Manifestation.

After leaving from Manihi in the Tuamotus, enroute to Tahiti, I stabbed my toe on a block and broke a toe. Nothing new, but painful still. Fixing it with masking tape, intended for use on other things but broken toes, I set sail to Rangiroa in hopes to have someone looking at it. Well, someone looked at it all right, handed me some more masking tape, just what I was looking for, and advised me to take it easy. I would have loved to go snorkeling there as I heard wonderful things about their drift-dives but could not put on fins, for goodness sake, I could not even row the dinghy, and so I became a prisoner aboard Symbiosis. My plan, to arrive in Tahiti just a couple of days after my daughter, had to be canceled. The time I had on my hand now, I used to rearrange the boats inside as I had now more space. The winds inside the atoll blew with about 15 knots and if my toe would not have been broken, I could have rowed the dinghy ashore and send a message to Jeanette about the delay but it did not let off. I waited and when the wind finally eased, I left this lovely place. Once outside the atoll, the winds were coming from the NE, made for a good ride, but I had to hand steer most of the time and it made it impossible to rest. At night it occurred to me, to rig the wind vane and see if it would do the job as it was supposed to and it seemed to hold course and I stretched out on the cockpit seat and closed my eyes. When I opened my eyes an hour later, the trim tab jumped the groove and floated on its pendant like a hooked fish, faithfully in the wake of Symbiosis. The course was steady 360 degrees instead of 215. After resetting the course, installing the trim tab, trimming the vane and relieving myself, I returned to my place and kept an eye on the steering unit for an hour. It held its course. I closed my eyes to rest. Again, awakening about an hour later I found the boats course to be a steady 360 degrees. The trim tab was still in place. The conclusion is; the boat wants to go to the North Pole and just waits for me to close my eyes to change course. I guess it’s a battle of wills.

In the late afternoon I sighted land, Tahiti, and watching it, my thoughts turned to my childhood dreams, when I first heard about Tahiti and how much I wanted to one day see it and live there, how my dreams turned into reality. In the evening I entered the Passe de Taunoa and turned starboard toward an industrial area, winding channel, no lighted markers and almost running into a reef, managed to find an area to set anchor and sleep. There was no one in the area where I anchored and I found out later; it is not allowed to anchor there because it is a shipyard. It makes no difference to a dead-tired sailor, but nevertheless, I weighted the anchor and followed my track out the harbor and into the entrance to Papeete, followed south along the airstrip and ended up in marina Taina. This happened to be in the morning hours before I had any breakfast and to my surprise, there is a voice sounding just like that of my daughter. Poking my head out from the hutch, there is Jeanette in the flesh, in a dinghy with a fellow names Mike from a boat called “This side up” I saw first time in Hiva Oa.
They hooked up and Irma, my ex-partner, will sail with him to New Zealand while Jeanette will be with them for a while in this area until she returns to Canada, unless a shark will get to her before she can make her escape.
So, here I am, without crew, no computer I can use to navigate with and no paper charts from the area other than small scale, lots of detail but useless for longer passages.
A very good friend has sent me some money to prevent me from eating my socks, (I run out of shoes) and now as I’m getting popular doing massages, I am able to buy some delicacies like bread and butter and food for my and Irma’s cat. In case I find a boat to sail to the mainland, I will leave my boat here for a few weeks while getting my account reactivated in Canada and then return.
Ah, the adventures one has when one has decided to be free.

Shark encounter

Moorea is just 15 nm downwind or leeward, as we sailors
would say, some may say it is west, but hey, it’s the same in
the end. From Tahiti it was just another Island and it has
been luring me to go there since Mexico and for more than a
week I looked at it, thinking of it as my new home, and it
seem to get closer to that reality, as the German embassy is
working to get my German Passport and perhaps even the
Hungarian too. I’ve been told because I did not file a request
to cancel my citizenship when I became Canadian, I still
have it. That, indeed, is great news and will make living in
Fr. Pol. possible.
Looking at Moorea for this long time, without money, no
work, except for the two massages, I set sail to the Island of
my dreams with a Dutch friend, Erick, and with little wind an
a lot of motor, we made the trip in 3 hours. Sailing into Cook
Bay is easy and the edges of the reef are well marked, with
a leading line and range lights, anybody could do it. Erick is
good crew and we set anchor in 12 meter water close to the
Bali Hai hotel, next to another known character, Bruce on
S/V Loki, named after a Norse God of mischief. Erick and I
went ashore to do some internet and I found a mail from my
daughter, demanding in a thinly veiled tone to make sure I
will deliver her jacket she forgot on my boat and find out if
indeed my ex-girlfriends cat could be taken on a plane to
Canada. Oh, how I will miss that cat.
I replied to her letter and then went to watch a much more
pleasant show on DVD about people in jail being beaten and
abused.
On Sunday we decided to see some sharks and swim with
them and some Stingrays, sliding up our legs and letting us
pet them. I managed to touch a shark with my hand and its
skin felt like sandpaper and it bolted off like a stung cat.
There were about 10-15 all around us from about 5’-15’
(1.5-3.0m) big and it was not a bit dangerous as some
stupid movies would have you believe. I dove with
hammerhead sharks in the Galapagos and nothing happened
there either. There is a possibility, sharks want to clean their
reputation and present themselves from their best sides or
they just eat tourists, in which case I admire their choice of
selectivity. They certainly taste better after the sharks
scared the crap out of them. I’m sure Hannibal Leckter
would agree.
The Stingrays were as big as a kitchen table and when they
touched, it was like gentle hands were caressing the body.
This brings to mind a question, I wont say from whom, if
fish have teeth, and from my observations I can say: most
living beings, especially the bigger ones, most certainly have
teeth, with the exception of hockey players perhaps, and if
they decide to eat you, they will use them, unless somehow
they learned to manage knife and fork.
Then I met a pro kite surfer by the name of Tamataro who’s
got to be the worlds best kite surfer. He is the one who
surfed over the Golden Gate Bridge in SF. Now, that’s
awesome. I am looking forward to learn this kind of surfing
and take lessons from him when I got settled here.

Chapter 2

ALIEN?

I falsely presumed to have originated on this planet, but that assumption was corrected about the age of four when my alleged parents told me the truth. A stork had delivered me to them from another galaxy, which accidentally dropped me on the Earth.
Reluctantly I admitted the possibility, after observing the predominant species on this planet. Although I looked like them, there seemed to be emerging evidence that I was different. The herd mentality is still very strange to me, as I did not like to be in big groups. Moreover I don't have the tendency to self-destruction, and I like to take responsibility for my thoughts, feelings, and actions.
It was a very lonely time while growing into my teenage years. I wanted to be like other kids, but they must have known of my off-world origin, because they picked me last for soccer teams even though I wasn’t the worst player. I seldom had more than one friend at a time, and seemed to see things that others did not. For example I noticed that it was not raining between the raindrops, and that a glass filled half full with water was also half empty.
Indeed, a friend of mine got very upset about my observations, and informed me that was the reason nobody liked me. At first I thought he meant they did not like me because the glass was half empty or only half full, but then he clarified that it was because I did notice both, and they did not. Hardly my fault, I thought, all they had to do is to take notice by looking, but it was too late. My reputation as being strange escalated into "weird" and "out of this world" in a negative way. I became known as "the spaced out kid" or "Sputnik" for short.
In order to live with such people I went undercover. I did the same things as them so I would not be discovered to be an alien, although I was not convinced yet of my alien status. As years went by I felt more and more a stranger, and noticed in conversation with others that I was not interested in talk about trivial things. Who was who in the music world or in sports, when and how many goals someone scored, just left me cold. On the other hand, I was interested in discussions about how big the universe is, or when God started his life and who created him. This was definitely not the way to break down my fellow schoolmates' suspicion about me, and reading science fiction stories did not help either.
My popularity was limited to stirring up the teachers, particularly Father Juergen, a corpulent man who was easier to jump over than to go around, and who had a voice that reminded me of the chirping of a sparrow just before the cat got hold of him! The way he moved about in front of his desk in sudden spurts as much as his mass allowed, his head jerking and swiveling on a thick double chin, brought out my cat nature and tempted me to take a swipe at him. His piggish eyes, with heavy bags of dark rings fitting his red thin remnants of hair, were arched in an inquisitive way as he waited for questions he could authoritatively answer.
Except for my questions that is. To this day I'm convinced he would have loved for me to be put in a cauldron with boiling water like a side of pork, so he could watch me squirm. No wonder I put my most challenging questions to him, it was a match made in heaven and the other students loved the way the class went when he and I had our battles. They just sat back or played battleship.
My other victim, our history teacher, loved asking me questions. I answered with a question of my own which he refused to answer, and instead he insisted it was important to remember when Charles Charlemagne became king of the Franks. I wanted to know for whom it was important. It didn't seem important to me, and what relevance did it have for this moment? The war was on, and we created history instead of digging up bones!
In one instance we had a discussion about borders. My point of view was that borders were artificial man-made divisions because people did not want to share with others what they had, and so created enemies. He rejected this with a wave of his hand; saying "why" was irrelevant because the fact is that there are borders. I replied that that will change with time, and perhaps one day there will be a world without borders. "Dream on", he said, and continued rattling off dates and events. I envisioned a unified Europe when I was twelve, and people laughed at me for saying it. Perhaps it was only a coincidence, but it is almost a fact now. Maybe it was only wishful thinking, or perhaps being an alien allowed me to see into the future?
To my delight I discovered some fellow aliens. They were also working undercover to change our species suicidal attitudes and greedy behavior, by giving living examples and advice on how to live in love and mutual respect for everything and everybody, authentically and with awareness for the benefit of existence. Death and destruction are poor alternatives. How much do we need and take with us, to die satisfied?
I embarked on my journey with a sailing vessel to learn more about this planet called Earth, also known as Gaia and Terra, and found it to be a place of great beauty that is attacked by the greed and ignorance practiced by its occupants and called “progress”. They make movies and write sci-fi stories about aliens attacking Earth and invariably are portrayed as the enemy. It's strange to see people looking for an enemy outside of themselves, fighting and killing each other to eliminate their foe, blaming others for their situation instead of looking inward where they would encounter the real enemy. They are destroying the planet they are living on, and it is not an enemy from outer space they need to worry about! They do a great job this far and we couldn’t do better even if we wanted to.
This planet is covered with water more than 70% and only about 1% is usable for everything that requires fresh water and the inhabitants are treating it as a garbage dump. Out of sight to them means it is gone. Fact is, all this usable water has been recycled since life on Earth began and in the meantime we put so much garbage into the water, air and soil that the filtering effect has been compromised to an extent that we now need to buy water in stores which has been artificially filtered to be consumable. In many places on this planet, I can assure you, my toilet is cleaner than the surrounding water! Remember: there is no water coming from an outside source to replace our dwindling supply of good, healthy water.
Slash and burn is practiced on land. Clear-cutting destroys habitat for all living beings including humans. Only mechanical robots don't need clean air to breathe. I like calling this planet Aqua-world because there is so much water. Many of those other aliens prefer to be on, near, or submersed in water, so there is a possibility where we come from is a water planet also.
However, I also met a great number of natives to this planet who are using floating vessels and enjoying the waters while adapted to the herd mentality with the attitudes of sheep. They allow others to think for them and to do as they please. This is similar to their land dwelling cousins who are satisfied with solid ground under their feet, and feel secure as long as there is nothing moving. Death is like that, not moving, stable and safe. Death seems to be the most desired condition for many. That might explain the self-destructive tendency. It is very evident in mass-opinions like politics, religions, cultural identities and worldviews. It can be found on football fields, sports arenas, in churches, temples and battlefields. Instead of teaching and promoting individuality, they created institutions called schools and universities where mass conditioning is carried out. Don't move your mind, don't rock the boat, and don't question authority!
Can you imagine the stupidity of priests blessing soldiers going to kill, writing bible versus on guns and bombs and tolerating it? As a matter of fact, it is defended as the right thing on mass media. If that is not the ultimate in religious stupidity and hypocrisy claiming to teach love, I don’t know what is.
The galaxy of my alien species discovered individuality as the preferred method of coexistence. We come together as individuals to perform a task that requires group effort. When the task ends, the group dissolves into individuals again, following their own bliss without a trace of herd mentality. We have no politicians, priests, bureaucrats, lawyers or leaders, and therefore we are not imbecile followers. We've learned to resolve our issues without the involvement of others who have nothing to do with the problem. We are not looking for who did what to take cheap revenge, but look at the problem and work together to fix it. The problem is the issue, not the person. People can be educated, not problems. We don't believe in punishment or rewards, or in inducing guilt and shame in others. We have no conformists. We keep no secrets from each other, because only the one who knows a secret benefits, and all others are left out. We understand that possessions create thieves therefore we share. There are no wars, no hunger, and no greed. Nobody has more rights because they have more than others; there is no privileged class.
If this sounds utopian, try a different approach to education. First you must educate your educators because ignorant educators can only teach ignorance. Ask yourselves why you'd place belief before knowledge. Believing is easy. All one needs to do is to tolerate being dunked under water and say: “I believe, I’m saved.” The only thing you will be saved from is the work required to think for yourself and acquire knowledge.
You know, one man with one eye may lead a million blind but will never follow a million blind. A person of knowledge will transcend beliefs. Remain inquisitive until there is no doubt left. Find out if what you've learned is indeed the truth, or if it may have changed over time. Any person who "knows" has a closed mind. Nothing is certain because everything changes, so remain open. Become role models, teach with your being, and remember, nobody ever learned swimming on dry land. How can you enjoy the sweet fruits of your own cherries if you plant thistles instead of cherry trees? Think about this.
Of course, it is not that easy to shed old habits, and I acquired many of them during my stay on this planet, being surrounded by humans and educated by them. But in the end I remembered that all I have been taught wasn't necessarily the truth. The problem isn't what I was taught; but rather that I believed it. Not that I had much choice. After all I did not have any other aliens around me, and if I did, did not recognize them at that time. It's nearly impossible when society's education puts a blindfold of ideas over one's eyes through which to see the world, and we grow up believing them and thinking we are thinking.
As it turned out, fortune led me to my parents. They had been educated Roman Catholics, and my father had been a soldier in the German army during the Second World War. During his service his beliefs had been shaken off, and he questioned everything that he heard and thought to be true. My mother still wanted to believe and searched for God in every religion, and found it nowhere. She insisted on me reading the bible every day. So on one side there was my mother who pushed me to read and believe the bible, on the other side was my father who warned me that living in Hungary under the communist regime, I would be subjected to brain-washing in school by listening to the same propaganda every day.
Four years of school in Hungary proved to have been enough for me to recognize (after our escape in 1956 to Germany) that the same thing happened in the church. On top of all that, now my soul was threatened with hellfire for eternity, if I did not believe the teachings of the priest. Siberia sounded better each day!
The questions I asked during religious studies were enough to arouse the suspicions of the priest, who had the ears of God and could sentence me to hell. I stopped caring what would happen when I discovered that he could not answer my questions, and just wanted me to stop asking them so he could continue with his lectures.
At the age of thirteen, after a determined refusal to go to church on my part, I wanted God to punish me with death so my mother would cry over my grave for trying to force me. Challenging God was the ticket. Shouting an insult of the worst kind I could come up with, and believe me, Hungarians have a monopoly on choice words when it comes to insults, I expected a lightning bolt to strike me as swift as a pick-pocket in the streets of Agassiz.
Strangely enough, no lightning struck, but instead I had the sudden recognition that there is no God outside of existence. All of existence including me is the same thing. There is nobody to punish or reward me.
This insight opened doors I never even knew were there, and when the police found me and took me home after my parents' alerted them to my disappearance, my mother thought I had a nervous breakdown after listening to what happened, and decided to have our priest look at me. After a 15 minute evaluation of my condition he put his hand around my neck, and with a red face demanded of my parents to have me undergo an exorcism because the devil got hold of me.
As my mother and father were more loving than the servant of God, they took me to a psychiatrist who listened to me for four hours telling him what I did, thought, felt and experienced that night in the park. He then called my parents and inquired from them if I had any Buddhist, Hindu or Eastern philosophy training. Of course not, we are Catholics. Why?
"Well", he said, "what I gather is that the things he says are eastern in concept but I need to see him a bit more to be sure." When they asked what he thought had happened to me, he answered: "Whatever happened to him, I wish it would happen to me!"
That episode of my life is etched in my memory. It has influenced my ways of thinking and observing events around me and has affected my path in life, especially around the issues of freedom, religion and education. When we are taught what to think, that is not freedom. Being taught how to learn is closer to it.
There are laws; civil laws, corporate laws, criminal laws etc. that mostly originate in some religious superstition about moral concepts and conduct. Some are based on common sense, but all are limiting freedom. At least common sense laws are arrived at by common agreements between different people, while the others are imposed.
Take the Ten Commandments; all of them suppress emotional expression. How on earth are you going to explore your potential if you have to stuff it down? How would you know how to correct an error, if you do everything right? How could you know what a mistake is? What is a mistake anyway, and how could you fix it and develop solutions if you won't experiment? We all are making mistakes, and when we use intelligence we learn from them. Too bad only a small percentage of humans are wise enough to do so.
Remember: A smooth sea never made a skillful sailor. We have to have challenges to grow and push the boundaries to discover new things and ways or we’ll grow stagnant. Remain inquisitive, it’s nature’s gift to us.
God never gave commandments, Moses did! It is said: God loves unconditionally so why would he give you commandments? Moses did that because he could not handle his sheep any longer. After 40 years of being too stupid to find his way out of the desert, his control over his flock was slipping out of his hands. He needed a law that cannot be questioned. He had been a lawyer at the court of the pharaoh before his odyssey, and that's what lawyers do, they insist on laws when intelligence fails. Moral of the story: Never leave it to a lawyer to find a way out of the desert!
So what is this lawyer guy to do? Call on a higher authority, that's what they do, even today. Stupid people never cease to amaze me. They are imbued with God's immortality. Nobody dares to question it. I remember a guy who answered me about why he believed in God? "Just in case", he said. Mind you, he kept doing all the things that will take one straight to hell according to the commandments. And so do millions, causing me to wonder why are they going to church and claim to be of any faith? Might as well use that time to make love to someone, at least it will be real fun.
All these fantasy ideologies have not created any peace and I daresay, do just the opposite, but humans cling to it as a monkey to a fistful of peanuts, even though their freedom and life depends on letting go.
There was a guy named Marx who said; "religions are the opiate of the masses" and another one said; "if one has science or art, he has religion". More likely if they don't have science or art, they have religion. On my planet we would choose art and science any day.
When sailing down the coast I ran into some heavy weather, and it put me in danger of losing my life every second for two days, and I remembered a priest saying "there are no atheists in foxholes". How would he know? He was never around those people when they died. How would he know unless they survived and then credited their escape with God's mercy? What kind of hogwash is that? During all those hours of howling winds, crushing waves and life threatening situations not once did I call on God or even though about it. I was too busy surviving.
Someone asked me if I was afraid and I answered no, I was too scared to be afraid. Scared that the boat would break, or that my daughter would be very upset over my lost at sea status. Was I afraid of dying? Hell no! I was more afraid of not living! And live I did, and still do. There will be time enough to relax from living when I'm dead, but I'll refuse to die before I've lived, and there is no better time than NOW to live because there are no other Now.
Death will come to all of us (except to Texans. If they cannot take it with them, they aint goin'!) And we never know when that moment comes so you might as well live now and enjoy every second fully aware, or you'll die regretting not having lived. Unawareness of living is the same as being dead. In an unaware state we hurt each other. Just imagine not having the chance to say you're sorry to someone you hurt before they die. Or imagine you wanted to see the world before you die, and you are dying with a million dollars on your bank account without having done so, because you were too busy piling up the money.
Death is the only certainty and once you fully understand that, you are free to live and be unconcerned about death. She will come regardless of who or what or where you are. Don't act dead while still alive. Live it up!

A Zen student asked his master: "Master how should one live his life?"
The master answered: "By preparing himself for death."
"But how can one prepare himself for death?" asked the student.
"By learning how to live." was the old man's reply.

Robin Williams, playing Patch Adams, used the words in a sense that death is not the enemy, indifference is. Why are we so afraid of death? It's the natural end of life. Let's be prepared for that.
This message is thousands of years old and we still do not understand it. Maybe we teach the wrong messages. Millions suffer fear from countless diseases, and the worst of them all is fear. In fact, fear causes most disease.
Religions induce fear if you don't believe what their leaders want you to believe, and induce hope for an eternal life if you do believe what they say. Some even promise a reward if you do their God's will, according to what they tell you God's will is. And then we are stressed out over which God is real, and what is the true will of Him, Her or It. Nothing kills better than stress.
What a big surprise when you arrive at the Pearly Gates and there are no virgins, no Saint Peter, just an old hag without teeth asking you to give her back her youth. Know that if a God wants something from you he or she will tell you that him or herself. Never let a person tell you what the will of God is. They only want you to further their objectives without putting themselves in danger. Don't be a sheep no matter what they promise you.
Our planet has no sheep, and nobody tells you what to do, what to think, or how to feel. We understand there is no right or wrong, because that would mean there is judgment. Situations exist, and if the situation is undesirable we change it when it is in the interest of all by consulting with each other for the highest good of all concerned, and act accordingly. We may not always come up with a solution that pleases everybody and then we sacrifice our idea in favor of the other and see what happens. There are no guaranties in anything, and knowing that allows for flexibility. That's why life is an adventure, or in the words of Forest Gump's mother, "Life's a box of chocolates". You never know what you'll get.
If I'd known what to expect on my travels, I would never have left. This world is the best so far. I've never learned this much about myself while living on land. There were always others around me whom I'd been busy observing and comparing myself with, and never had time to find out who I was. It took only three days alone in the open sea to find the person I searched for all my life, me.
I watched waves, clouds and the winds and there were no two the same. They mixed and formed other patterns, shapes and appearances, and reality was the result only in the moment, not in the past or the future. Patterns dissolve and form new patterns every second, and even that are too long a time span. It's like observing along a sharp knife-edge, without width.
Other things became clear to me also. The way reality is, or the way I see it, is the interference of waves from many sources. We all contribute, making waves of our own design, and the results of all those waves together create reality. Of course, what I think will affect reality, but so does everybody's thoughts, and the interference of all those thoughts is what reality is. Some are small, others huge but they all contribute to reality, and we are able to affect the size of those waves. We all need to learn about cause and effect so we can make wise choices.
Ah well, these are just my ideas and I will not claim them to be the truth. Surely these thoughts have been thought and observed before, but not by me. For me they are new and therefore significant insights. The good news is; if I can have them, anybody can have them too, and you don't even have to be an alien.

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.