, where will we live?
Maybe we could buy a new planet from Wal-Mart from the profits we made and start new.
A suggestion would be to learn first how to maintain the world we’re living on before moving on into space.
Changes would start individually with each one of us and taking responsibility for our actions is a first step.
Don’t wait for others to do it for you.

Memory lapses

When I was a little younger, about 50 years, my memory was good. It is still very good but so darn short that it defies description. Let me give you a demonstration…
Now, what was I writing about?
To my recollection this condition, also known as Alzheimer’s disease or Senior Citizen moments, (SCM) has started when my parents asked me to do something and for the life of me I could not remember what it was and I really had some great moment of “forgetfulness”. It became progressively better until today. I am now in Mexico, or is it Tahiti, (you see, here it comes again) and it is the rainy season here or at least it rains a lot this time around and because it is very hot during the day, I leave the hutches open for the hot air to be replaced with fresh hot air. There really is no difference in the quality but it works for the mind. In the night dark, hot air fills the cabin and it is a great relief. At least one cannot see the sweat washing down the dust from the body and leaving a clean path on the otherwise almost believable tan.
Now, what I want to talk about is this blessing in disguise called memory lapse, memory blanks or something like that, I forgot which, but it is like this. After I decided to go for errands in the morning, I look around on the boat, making sure all is where it should be and remind my cats to remind me what I may forget during my absence. The hutches are open to ventilate the air, the wind scoop is in place to catch some of the hot wind and guide it into the cabin to keep it hot and fresh then kissing the cat’s good-bye, and Phew…I swing Tarzan-like up the wall that the vessel is tied to, get my trusted low on fuel bicycle (unless it got stolen over night) and ride into town. The weather is great. Some clouds in the sky make for a perfect photo and I will have time to get my chores done before I return to the boat.
The Internet café greets me with the familiar message that the server is down with its customary problem and the reliable staff brings me the customary coffee that is reliably cold by the time it gets to me. While I wait for the Internet server to be up again, I fiddle with the lap top, sample the coffee and sure enough; it is just warm.
But the serving girl is reliably efficient and heats it up in the microwave so it is still boiling in the cup and takes ten minutes to cool down again and by the time I remember my coffee, I forgot that I had a cup of coffee waiting for me. I learned to like cold coffee now.
Finally the server is up again, I call up my emails and browse through them. Some of the letters require my immediate attention and I answer them, others can wait and I hope I will have one of those Senior Citizen Moments that will give me an excuse to forget them altogether. But not long into the waiting I am reminded of the open hutches on Symbiosis in form of some wet spots on the table and the screen on the computer. In haste I pack up the laptop, put it into the case and with the intention to reach my boat in a few minutes before it fills with rainwater and sinks, hurry toward the vessel.
But this intention is like that of good parents; they mean well but have no idea how stifling that is. It is a gauntlet as everybody has taken refuge from the deluge and is intent to slow my progress and unless I want to be totally rude, there is no chance to get to the vessel before the rain stops. No explanation short of an outright lie will be accepted and it is useless to argue with this people over the unpleasant prospects of sleeping in a waterbed instead on one. Even when I was almost drowning in bed and was rescued by a phone call was not accepted as a good enough reason to get back without exchanging the latest gossip.
All this is not even their fault. I should remember the many wet nights I spent aboard because of open hutches, but it seems impossible to remember them in the heat of the day.
Now, when I finally make it through the marina and get to the boat, which is still floating, the first observation is that the wind scoop has turned into a very effective funnel and guided the rainwater into the forward cabin at a rate that would make a professional fire hose look like a child’s toy.
Second observation: The companionway hutch is also left open. That means there is water on the Salon sole and the cat dish is filled with water and the cats
will not be happy about it. You may think; big deal but you don’t know my cats. For days they will sniff any food, twitch their tail and an accusing glance that tells you without sounds and better than any human in his wildest dreams possibly could what you can do with that stuff. I love my cats and am doing all that is possible to keep them on my good side because when the chips are down they are the one that keep me sane. I laugh and cry with them and it is amazing how they seem to know when I am at the end of my wits. Those are the times when they drop all aloofness and show their real being and it would put any human to shame.
But back to the present problem that is the water in the boat. Of course you could say boating would be a dry affair without water but there are limits to the madness and sleeping in a waterbed does not turn my crank. It will be days before the bunk is going to be dry enough to consider a try. Not to mention the things that now need to be dried, oiled and aired to prevent rot, oxidation and mildew. Consider that it is raining almost everyday and now you see the problem. Alzheimer’s had its advantages in my youth but it is defiantly a pain in the rear now.
And how do I solve the sleep issue? I turn into mosquito fodder. The cockpit makes a good bed if you are not taller than me, which is 167cm., then you can sleep athwart ships, which is perpendicular to the direction a ship travels for those who are not sea-savvy. Of course the heat is up in the thirties and the only way to get some rest is to sleep in shorts without any other coverings, the perfect offering to the female populace. I'm surrounded, serenaded and devoured because of SCM. I simply forget to buy repellent whenever I go shopping. No one seems to be as popular and as much in demand as I and I even believe they have a pet of the year poster of me in wherever they live. You can imagine that after a heroic battle to keep them at bay I finally succumb to sleep out of sheer exhaustion and thanks to Mr. Alzheimer the starving population has a smorgasbord the following night also and the next…
I must say; this is a kind act if you are the parent of a brood of starving mosquito larvae but Alzheimer did not invent forgetfulness to feed hungry bloodsuckers. He was just wondering how folks would go along without remembering the past. This is my story and I'll stick to it.
Although to its defence I must admit. I can tolerate folks telling me the same joke several times and I still laugh with them. Got to take the good with the bad.
And there are other things that make life interesting and those are how things seem to grow legs and play hide and seek with me or just want to get my goat. Say I’m in the middle of some maintenance work and I need some tools to work with. After using it I put it down to get another thing and then I need that tool again but it has left the building like Elvis. It must have because I cannot find it. Nowhere. I swear, I have not been in another room and I’m not crazy. Well, maybe a little…ok. Don’t push it. So where did I put it? I turn things upside down, I search on, in, at, under and every impossible possibility to find it and I don’t. I’m loosing it. I’m looking everywhere but this tool has without a doubt cloaked itself and became a Clingon. My hollow deck does not function because I forgot hot to operate it or Q is horsing around again so I need to get another tool. I turn and do a step and stub myself on what? The tool I’m looking for has returned or de-cloaked itself and is clearly visible protruding half from my foot.
Experiencing life like this is fun but painful. Everybody has fun watching this but the pain is mine. There is no justice in the world.
But to my greatest delight I have now another chance to lose that tool again without first buying a new one to loose.
Just a few weeks ago I went shopping at a local grocery store and after piling the cart full with perishable items that I obviously love to rot in my cooler on the boat, because I forget to eat it before the foul smell reminds me that I bought it, I could not find my keys for the lock on the bicycle. Here I am with a ton of food in the sweltering heat of the mid-day Mexican sun packed in the backpack and two triple-plastic bags in each hand without the keys to my heavy-duty workhorse. The impression on my face enticed some fellow shoppers to some condescending remarks and the pity of a cab driver who offered me a ride for 200 pesos for a two-minute trip. To the rescue came two dear friends with a van and relieved the sweaty cabbie from his hasty offer. We stuffed the goods into the van and considered to uproot the lantern post and take it along with the bicycle to the boat where I have another set of keys just for a case like this. I decided not to take the post so someone else could use it and have a chance to loose his or her keys like I did.
A little bit later we arrived at the place where the boat is tied to the anchor and the wall and my friends left. There is some walking to do through a heavy overgrown jungle including some ancient ruins from the last economical miscalculation of some entrepreneurs dream before reaching the vessel and by the time I get to the wall my arms extend to my ankles and my shoulders have sagged to my hips and I want to forget completely that I still need to return to the grocery store to pick up the bicycle but my trusted memory lapses fail me. The goods stowed and the cats fed, I scale the wall again and begin the march to retrieve my chained vehicle.
First things first they say, so I go to a locksmith to get copies of the spare keys so I have a spare set to loose again and then to the store. The lantern post is still there but not the bicycle. In total disbelieve I look at the spot where I left it, thinking perhaps it shrunk or dissolved in the rain that now has begun or that maybe it has also the ability to cloak itself like some of my tools or David Copperfield was at work. Before I curse him and all the thieves in the world, I take a look around in the pouring rain and notice that I’m in front of the store’s other entrance and so the bicycle may be at the other lantern post. To my relief it is and I safely can assume that Mr. Copperfield is on vacation in some other part of the world.
Now off course the memory kicks in again and I remember the boat. The hutch particularly and the companionway I distinctively remember to have thought about wanting to close it up when I left the boat and my recall tells me without mercy that I forgot to close them. This is the curse of a bad memory that it fails to be reliable. It keeps coming and going at the most inappropriate times like in the parking lot of a grocery store or some other distant place away from the boat and creates the agony one goes through thinking about all that water entering the vessel before one may close the hutches. Funny how I close them after the rain got in. Perhaps to make sure it does not get out again, kind of like reversed psychology?
So memory lapses have their drawbacks also and as for now I am glad to have forgotten what it is good for.

Of Sails and Engines

You want to know the difference between Sailors and power boaters? Presumably both love the water and being on it, at least so I heard but after being on the water, around it, in it, above it and observed others around me, I’m not so sure. It is so much fun watching children, the young and unspoiled by older persons and others as they splash around swimming, jumping and generally just have fun, without a goal versus those who have incorporated competition disguised as fun into their activities.
Now, I have been told that I’m very weird in many ways and wear it like a price tag on some really highly valued items and I’m proud of it. After many years of examining and scrutinizing people and their attitudes I came to a point from where I’m standing they are weird.
First things I noticed when I went to school, we had contests in almost anything. There were prizes given to the best from who read the most books to who could piss higher and farther than another. Someone had to win and all the others lost. I saw more hanging heads after competitions than flowers after a long dry spell. But we had fun. Well, some did anyway. As soon as awards where introduced into those activities, fun became exclusively the privilege for the winner and the losers looked for other means to be winners.

Are you wondering yet what all this has to do with sailing and engines? What is the purpose of all this talk about winning and loosing?
Okay, here comes first another thing to consider before I come to the point. When started the idea that there has to be a winner and who are those who uphold the idea of being better than another? And how come we think it is important to be a winner? Why do we need to choose sides? Why do we need to go somewhere to have fun and why do we need to have something to show?
Is it really important to have something to show, to whom and why? A pile of money that has no uses other than to have it, a trophy that collects dust?
We seem to make even saving someone’s life like a trophy. A person was besting me after I related to a group of friends a rescue I took part in challenging me how many people I saved because he saved more than a dozen. I couldn’t resist reply: “Only one who’s life really mattered and he saved many other life’s by refusing to go to war in Iraq.”

Are there any awards for those who loved and shared the best? I think the moment we award anything, that moment we corrupt the deed. Is the result not its own reward?
We make a big deal out of who did or said what and forgetting that the person is not the important part. People die, thank you, but the idea may live on perhaps for a long, long time.
I have my ideas about those posted questions and I think if you really look around you and go into an inquiring mode, you will find answers that come close to the truth.

So here we have the beginning of the dividing line that I see between sailing and power boating. Be it far from me to think one is better than the other, I would like to say that only the attitudes are different. But hey, things are merging, as it is evident in regattas. The fun going sailing is replaced with the “fun” if winning.

So here is a definition I use often: A power boater gets on his boat and goes where he wants to be and a sailor gets into his boat and is where he wants to be. The emphasis is on being. Could we possibly be joyful without going anywhere, or without triumph over someone, perhaps even having nothing to show?


I have often experienced how a power boater goes with a smile, a case of beer and other assortment of alcohol, fishing gear, baseball hat and usually a bunch of other man, also with baseball hats and more beer and booze to his boat, loads up the gear and other stuff and then heads out into the bay with the obvious intent to have a good time. Where they go and what they do I only can guess but when they return, red faces, a kind of stupid grin, watery, red eyes and slurred speech replace their smile. Their voices are loud and boisterous and they are pissed off at the fish who got away just inches before they had them aboard, and admit that the fish outsmarted them. Wow, that tells me a lot about the fisherman’s collective intelligence.
Here is where I pause and ask myself. What need was there to go out fishing when their fridge is filled with last weeks fish? Was their goal to get drunk? To get pissed off and getting frustrated because of a fish showed more intelligence then a bunch of them? I wonder; how many fishermen does it take to outwit a fish? I come to think the fish, which end up on a boat, must have committed suicide because death was preferable over living in this polluted waters. Then that would show more intelligence also because we pollute our planet and still want to live.
Why spend so much money to go chasing fish and then come back bitching and complaining and tell others what a good time they had? Had a good time doing what? And if they had a good time, why bitching? Or is bitching having a good time? Goal orientation and the prospect of some form of reward that has been taught from early childhood, continued throughout our life is the difference. Some of us escaped this conditioning and are then considered by the broken in masses as weird. Anything outside of their concept of what is normal and what life is about is strange.
As a sailor I go to my boat and enjoy fiddling with it to keep it good looking and functional for my own pleasure. Then I take it out to enjoy sailing, the waves, the wind, the sun, rain and going nowhere in particular. I may enjoy a drink but I don’t drink to enjoy. We sailors do not complain about “lumpy seas”, in fact, when the waves come up we go sailing and power boaters go for cover. Our fun starts when theirs is finished. It seems that we have fun enjoying life without the goals as such. The goal is to have fun. The game is what we want to enjoy not who wins.

I have observed among sailors also a trend to win and those are what I would call power boaters at heart. It is true, when there are two sailboats on the water, there is a race but it is not about awards and the results are not leaving hanging heads in its wake. It’s for the sake of a personal triumph and not to have the satisfaction to beat the other. But that is changing rapidly. There is this spreading sickness of egotism to be number one at any cost. We have the Americas Cup as a prime example of egos at large. Big promotions of companies are displayed, crews are bought to man the ships and the winners are paid big monies.
Competition is the driving force and awards are the goals and winning is everything. How can we have fun if we worry about losing? Participation is fun I heard. Then why are we not doing it when there is no award to be had?
I believe, if we let go of the competing aspect of our life and just enjoy life as itself, the award is satisfaction of the achievement itself. There is no need to reward it. Why is it not enough to sail around the world alone or with a crew and have the experience of it as the reward? Do we need to be in the book of records as the youngest, the oldest, the boldest or the first gay, man or woman? Is that not ego talking? Everyone accomplishing something great or even small is contributing to a world of wonder to be enjoyed by all. A janitor in a space agency doing his work is just as valuable as the scientists and their projects because without him or her scientist would be working in filth and their work would not be what it is.
Without those fishermen in a powerboat I would not be writing this story. It is time we acknowledge all men and woman equally without grading who is better, has more, done better than others. Nobody gets up in the morning saying they will do the worst screw-up today. We all do our best every day, even when it has been better yesterday. We just want to be our best every day to the best of our ability today. And would it not be nice to be seen for our efforts and for who we are instead of who we can beat?
Remember, at the time of our death no one will talk about how much money we made, who we beat but who we were. Death has a way to make us all equal.
While sailing I had an experience, which made me look at death as the best friend I could ever have. She taught and showed me that life was not about getting things or accomplishing tasks but of how well I love and of who I am, living in the here and now with intensity and not to worry about how much I did but how well.
We all would do well following our own hearts and not what others want or expect from us.

To your question about sails versus engine, well here it is then.
Sailing is using the airflow and our skill to go where it allows us to go and enjoy even when there is no wind at the time, it will come while with an engine no great skills are necessary but force our way to where we want to go as long as the motor is functioning. How much more skills does it take to turn a key, push the throttle lever and turn a steering wheel that a six year old could not do?
So we need something to show and a fish for a trophy is the proof we are grown ups.
Granted, there is fun in catching a fish and I hear there is something called Catch and Release and I ask myself: We need to torture a fish to have fun? This fish we caught is exhausted and week and often injured and will either become easy victim for other predatory fish or die on its injuries.
And all this is for us to have fun. When I intend to catch a fish, I bait the line and if an edible fish takes the hook, it is dinner. I have been taught young not to play with my food.
In many countries there is this fascination about death and animals are raised to fight each other for “sport”. Bets are made, money is involved in most cases and we are attending this spectacle with mixed feelings, are repulsed and attracted by the brutality of it. In Mexico as well as in Spain people go to watch bullfights and defenders of this activity use flowery words to disguise their thirst for blood and brutality. They will claim it is to demonstrate the superiority of man’s intellect over brut strength and I think if we need to demonstrate that, we are having a big problem. Cockfights, dogfights, praying mantis and whatever can be used to entertain us on the pretext of “sport” is spread all over the world and all is a form of competing. We like to take credit even when an insect is victorious over another. That must certainly be the pinnacle of human intelligence.
Nevertheless, it seems to me the sailing community is affected by this trend and I see sailboats heading out with lines in the water and it is not to supplement their dwindling provisions as much as for entertainment either for themselves or their guests who want to have the thrill to catch a fish. They sure have a thrill when the fish takes the hook and then we may watch the crew scramble to lower the sails, start the engine and clear the deck to enable the lucky fisherman to play the unlucky fish around the stays, other guests, the super structures and handle the rod frantically encouraged by all the others with good advise. Oh, it is so much fun to reel the fish in and then observing secretly the faces of children and woman when the fish has been boarded and now comes the killing that it is delegated to someone who has the job to look tough. The fish is flopping around and usually suffocates to death because no one really wants to kill it and everybody feels a kind of sheepish. But in the end we can say that we got something, sailing was not enough. We need to have something to show that we were out to do something and get something to show. Who wants to come back empty handed?

Characters

Wherever you go, there you are. This statement is enough to create a character and I would travel long and far to meet them. Yet I found out to find characters I only have to look around me. I embarked on this journey to meet them and the circumstances that created them. On occasions I find characters I’m not so sure I wanted to meet, but they make good story material and so do others but there is not much to tell about them, most likely because I did not get to know them well enough to tell a story about them.
They appear to be the kind of folks that are middle of the road, although I’m sure their lives are just as interesting as anybody else’s but they act and behave a way that is not provoking ideas to write about.
And then there are the others. Some are funny, some dramatic, others sad and again others slap my thigh, double over, and being in stitches kind of folks which make travelling so much of a pleasure that it is nearly impossible to stop it. And of course there are others that want me to give up any hope for human kind but I guess they are needed to create a contrast and we may see how much we enjoyed the first kind.
I’m sure there are stories about me also, at least in forms of rumours, gossips and maybe even the truth but I have not seen anything in writing yet and given the nature of most people, they find it easier to talk about me when I’m not around hence this story is on characters I observe around me. I will write about me when they’re not around.

In the anchorage where I tied up “Symbiosis” are several boats at anchor a little ways off, mainly without anybody on board and a few of them are live-aboard vessels. Those are boats occupied by their owners with sometimes living beings walking on two legs unless something or someone has forced them to consume unpaid amounts of alcohol, which they swear, they will never, ever do again until tomorrow. One of them has a life size toy dog, stuffed and often more alive looking than his owner and definitely better behaved than him. Unlike his owner, he never barks at anyone and is al least passive with other living beings, doesn’t mess the boat and is not asking for anything. What I like about this dog is the fact he does not command god’s blessing on anyone with a forked tongue. He also is well groomed and looks clean and I never saw him behaving like a human, but rather humane, very much the opposite of the captain, his owner.
This individual’s vessels is an old-timer, a wooden hull boat that has seen better times with a dock attached to it. Yes, you read correctly, the dock is attached to the boat. The boat is at anchor and where the dock came from is only the boat owner’s interpretation of legal but it serves him as a work platform and what else he deems fit.
I met him some time back and he greeted me in a gruff way, then proceeded to chat about his ear that was split in half from the back to front from a fall he had and now proudly displays like a war hero a lost leg in the old days where man were man and swords and cannons a way to make money. He likes to call himself “Captain Split ear” (“Schlitzohr” in German language and it denotes someone cunning, sneaky and crafty) and although nobody calls him that, I heard talk about him and he’s been called anything else, non-very complimenting, but was curious to see what kind of person he really is. He continued telling me what he is doing and asking if there is anything he could do for me because he needed money. Being broke myself I could not use his skills and told him so and he told God to bless me. Being a suspicious person about these kinds of folks, I kept contact to a friendly hello and the occasional tow of his dinghy when I saw him labouring with oars on windy days and each time I got a “God bless you” for it.
The towing itself was not a bother but when he brought up his problems and complains about his friend with whom he drunk daily until he fell down, I suggested:
-Work out your problem with him and not with me. It’s your friend; he needs to know what you don’t like about him. And if he is your friend and you talk about him in terms that are used for enemies, how do you talk about your enemies?
His face turned a hue of purple and he cried:
-Posh you! All of you. I don’t need you. I live alone and leave me the #*±! Alone. Posh you!
I got an earful of curses and dropped offering a tow.

A few days later I hear from my mechanic’s wife that “Captain Split ear” was rude and insulting to her husband. He confronted him while drunk, calling him names and in return was told to stay away from the shop or will be kicked out from there. The owner of the shop has assisted “Captain Split ear” with tools and other things and now that gone, “Captain Split ear” blames him for undermining his business and keeps “blessing “ him.
-Shootskees, he said. -I did a lot of work for them and they hate me. Everybody hates me, Posh them all!
I wanted to know if there is perhaps a possibility that maybe he is the one who hates everybody.
It seems I have a knack to make myself a target for mentally deranged, lonely sailors because his face twisted into an expression as if he unexpectedly bit into a lemon, his eyes like slits, he pulled his lips tight over his teeth and snarled:
-I don’t care! I love everybody. I don’t care what they think of me. I live on my boat; I’m captain split ear. See this? And produced a middle finger to demonstrate his love.
I was convinced.
A day later he asked me to lend him my generator for two hours so he can do some sanding on his boat and I asked him to bring it back when he is finished with a full tank, the way he’s got it.
In the evening I went to his boat to save him a rowing trip and to pick up my generator. He was full of gratitude and blessings and we talked for a little while before I returned to my boat with the generator and empty tank. The following day he asked me to help him to find a generator to buy and I directed him to another sailor who had one for sale.
-I don’t have the money now but will have it when I sold my property in Montana.
-Okay, I said. -When you have the money, you can buy it from him.

For a few days I did not see him and enjoyed the peace of a settled anchorage with a friend and we prepared “Symbiosis for a short sailing stint on the bay, when he came to my boat and telling me that he now bought an older generator, noisier than mine but more power and then began “blessing” me with so called four-letter words, waving his hands at me, which I would have loved with all of the fingers, not just one, and put a healthy distance between me and his dinghy. Was he worried my laughter would lead into an all-out madness and I would hurt him? It was a relief to have him off my back and not have to worry about lending him tools and getting it back empty and dirty. Why would I not be happy?
The next day while I answered some emails he came to me as if nothing happened, reaches his hand out for a handshake and was surprised when I asked him what the hell was that yesterday all about. First he pretended he did not remember a thing and then the amnesia lifted and he told me I was like all the others who hate him. My surprise was complete.
I thought he liked to borrow things for free and have people giving him jobs and support him with beer and share their catch with him but I stand corrected. Maybe some folks must like to be charged, insulted and treated harsh or they never feel validated. He continued to blabber on about his opinion about me, all the others who are like that and that I know what he was talking about, (I wish) theatrically dropped on his knees, hands raised toward the sky and begging for my forgiveness at the same time coursing me. Passer-by’s stopped and wondered if this was perhaps an open-air performance and started digging into their pockets for coins to reward us for the show.
Suddenly he remembered that he is “Captain Schlitzohr” who bends his knees for no one, jumped to his feet and shouted, he needs nobody, lives alone and posh you all, made his exit.
Curtains.
The by-standers, stuffed their coins back into their pockets and dispersed slowly, stunt by the authenticity of this sailor, they even forgot to applaud.
That made my day because it reassured me that I’m okay. With a relief I realized, how scary it would be to imagine people like this would love me.
Personally I think if there were no folks like him, we’d better invent them. They really bring out the contrast and make travelling interesting.
Once I watched a soccer game with a great player out-dribbling the other teams players, zigzagging around them, stumbling, getting up, still in possession of the ball then kicking the winning goal into the net, his own. Blame dizziness!
This sailor reminded me about this game and on some days when I’m swamped with things to do and I’m pressed to do many things that all seem urgent, I score like that too, but thank heavens, not every day. Could it be that this “Captain Schlitzohr” is a very busy man?

TERRORISM

ter·ror·ism n
Violence or the threat of violence, especially bombing, kidnapping, and assassination, carried out for political purposes

Encarta® World English Dictionary © 1999 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Developed for Microsoft by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

I'm not sure if my cat has any political connections or affiliations to the local Taliban, IRA or Al Fattah but there is a possibility that she has connections with local blow-up artists and assassins. If she is politically motivated, it has not yet surfaced, but that she has an agenda is evident.
She is my second acquisition, as a playmate for my male cat-friend who I thought in my deluded ways needed one. So I went to the local adopt a pet (more appropriate it should be called the "adopt a terrorist" shop) and there was this innocent looking, big-eyed, purring and face-licking hairball, which apparently could not make up it's mind if it was going to be white, red, grey or tabby and instead became all. I got suckered into her charms and in my trusting ways paid the adoption fee and proceeded to take her to her new home and introduce her to my cat-friend Csiko who I hoped would be not too harsh with her. He wasn't, she was.
I should have smelled a rat when I got this fuzzy thing on my shoulder and rode the bicycle toward the marina and she put those daggers that were concealed in satin paws in my back when a cab roared past us. The friendly doctor who surgically removed the kitten from my back wondered if anyone had ever given birth to a kitten before through the ribs. He heard about a story that once a woman was born from the ribs of a guy named Adam but a cat was never mentioned before or after for that matter. This was a first for both of us.
On the boat things soon became clear. Csiko was no longer allowed to reside on the boat. There was a hissing and growling going on that would scare the wits out of a tiger and Csiko reluctantly ceded ground to all teeth and claws in front of a huge sound wave that followed. It didn't matter much that Csiko was first on the boat, he had all the privileges that one earned over time, this assault was not he had anticipated and he did not return to the boat and demonstrated his disapproval in a way only cats know how.
Whenever I called him before the arrival of Miss Kitty, he answered, when he returned from a night on the town, he announced his return with a MIAU loud enough to wake me from deep slumber and snuggled into my arm and pawing my face with soft caress. Now he did not even come home. When I saw him ashore, he just looked and then turned away like a scorned woman, his tail twitched and he sauntered into the thicket without another glance in my direction.
Guilt flooded my heart and I contemplated to return the kitten to the shop and make up with Csiko by buying the juiciest fish I could find and let him gorge himself. Then I thought if I just give them more time, they would get over their dislike and all would be well. Oh, female cats easily foil the hopes of man. Csiko knew that this kitten was set in her ways. She was born to be a single-minded terrorist and like the bad joke of what the difference between a woman with PMS and a terrorist is, this kitten proved that you couldn’t always negotiate with a terrorist.
No gentle handling was possible with this kitten. She was always in attack mode and when I broke with brute force through her claws and teeth, her hissing and growling was such that I was afraid to let her go out of my grasp lest she ripped me into shreds.
Csiko the wise had better sense to stay away and let me take the brunt of her attacks. On the rare occasions when he showed up near the boat, and I suspect he just wanted to check up on the situation to see if I was still alive, he was looking from the cover of the thicket toward the boat and like a ninja vanished into thin air. How wrong I was thinking that in a few days the situation would resolve into a happy after. Month later Csiko finally condescended to visit when he figured this snarling, hissing ball of fur was sleeping and as soon as he jumped onto the boat, I eased the lines and moved a bit forward to get away from the wall where he could retreat. As long as I was around to take the first line of defence against the kitten, he was able to have a few bites of the food that was there and then he took off again. But with the boat now farther from the wall, that escape route was gone and he had to find sanctuary somewhere else. Alas, on a boat you can run but you cannot hide and he found out very fast how true that is. The gel coat on my deck was worn thin from their chasing around and once I got of the boat to have some peace, Csiko jumped into the water and swam to the docks to escape. If you know cats, you will understand how desperate he must have felt.
One day a heard a splash near the boat and thinking it could have been a large fish jumping, ignored it but then I heard this wailing that was like a sound out of a horror movie. I try to write the sound but it will not do justice. YOAUW! I jumped up from the table and into the cockpit to see a wet Pussy with eyes as big as dishes floating at the transom of the boat frantically trying to come back into the boat. (This kitten is clever enough not to wear a dynamite vest) Miss Kitty, the female terrorist.
For a moment I thought, (shame on me) this is the answer to my prayers and the solution to all of our problems but my humanitarian side broke surface and I put my arm into the water which the kitten grabbed in an instant and scaled like a monkey up onto my head and then jumped off onto the deck. Cussing and as yaouing like the kitten, spurting blood like a fountain, I grabbed the towel hanging on the lifelines as if placed there just for this purpose, I tried to stop the bleeding before I died without first had a chance to kill the cat. Miss Kitty sensing her doom elected the only strategy that works, looked at me, her eyes still big and round like saucer cups and let out a wailing sound of a kind that made me forget everything about murder. Bleeding to death disregarding I picked up this soaking fur ball and wrapped her into the blanket to dry her off. I’m not sure if fear made her shiver or the water but she was the most vibrating thing a man can think of.
As I dried her, she pushed her head into my armpit as if she wanted to take cover from a mad bulldog. My heart melted and compassion overpowered my reasons to kill this mortal enemy. Oh, what a sweet kitten this is was all I could think. Poor thing, so scared and cold and salty. Ah! Salty! She needs a warm rinse to get her to warm up and get rid of the salt. Into the head with her. Her we go, turn on the water and give her a nice warm shower. But oh, what a mistake that was. Never in my life did I see anything so fast, accurate and powerful escaping the head compartment through a porthole. She must have had the best Ninja warrior training that has been developed since the Shogun in Japan.
In any case, this kitten has not forgiven me that treacherous attempt on her salty cat status even now. Whenever I have a shower and enter the salon to sit down, she attacks me and bites what is available on me. The bites are no longer as vicious as they were in the first few weeks and that may be because I had to restrain her a few times with considerable force, but she still gets me when I’m lowering my guard. She also has developed a technique to get me when I’m sleeping and bites my arm, chest or any other part of my body that she can get at even if she has to pull the blanket off me.

Recently we got into a truce that seems to hold and I encounter her on my pillow or even snuggling up for a few minutes and I have gotten a little hard rubber ball that she is very fond of. It bounces and she chases it all over the boat, hides it in my berth and has a blast when I toss it for her and when she had her way with it, she brings it to me to show her what else to do with it. Still, I can’t get rid of the suspicion that she just wants to put me at ease before striking me down. So far so good.
Often when I return to the boat she greets me on deck and rub herself on me as if I was her favourite toy, which may very well be the case.
I wonder when she will try to recruit me for her hidden agenda. So far she has not demanded anything worst than to catch a fish, kill it and let her eat it but I fear in the near future she will tell me to take them hostage and exchange them for imprisoned cats around the world who have been impounded for obscure reasons. I believe I could be talked into that and hope it will not escalate into an all-out war against all human kind with slogans like “death to all humans”. My hope is that she is more humane than humans. And what is a little suffering among friends?
Now as time has gone by, this kitten has grown into an almost adult cat and there is a reconciliation process happening between Csiko and her that also includes my First Mate and me and we have her visiting us in bed where she is plotting her sinister plans to overthrow the human race.
Irma has a fondness of her, it must be the female aspect in her, and they spend hours together that is almost eerie was it not for the genuine affection of my mate and her authentic being to me. I can only presume that it is me who get close to agree with the ideologies these two females represent that allows me to live in relative peace.
Albeit, we are living in a harmonious and symbiotic space and have learned to live with each other and if we can do that, there may be hope that others in the world come to learn from us animals and create a better world where all can live in peace and love without the need to convert the other or enforce our views onto others. If we all can learn to respect our differences and see them as flowers of all kinds and not want to create a “Read my Two-lips” only world, we could at least have a better understanding of others even if we do not agree with their ways. We can rest in peace knowing that they will not agree with ours if they don’t want to. By allowing ourselves to observe and to be observed, we may discover the other has ways to see the world in ways other than we do and it may even be better than we thought. We may call this attitude open-ness to change.
It is amazing how the statement: “I know” has closed our minds and created rigidity in our being that is stagnant and fouls our being.
It is time to re-think our ways to think and act because it has brought us to the brink of our self-destruction and if we want to survive as species, we must re-create our ways. Thinking for us would be one good step in the right direction. Sharing the world with another and respecting our differences a second and to add some spice to it: Let’s work on our sense of humour about our selves. Taking our achievements and us too serious creates a sense of self-importance that has made life all over this planet a zest pool of greed, disrespect and a struggle for supremacy over others. Focusing on things that makes us and everybody around us feel good can change it.

Virility

Virility

What a shame it's wasted on the youth. By the time we know what to do and how to make best use of it, it's gone like an April shower.
Young people have so much of it that they go around and twitch all day to get some action and when they do get it is over in such a short time, they hardly notice it has begun.
Old folks on the other hand, when they start the game their interest and that of their partner has faded into other areas like remembering that the stove is still cooking all that is left of an unfortunate casserole which was meant to be a dinner surprise.
And it started so well. The champagne is still in the bucket but the ice is gone and the water would make the bunch of roses happy. Gone is the memory of the sweet words and the special attention to details in her dress and forgotten what was on the plan for the evening. And when we start the game again, a kind of silliness takes hold and we make good fools of ourselves. Mushrooms are better when fresh as when they are re-heated.
We know how to flirt, in fact, we become perfect with age and our charm and honesty are our best sides, there are no problems, but when the flirting catches fire, we are in hell's kitchen. And there is the issue with age. Most of us man love young women, when they are in full bloom and when we are lucky and have gotten a positive response to our advances, we drop twenty years in age, gone the lacklustre eyes and the tired gait and who was that man who had arthritis just yesterday?
I'm reminded how it's been said: Man has good sex for twenty years and then thinks being a stud horsing around for another five, followed by five more monkey-ing and finally making a jackass of himself till he dies. Talk about metamorphosis.
Yet our lady friend is glowing with our compliments. Having the attention of an older, distinguished gentleman is a special honour because it makes them feel more mature and the prospect to be treated like a lady is better than with young men who only have one thing on their mind. But make no mistake, older men have also only one thing on their mind but we know how to cover it up with finesse. And ladies have the same thing on their minds but they want to make others believe they don't. Why else do they display their goods and go out with a man who issues an invitation? In the end all roads lead to Rome.
And there is nothing wrong with it. After all, we are sexual beings and our biological function is not like many animals only during certain times of the year at peak. So forget political and religious reasoning and artificial moral codes and embrace your human nature without pretensions. The sad situation is when we treat and deal with our desires like it was something for sale or a bargaining object. Is it not degrading when we pay money for women to share her affections with us? A women accepting money for sex must feel like a victim; that she does us a favour and sacrifices herself and her body for money. Can we not get it because we are that ugly that we need to pay for it? Where is our self’s-worth? Can we not imagine that women enjoy our affections too and if we are really good, are we not worth to be paid too or at least call it even?
Let's face it, we both want love, so let's have it. Strange how man think they can go around and feel like "real" man when having "scored" with a number of women but women are labelled anything else when doing the same thing. Why not labels like "real women"? Sex is not bad but what we make it is. We don't see it as an expression of affection or love but as bond that imprisons the other and now they are our property and we think we have rights instead of privileges. It is an honour when we are intimate with another because we share affection with that person. It does not make that person our property. The experience is ours and nobody can take that from us but the person is free to go whenever they decide. Love is an experience, not a thing that can be had. It changes like day to night and like breathing is not only taking a breath in. It must also go out or it would not be complete.
Hanging on to another will make them want to leave. Nobody want to live in a cage unless they are afraid to be free and the fear of freedom is lack of self-confidence, being afraid what others will think of us, so we live by other peoples expectations of us and thus are powerless slaves.
A free person is not afraid but when fear comes into our life's we begin to conform and loose our dreams, our love and our joy of life.
Young people have been deceived with ideas that when they had sex with someone, they also have rights and responsibility along with it and out of duty, guilt or obligation enter into a commitment that often ends in a bad relationship. Then they look for ways to get what they want outside of the relationship, which in turn creates more guilt, lies, deception and a falseness of being. When we get older, we understand that we are not doing the honest thing but are in a rut and it is difficult to get out of one. And then there are the friends, perhaps children, parents, Mother and father in law to consider, so pretend all is well and continue living a lie. No big deal folks, the majority of the human population does. Why would you want to be different? You would just make yourself being a target of ridicule and become an outcast at best. Or they will hate you for lecturing them or because you want to be special, better than them. We will not be invited to parties, even friends start to avoid us and our reputation will be one of a strange guy and no fun to have around. The price we pay for wanting to be honest and bettering ourselves is indeed very high. We prefer being lied to and not to hear inconvenient truth.
At least young folks are not interested in all this heavy stuff and sow their seeds without much thought and it would be all well if they did not have those stupid ideas planted into their heads already and when the surge of the hormones subsides, they remember the ideologies again and then slogans like "do as I tell you, not as I do" get created.
Too bad, wisdom comes with age when it would be better having it while young. There are too many of us old folks who are giving good advise because we cannot give any more bad examples no matter how hard we try. I still remember when I thought it was desirable to have been able to perform five times in one day, now I’m glad when I perform once a year but at least I’m remembered for five years. At least I want to believe that. It takes the sting out of advancing in age when others mistakenly think we loosing hair when in reality it is gaining face. We can excuse our failures with our age but what have the young folks for an excuse? Business pressures? Performance anxiety? Sorry, I’m gay?
Women can always claim the famous headaches but what about man? We need to invent something to be pardoned because the "I'm tired and exhausted" only wimps will use and there will be a snowball fight in hell before we would admit to be a wimp. But age will be accepted and even seen by some ladies as a challenge to make it all better and to prove they have magical powers. And they do. It was amazing how a knockout blow with the boom was shaken of by an elderly gentleman with his much, much younger companion he claimed to have been his niece. A ram would have gone to his knees but this old goat just said: "Oops, gotta watch that" and continued telling her how he shopped single handed in Bangkok and stopped four potential cut-throats by handing over his wallet with $1000,- in it. The wide-eyed, open-mouthed admiration of his niece was magical. He was her hero and the six-course dinner was paid for without a blink and his impressive swelling of his head must have impressed her immensely and through the evening until I split, she hung on his lips like a leech. Some nieces are more magical then others.

Ever now and then I experience miracles that can only be explained with the presence of the fairer sex. It surprises me how often man who often are rude and boisterous turn into gentleman when a lady is present and are courteous and lay off with four-letter conversations. Others turn timid and display an attitude of helplessness and again others become show-offs. And all that is done to impress and attract the chosen object of their potential; hormones in action.
Since I am a man, I cannot imagine how women feel about all that display of mating ritual but I would love to hear some comments from the female population. How do they react to male advances and what do they consider to be effective? I often hear that they like when man are real but I still need to see man being real in the presence of a women. We man seem to carry so many role options with us that it would take an onion thousands of years to grow that many layers.
And what about women? What do they do to attract men? To me it seems that the first thing is their looks that they are concerned about. The inner beauty is of secondary or even third on their list of concerns. They know man well enough to realize what man looking at first. Bust, waist, butt, legs, then face and hair, not necessary in this order but not far off are the first things that man will notice. Looks are important to women and they know. Man seldom ask for intelligence in women and often find it intimidating because it dimmers their imagined intelligence. Why would she need a man if she were intelligent? A fair question. So women do not display theirs until the man is caught in the Venus trap. Now, that is using intelligence. And men are so easily lured. All that is needed is to display some of the goods; an encouraging smile and men are following women almost anywhere and do almost anything to convince them of their worthiness. They fly to Mars to astonish the world, but particularly the females of their prowess. As they say: behind a successful man is always a woman.
So we can see that nature has provided us with this sexual incentive to accomplish things that we normally would not do. So let's acknowledge this power and not put it into a political straight jacket. A thing I learned in the southern latitudes is that when you look at a woman appraisingly, they actually smile at you for noticing them as woman while in our northern parts they sue you for sexual harassment. Face it folks; sex is a reality that will not go away by political correctness; it will only pervert it. In fact, if it weren’t for sex we would have gone the path of the dinosaurs long ago. I love looking at woman and will not avert my gaze when I notice a good-looking girl or woman like many man do when meeting her eye. It is part of the ritual to look and notice.
A woman dressed in a very masculine way, including a tie, of looking at her ample bosom, once harangued me for sexual molestation although I did not even say a word or made an offensive gesture. If she hated man, why was she dressing like one? From suppression springs perversion, has that not yet rung a bell? Heaven knows we had a lot of examples. Let's go with the flow, shall we?

Sailor's blues

Love, a four-letter word as some may say, others feel a deep reverence for it, many exploit it, some run from it as others run toward and then fall for it. Running too fast into it is like colliding with a train. It hurts. But then there are those who are masochist and have a tremendous pleasure from it. Again others pussy-footing around it, playing with and in it and having a blast, one might say literally, but there is something about it that attracts living beings, namely humans or those who think they are, like flies to the sweet smell of rotting fruit.
Now, we are not talking about the love that is heavenly or talked about in some sacred books and scriptures, no, we are talking about down to earth, every day just-for-the-fun-because- there-is-nothing-else-to-do rutting.
We sailors are not exempt from this love effect; in fact, we are the real suckers for it. Could it be because we spend a lot of time tinkering with our real love, the boat, and when we take a break we realize that we’ve been missing something, for example, the returning of love, or the equivalent of that?
So what are we going to do? We go to the local watering hole, be it a bar, a coffee shop or a restaurant and begin timidly or boldly looking around for a sympathetic smile, someone who may be looking also for some diversion. Looks, of course, are important but willingness is a must. Forget intelligence because if they have it, they never get involved without a thorough getting to know the other. But then again, if they get to know the other they would never have a chance.
Conversations are about the boat, at least from my part, the work with them, the pleasures of sailing, how much fun they can give and how much aggravations they can cause. The chosen subject listens with half an ear because they may not even grasp half of the meaning of the talk but are mesmerized by the torrent of words that spill from the others mouth.
When we become alert to their state of mind, we then give an account of our adventures that made us look like heroes. Now we are getting somewhere. Here is a chance to shine and show our romantic and adventurous side. The waves were sky high and we stood watch over the vessel and our crew, climbed the mast in a wild, raging storm and bested the elements to emerge in one piece and just a tad exhausted.
Not much to brag about calm seas, a sunset or sunrise, a day-in day-out sitting at the helm with nothing else to do than watching the swells slowly lifting and lowering the vessel in a never-ending rhythm.
It astonishes how our stories affect the others. They invite us for lunch or pay for our coffee or beer or when we have managed to impress them sufficiently we may even get a chance to spend a night with them but mostly one at a time.
And here comes the part that creates the problems. In our deluded ways of thinking we believe that the other loves us. They may even think themselves being in love but far from it. They have been just as lonely for company as we were and we just entertained them sufficiently and created in them an illusion as of who we are for them and to make them think we are full of more entertaining stories but when we ran out of our stories and go out to create some more, they will not want to become a subject in the stories. When the real story begins, they prefer to hear about them but not be part of them. It is much safer to watch “The perfect Storm” from an armchair with real surround sound munching on something from the fixed, solid fridge and sipping a beverage without necessarily wearing it. The chance to drown on the drink is minimal and walking to the fridge for another one is not a dangerous trip.
In addition, the daily chores on boats are overwhelming. Filling tanks with water or fuel means either to use the dinghy, fill up the containers, return to the vessel, heave the load aboard and fill up the tanks or go to the fuel dock, pay an arm and a leg for the stuff and then pay docking fee. I take the cheaper alternative and what the hell, its good exercise walking two miles in a scorching heat three times with two jerry cans 5 gallons each. We could touch our toes without bending and that also explains the dirty fingernails. People with weight problems would benefit from this. It does not sound like much but it takes at least a few hours and often several trips. Imagine you do laundry.
Telling the story is great because of the effect it has on our audience and the embellishments that we use like a five star hotel gourmet cook the larder make for a cheap night for us and costly for the others but you should expect to pay for being entertained.
Asking your mate to assist you with those chores is like asking for a mutiny so it is up to the captain to do all the heavy work and that makes it difficult to throw yourself overboard.
Then there is the ongoing F.o.r.d. work. Fix or repair daily. Hanging upside-down in a hot, cramped, dirty and inaccessible engine room or a cabin that is so small you have to step outside if you want to change your mind is the best breeding ground for some really interesting combinations of four letter words that is limited only by the lack of imagination.
Other things that supply variety to our blues are the aspects of necessary repairs and the associated down time. That is a chapter we all have our own versions and plenty of them. If we happen to have lured someone during that time onto our boat, they need to be very much in love with us if we want them to stay with us. A lot of extracurricular romantic activity is advisable and even that is no guarantee for a happy after. It is amazing how boats can accelerate the natural process of relationship difficulties at least a hundred times. Something that may not have surfaced for fifty years can pop up in just a few month even with the benefit to have shore leave more frequently then on the high seas.
Who do we think want to live a lifestyle like that? So our Honey is soon getting the cabin fewer syndrome and comes up with stories of her own to escape this environment. It could be that they need to take care of family members who are in need of a third eye transplant, a second liver or a new growth of hair on their chest. Others find it necessary to find a job in a Far, far away Kingdom to earn money and promises to return when things are better. They of course want to remain friends because one never knows.
So here we are, the poor drags of a barrel of wine turned vinegar with a long face that could be mistaken for a cowboy’s old horse wondering what happened to the love forever and soul mates since time immemorial.
Sailors are suckers for romantic movies, stories and songs because they recognize their own life in them. It’s a blues that most of us could sing but I would be hard pressed to find any other species other than sailors susceptible to as much disillusions as they go through.
In all harbours I met sailors, males and females who had stories that would make a stone cry and it still did not make them calloused for romance and their eyes still had that sparkle that make them attractive and look-alive. There must be something in this lifestyle that is keeping them young and curious and interesting and that maybe the reason why they are wanted for a while until the hardships of this kind of life is getting too much for the average person and they look for an easier life and less demanding on them.
When they move on, they leave behind a confused sailor who would like to understand what the hell this people do not like about a life on the sea that gives them skills, knowledge, self-confidence, freedom, a deeper understanding of all that is and a sense of awe about human potential.
We want to share this opportunity with those less fortunate land-dwellers, after all, they got used living on the land for such a long time they forgot that they came from the sea, and feel rejected when they do not want to or are afraid to go and find themselves on the oceans as many others did. It is only a matter of getting used to it and not a disability to do it.
Maybe there is somewhere a silver lining in the clouds once we reach the horizon but for me the end of the water is just out of reach.

POVERTY, A STATE OF MIND

pov·er·ty n
1. the state of not having enough money to take care of basic needs such as food, clothing, and housing
2. a deficiency or lack of something
3. lack of soil fertility or nutrients

Encarta® World English Dictionary © 1999 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Developed for Microsoft by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.
Whoa! That’s a big slice. But not, if you have a big appetite. And it seems the majority of humans have an insatiable appetite for things.
I first became aware of this when we arrived in West Germany in 1957 after our escape from Hungary. I could not speak the German language but I had made some friends and we played after school soccer or cowboys and Indians and somehow I was most of the time a redskin. That was not surprising for me because I have dreamed often about living with horses free like the wind and roaming on the Pusta (Hungarian for Prairie) where you could see on Wednesday both Sundays and didn’t had to go to church. The cowboys had guns around their waists, which made sounds like guns, hats on their heads and a star on their vests. I had a naked upper body, paint of coal on my face, and a loincloth over my underwear. For a weapon I had a stick that was either a rifle or a spear, depending on demand, and my mind to dig traps, lay tripping wires and hide in plain sight. I learned to be a savage early and enjoyed it. My cowboy friends thought I was an Indian because I was poor and could not afford a cowboy outfit. They also got a cold at least twice a year and did what the white man was doing to the red man, giving them the flu for his land.
After I was killed and properly mutilated and then massacred my friends thanked god for his help in getting rid of the heathen, godless wild savages and invited me to watch TV with them because it is the right thing to do when you have killed them. No one should have to die without having the chance to watch TV after death. (With the programs today that will finish you off for good.)
I enjoyed watching a show where a little guy with an umbrella and wits was fighting guys with guns and muscles and won. I was fascinated how I was able to see pictures in a small box and it was just like in the movies. Then my friends asked me why we didn’t have a TV. I had had no idea why we should have had one. They had one and many of us were able to watch it. But he said it was theirs and if we had one too, then we didn’t have to watch theirs. What was his point? We were all together and had a good time and did not harm the TV by looking at it. Then he said the word: youarepoorandcannotaffordaTV. Till then I never felt poor, not even in Hungary when we had nothing to eat for two weeks. We felt hungry but not poor. So I told my father that we were poor because we did not have a TV and he bought one. We were rich. A few years later we were poor again because we did not have a colour TV. And so we were poor in a country that had everything and we didn’t. It seemed like we would never ever have enough because there was always more to be had.
So I was poor for many years but still today I don’t know what it feels like to be poor. I felt hungry, thirsty, angry, cheated, betrayed, deserted, to name some of the things that I would consider bad feelings but how does it feel to be poor?
I own a sailing yacht that many rich people envy me for and it is not big if you consider 11.65m enough for a couple. They tell me how they wish to have a lifestyle like I have and how they could never afford it. They have millions, so why not? I’m broke most of the time to the point where I cannot even pay attention, so why would they, with all the money they have, feel that they would not be able to afford it? Do they feel poor?
How does it feel like to have all that money and not be able to afford a lifestyle like mine?
Somehow that money or the way they manage it must make them feel poor. Or maybe it is greed that there will never be enough to afford a lifestyle that is free from the feeling of poverty. Poor rich man.
Again, in Buddhism there is a saying that says: “ True happiness is wanting what you have, not having what you want.
Could it be that this poverty has its roots in the need to prove to others that they are worthy of their respect and love? What and to whom do they have to prove anything? Or are they slaves to their possessions? I found out long ago; I don’t own things, they owned me. It seems the key to wealth is in the ability to let go. We may use things and with the purchase of them we earned the right to do so, but that should not turn us into bondage. In my life I have moved from one house into another and for a time it was my place but when I moved out it became someone else’s. I USED IT FOR A TIME BUT IT WAS NOT MINE. All things I can touch can be taken from me in a snap of a finger but the things that really matter nobody can take. Love, Wisdom, Knowledge and Experience are the things we acquire things with.
But we are so attached to things that we even call children, husbands, wives and friends ours and overlooking the fact, they are with us, not for us.
What makes us rich is the ability to experience all that life offers, the love we have for the experience, the wisdom of acceptance and the knowledge how to utilize it.
So my childhood in Hungary and Germany was a great preparation for my future outlook on life and how I look at fairness and justice. I understood that it was not important to own things but to share them with others. That way we all took responsibility for its maintenance and enjoyed an afternoon together after the killing was over. Us redskins were treated to TV and snacks after our torments, the cowboys had their share on bruises and justice was done when they had to accompany their parents to church while we Indians hid in the woods. Who says there is no god?
I felt no poverty and now in Mexico I see people who claim to be poor by North American standards but I see them laughing more, their children seem to be happy with the things they got but when they grow up the same poverty stricken expression sets on their faces as I see on other adults who have everything. I think the wanting more is the problem and it creates a feeling of being poor. To me, the bigger the distance between what we have and what we wish for, determines the degree of our unhappiness and poverty.
Worth remembering these lessons came full into play when I had encountered the opposite sex. There was this Goddess of my youth in her glory playing a murderous flirting game with all my friends and there was not one who did not want to die for her. (Being mutilated was not considered dying) Our fantasies had no limits and inside of two minutes we went through all possible scenarios from courtship to divorce by beheading.
You probably know the game “spin the bottle” and we played that game on a day when there was this Goddess around and that became an obsession with me. My friends knew of my affection and used it shamelessly to call her to play. Due my newly discovered “poverty” I did not have the guts to ask her out or to even consider myself a possible candidate to participate in the game. I had nothing of value to offer and so remained in the background while all the guys had a good time and enjoyed kissing this girl that was in my fantasies 26 hours a day. (I borrowed the two hours from the end of my life)
Then the incredible happened; the bottle pointed at me through a gap that opened temporarily when one of the boys shifted his position. I nearly fainted from the joy and the fear that sprung up like a grasshopper. My heart stuck in my throat and I put all my weight into my pants at the same time. All eyes were on me and hers were the only one that I noticed. There was a mixture of panic and fear and I thought repulsion. I could not move and someone shoved me toward her with the words: “We’re waiting. Hurry up.” What they were waiting for I never know but when she just kissed me on the forehead, I felt the whole world collapsing and the whole weight of it crushing me. How I made it home is still an unknown accomplishment and my face was still there but there was something wrong with the mirror, because my face looked somehow distorted and my eyes were swimming in a lake. The humiliation of rejection paralyzed me and I thought it had something to do with the situation of being poor. Shortly after we moved to another town and I was spared the agony to see her going out with one of my friends that was now the god we all wanted to be.
Years later I met her again and she looked incredible, still single and working as a photo model for a clothing company. Not as shy as when I was younger I asked her out for a movie and she agreed. We met two hours before the show and while having I bite to eat our conversation came to that game with the bottle. To my question why she had kissed me only on the forehead she replied: “You were always different from the other guys and not very popular because of the way you talk and act. I knew you liked me and I liked you too, but I enjoyed the attention of all the guys and did not want to be seen hanging out with you and be seen as weird as you.”
Not that this made me feel better but I was relieved to know that it had nothing to do with me having no money or things. I relaxed and from then on we were friends and if I would not have had a girlfriend at the time, who knows what would have happened.

It looks to me that the image of poverty is only in the mind and then affects our behaviour, stifles our creativity and drive for adventure.
We like to believe that other countries that have not as much as we do are poor and need our help. This makes us feel good not the ones we degrade with our gifts.
It’s been said: The easiest way to keep a beggar a beggar is to give them. This allows us to feel superior and demonstrate our “goodness”. That is the ultimate in humiliating others. It is not poverty this people fear as much as the condescending attitude from the “good Samaritan” if they still have some dignity left. And giving is condescending any way you look at it.
You may recall the proverb: If I give you fish today, you have something to eat for today. If I teach you how to fish, you have fish every day.
Old sayings are old because they have enduring truth in them.
Poverty exists only in rich peoples mind and those who want more, the others just work to live and don’t think much about it. There is no shame in not having more than what is needed to live but we are not satisfied with that and so we hoard large quantities of money, food or things for future use and then we die howling that we have not use the things while living.
You know, there are no limits to greed but there is one for moderation. The art of living is with how little you can do with, not with how much. Any idiot can live with a lot and only the wise know how much is needed.
As I mentioned before, I have a sailboat and some people look at it and thinking I must be stinking rich because I have a boat. They have a house, a car, TV, video and stereo equipment that would blast holes into the fabric of our universe and they envy me for the boat and thinking I’m rich? That is all I have as far as things go. No big car, a house with three bedrooms, kitchen, bathrooms, storage and garage, a patio and backyard, but I live free and go when and where I want to for as long as I like. I work where I am and when I need money. When I want a change of scenery, I cast off the lines or weigh anchor and move. No packing things and discover all that junk that I once thought I would use one day, no real estate problems and all that comes with it.
You see, when you own a house that house is yours, not the one in front or behind you, to the right or to the left, but the one you are living in. When you own a boat the whole world is yours. You don’t have to own a lot of things to enjoy them and you may remain poor and be rich.
I took out a lot of people sailing without getting paid for it and made friends. When I needed assistance they came to my aid even with money. Some took off time from their busy schedule to transport an engine to the repair shop, others lend me money to get the repairs done and some carried parts through customs on risk of discovery of smuggling. Money is not that important as we like to think. You are rich when you have friends. Know how to make them and be theirs also. You will be surprised how much people will value real friendship that comes from an authentic amity because there is not much of it around anymore. We often buy “friendship” because it’s easier than to earn friendship but how enduring is that? We all know the answer.
Cultivating friendships is where wealth is found, in mutual support and in assistance, not help, to get out of a difficult situation. When help is necessary, it should be only used when there are no other options to assist. The word help implies that the other cannot get out of the situation on his or her accord and we got to be careful not to come across superior. A good way is to ask for something in return that the other can do.
That would allow them to retain their dignity and after they recovered we may ask for the balance if there is any. But the way we are today, we maintain the thought and condition of poverty because we need it to feel good about ourselves when we give. It releases us from feeling guilty about having and they have not, so by giving we can always say that we do the best to eliminate poverty but do not realize that we are in fact perpetuating it. Why in the world would anyone want to work when you get it for free? All one needs to do is look poor and hold up a can and some mug comes along to release some guilt.
Look at some welfare recipients. I heard many of them saying that they would be stupid to work for minimum wages when they get more from welfare for doing nothing.
Need more examples?
I wanted to find out how it feels to be begging for food or money so I stopped shaving for a few days and very much to my discomfort avoided water. Within three days I felt like a bear, not strong physically but in smell. Then I sat on the curb of a busy street and in a jiffy I was chased away by another gruff looking individual who owned that section of the street. After a while one of the gruff-squad members took pity on me and told me to go home and clean up. He did not buy my act. I explained to him what I wanted to do and he, for a price, offered the information I sought. That would not do so I insisted that he let me do my own begging and finally he agreed to “rent” me a section of his street. For a week I begged money, food and advise from my “rental agent” how to make money. He never told me but volunteered to give me some insight into his income per week. It was more than I made when I was working as a painter for an outfit in Vancouver. When I expressed my doubt he gave me an example. He approached a car with a women sitting inside getting ready to go shopping and he changed his behaviour to a subservient one and became a helpless “invalid” in an instant. I would not have recognized him if I would not have known him for a week. What he was saying I could not hear but after three minutes or less he came to me and tossed me a twenty-dollar bill. “Keep it,” he said. “I get some more. Wait here.” With that he left and I decided to get a coffee. When I returned to my section, he was there, took my coffee and showed me another ten-dollar bill. I was just looking at the money and wondered how in the world he did that. “You got to act, man.” His act must have been good enough to go to Hollywood. “I could stroke easy 500 a day without sweat but I don't do coke and I work only four hours. Tops”
I made $120, - in eight hours as a painter when I started.
He may have been an exception but he charged me $100 a day for sitting on my butt and collecting haemorrhoids and change.
There is an untapped income tax source bureaucrats would love to know about.

What is poverty? Just a perception from the outside, slogans that can be exploited like anything else. It is all business and has nothing to do with humanitarianism but a lot with humanity at large.