Author: Ricardo

I used to frequent this place called “La Tiendita.”  Literally, it means “The Little Store.”  And that’s what it was: a little store.  It was a block down the hill from my school.  There was a street at the bottom of the hill, and once you hit that street, you made a right and walked about 3 more blocks.  The store was little more than a doorway into a low cinder-block building.  Inside, it was little more than a room with food and drink, sort of like a compact Quik-E Mart.  More like the supply closet in a Quik-E Mart.

It felt like La Tiendita was always open.  When I was young, I would sneak down there after school to buy a snack.  Maybe I’d buy a Coke.  There were street vendors sitting right outside the school gates, but there was something daring about walking down to La Tiendita to buy something.  La Tiendita lay on the outskirts of what was a pretty rough neighborhood.  It wasn’t the wisest place for a kid to wander around.  And I was a foreigner.

As I got older, I started buying cigarettes at La Tiendita.  There was an irony in buying smokes after basketball practice, but such ironies escape those engulfed by the hubris of adolescence.  If you sweet-talked the person behind the counter, they’d sell you individual cigarettes.  This was an essential tactic when, at the end of the week, you were down to the change left over from all the hotdogs wrapped with bacon that you’d buy from the guy with the cart parked out in front of the school.  Besides, La Tiendita was filled with all kinds of other things to buy.  

When I look back on the time I spent with my friends at La Tiendita, I realize how stupid we were.  Like I said, the neighborhood wasn’t the best, yet we ventured down there just about every day after school.  We never had a run in, we never got into a fight.  Other people did.  At least, there were stories about that kind of thing.  Maybe we were just lucky.  Maybe I’m just a man, a father, who looks back on those days with different eyes.

Different eyes, indeed.  Benjamin Franklin said something like, “Show me a man who was not liberal in his youth, and I will show you a man who has not lived.”  It is by necessity that our eyes change over the years.  When we are younger, we brashly push envelopes and test society’s boundaries.  When we are older…not so much.  We conform.  We adjust.  We hide.  We fit in.  We become much more cautious, and we don’t do stupid things like venture down to the Tienditas of our lives. 

Maybe it’s our youth itself that keeps us safe.  Maybe others look at us, recognize the brashness of youth, and simply step aside, respecting and understanding the cycle at work.  But, maybe, just maybe, we make it down to La Tiendita, drink a Coke and have a cigarette with our friends, and return to school in one piece because we believe we can.  That belief is what is referred to as Faith.

Some Faith we keep in our lives, other Faith we lose.  Faith in ourselves, in our own abilities, is most often lost.  We see it in so many people around us.  We see it in ourselves.  Our Faith gets shaken by the indignities and the failures that befall us between the time we leave our high schools to the time we sit in our basements, the children asleep upstairs, writing about things that flutter through our minds.  I am not alone in this shaken Faith.

Then, the Universe shines a light on our path, highlighting good and bad alike.  Through the eyes of others, through their experiences and trails, I learn just how important it is to have Faith in oneself.  In the work that I do, I am granted a gift that gives me humility whenever I stop to contemplate it.  I am given the gift of trust.  Somehow, someway, I am able to build relationships with others such that they entrust me with their personal lives.  I hear their fears, their aspirations, their doubts, their joys.  By listening, perhaps I provide some level of comfort.  I like to think that the trust I earn and keep grants me permission to speak my mind, to offer an opinion or a suggestion, that, in the end, may make the slightest difference in a life.  If I can do that, then the gift of trust is warranted, and, just maybe, a little Faith can be restored.  For them and for me.

La Tiendita is just around the corner.  Adjust my eyesight.  Start down the hill.  Have a little more Faith.

There is something to be said for surviving the process of filing your taxes, particularly when you fall into the “married filing jointly” category.  I am sure that more than one marriage has dissolved under the pressure.

I didn’t hold a tea party today, nor did I attend one.  I sort of look at taxes as the price of admission.  I’ll pay one way or another, so it might as well be taxes.  I take exception with how the money I send in is spent.  That’s a whole other issue.  I’ll pay my taxes gladly, just get someone to spend all that cash I send in wisely.

I’m beat.  Thank goodness you get a “do over” every morning.  I’m looking forward to a shot at a whole new day.

Cheese.  Oh, how I love you.  Your stinky aroma, your quasi-rotted taste.  I love you, love you, love you.  Particularly when you come in the form of a ball encrusted with almond slivers.  Preferably on a whole wheat cracker.

Cheese.  Fermented mammary excretions from a cow.  Or a goat.  Except I don’t like goat cheese.  It tastes like goat.  I don’t like the way goat tastes.  I imagine that walking up to a goat and licking it tastes the same.  I haven’t had cheese from any other mammals, come to think of it.  I hear that the milk from a whale is as thick as cottage cheese.  I guess you skip the whole fermenting process with that one.  

Cheese bothers me.  I know I shouldn’t love it, but I do.  I know I shouldn’t eat it, but I do.  I don’t consume it in the mass quantities that I once did, but I still haven’t cut it out completely.  Why should I?  I should because I fundamentally don’t  believe that adult mammals should be consuming milk.  Milk is for babies, not adults.  Do you know why whale milk is so thick and fatty?  Well, when you’re meant to get as big as a whale AND you have to grow really fast to avoid all those unpleasant ocean predators AND you have to tolerate those frigid ocean temperature, you sort of need a high-calorie, high-fat food to kick start the whole process.  It’s not that far a leap from whale’s milk to cow’s milk.  Cow’s milk is meant to do pretty much the same thing: take a baby animal to a pretty big animal in a short period of time.  That’s why there’s all that fat.

Apart from that, there’s the whole issue of how cows are treated in the production of milk.  If we all agree that milk is for babies, then how is it that all these cows are producing milk?  Where are all the babies at?  And why aren’t they with their mommas, drinking their milk?  I don’t know why…I just think about these things.

So, yeah, I sometimes feel weird when I eat cheese.  I don’t drink milk.  I pretty much don’t eat ice cream.  I don’t eat dairy yogurt.  But I eat cheese.  I eat cheese and I love it.

Do I get like this because this is an inconsistency between my actions and my beliefs?  Or do I get like this because I am falling prey to the trappings of a title?  Mainly, the title: VEGAN.  I can’t use that moniker unless I quit the cheese.  But…should I care?  The answer, of course, is “no.”  But, for some reason, I find myself falling victim to the external pressure I feel to fall neatly into a category or to represent my fellow non-carnivores in the best way possible.  It’s odd how you can be sure sure of yourself in some regards but not so confident in others.  This small, seemingly insignificant detail means something to me.  I guess I just need to explore why.

Cheese.

 I find it interesting that this whole Somalian pirate thing has flown below most people’s radars until the past week or so.  I guess I must either enjoy listening to NPR too much, a sign of aging, or my commute in the morning is sufficiently long such that I hear enough news stories more than once that most, if not al,l of them stick.  Either way, I find the media attention…disturbing.

Don’t get me wrong, I feel for the captain and the crew of the ship.  However, what happened to them has happened to countless ships traversing this particular seaway.  This is a part of Somalia that has had no functional government since the early 1990’s.  There is no law enforcement.  There is no protective national military presence.  There are no utilities.  There is no commerce.  There is no industry.  The only economy is one of violence and theft.  This is a truly lawless land.  Some people say that these pirate clans took to the sea because there simply was nothing to steal on land.  None of this happened over night.  It is all just another sad example of life (and death) in Somalia.

The only reason we care now is because the media made us care.  

Don’t you feel a little used?  Don’t you feel a little like…sheep?  I said that I was aware of the pirate issue off the coast of Somalia.  I didn’t say it really moved me.  So, when I talk about feeling like sheep, I include myself.  For all of the morning NPR stories I heard, I still wasn’t emotionally engaged.  It was too distant a problem.  It was just another in a heap of indignities; it was just another assault on my human sensibilities.  I let it go.  Fast forward to yesterday, and, like a good little sheep, I’m mesmerized by the details of the Navy SEAL rescue.  Sharpshooters taking out three pirates at the same time from the back of a boat on turbulent seas.  It’s the stuff of movies.  They got me.  I’m a sucker.

Today, it occurred to me precisely what was done to me.  I was yanked by the chain and lead to the exact place they wanted me to go.  My question now is “why?”  Why did they decide it was time for you and for me to care?  What profit motivated them to blow this whole thing out of proportion?  And, more importantly, who is “they?”  I’m not much of a conspiracy theorist or anything, but I am truly and deeply perplexed as to why…why now?  Why this story, at this juncture in time?  Why?

What is it about Somalia that is worth this much attention?  I understand the human rights issues and the genocide and every other attrocity that gets reported from that place.  What I don’t understand is why everyone suddenly cares?

 “More and more it’s about the outcome and not the quality of the arguments that get us there.”

The quote pertained to a discussion on the current state of the appellate process in the United States.  We didn’t start there, but that’s where it went.  I call it a meandering conversation, but the stream-of-consciousness is often my preferred method for discovering the Universe through the eyes of others.  This particular stream was interesting.

After a bit more ranting, I received an apology for his having taken the conversation into the world of his problems, as he put it.  I told him that what he said resonated with me, particularly since it lent itself to application across an almost universal set of topics.  I thought about work.  I thought about politics.  I thought about human societies.  Again and again, I can think of instances where it’s the outcome, not the quality of the foundation of the process, that has become the most important.

The logic behind a decision, the intent behind an action, and the underlying reasons for a behavior are all examples of instances in which the quality of the process is as important as the outcome itself.  Yet, there is a tendency to positively reinforce the outcome, not the process.  In school, they used to tell us to “show our work” because demonstrating that you understood the mathematical processes behind the number at the end was more important than just the answer.  But as we got older, something shifted.  I don’t know if it’s something that comes with age or if there is something shifting in our society, but it bothers me how often I see things like the person who speaks the loudest getting the recognition versus the person who comes to a sound decision based on a solid logical thought process.  It hints at a society where flashes, shiny things are valued most.  That’s not a good path to follow.

Yet, I also have a great deal of faith in humanity.  I meet enough interesting, thoughtful people that I don’t shake my head in disbelief.  They are out there.  I think the most important thing I can do is engage them, encourage them, and support them.  They come from different walks of life and operate in different arenas.  They are demographically diverse.  They are out there, they are working, and they can help keep us on a collectively positive path.  Just find them.  

And if you can’t find one, then become one.

I wrote this the other day, but it’s been haunting me ever since.  I am not quite sure why.  

Today, I watched a recent episode of “Oprah” that was dedicated to the lessons being learned by studying people in the so-called “Blue Zones.”  These Blue Zones are areas where people live into their 100’s with a far greater frequency than most other places on Earth.  These people live a long time, and they are enjoying an incredible quality of life.  That’s what made me think about what I wrote a few days ago…

Children are, by their inquisitive nature, fascinated with nature. I haven’t met a child yet who can’t be cajoled into exploring a tree’s bark or listening to a quick explanation of how the capillaries in a leaf work. It does not take much to engender passion for the environment. Unfortunately, what they observe around them, particularly at home, can undo and quell that passion. Adults kill childhood passions, particularly through careless, irresponsible actions. Fortunately, it works both ways. My kids are little environmentalists because they see us being meticulous recyclers, taking home recyclable material from their grandparent’s home, McDonald’s (WHY ON EARTH don’t they have recycle bins?), and anywhere else where we generate trash and recycling is not available. So, another key component to keeping children in love with the Earth is building the bridge between school and home in an effort to spread the virus. This becomes a larger and larger obstacle depending on which end of the urban socio-economic scale you go.

Why should it be that love of nature is something that we have to fight to keep alive in our children?  I cannot imagine anything more invigorating than living at peace and in harmony with nature.  Isn’t that child still inside all of us?  I am still fascinated with nature.

 There is no better way to learn than to teach.

I told my wife and my kids: “There is not a single soul on this Earth that is not in some way influenced by every decision you make.  And there is not a single soul who does not likewise influence you.”

Take a snapshot, at this moment, of every human life on Earth.  Each is the result of a series of decisions leading up to this moment.  Some of the decisions are internal to the individual, some are external.  All carried us here to right now and will carry us into tomorrow.

I had a great conversation with a friend at work today.  In giving him some examples of how circumstances and decisions changed the lives of different well-known individuals, he made the comment, “And our own series of decisions brought us here!  If not for each of them, you and I wouldn’t be sitting here!”  He went on: “Do you remember Richard who used to work here?  I’ve known him since I was five years old!”  While that doesn’t sound all that amazing, consider that we are in the state of Illinois.  When he was five, my friend lived in a different part of the world altogether.

For another reason, his example made my hair stand on end.  “That’s an interesting example!” I told him.  “Did you know, that when our company made it’s first recruiting trip to his and your alma mater, they planned on sending a recruiter of Filipino descent and an African-American, neither of whom spoke Spanish?”  He couldn’t believe it.  We laughed.  “So, they invited my brother to go along, knowing his family was from the same place and that he spoke the language.”  My friend stopped laughing.  “Do you know what’s even better?  My brother helped recruit Richard as an intern!”  Shocked look on his face.  He had no idea.  Then I told him a quick story about my mother.

Decades ago, my mother went to someone for advice because she felt feelings for a man.  Her feelings for the man did not coincide with what she had been planning for her life.  Her confidant said to her, “You have to see him one more time to decide if you are in love with him.”  So she did.  And she was.  That man was my father.

The decision that person made to advise my mother to look into her heart and face her feelings ultimately led to my friend working at the same company I do.  On my team.  We have worked together for almost two years now, and never once did the degree to which our lives are intertwined reveal itself to either of us.  Until today, the day after I finished “Outliers.”  How incredible is that?

There are several lessons here.  

First, it reaffirms what I already know: do not be afraid to live life on your terms.  I am committed to being who I am, wherever I may be, in every moment.  Without that, I would never have had so personal a conversation with someone at work and missed out on an opportunity to experience one of those wondrous and mysterious moments in life.

Second, search for the chains of events in your life, the sets of circumstances and decisions, that were key in carrying you to this moment.  Allow yourself to feel gratitude for them.  Each, for better or worse, has made you who you are.  

Third, recognize that there is a whole chain of decisions yet to be made and that each will reverberate across the planet.  The ripples will touch every other human soul.

Fourth, my mother found the courage to explore her heart.  Look where it led.  Don’t be afraid to find your heart, set it free, and follow it.

The final thoughts from Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers” have left a lasting impression on me.  Why?  Because, as I mentioned previously, the book is about opportunity and how a myriad of variables all slide into place to produce what Mr. Gladwell calls “outliers.”  The book is essential an exploration of the human condition that finds its genesis in statistical analysis.  It’s about the human data points that exist outside the standard deviation for what we perceive as “success.”

In essence, a standard deviation is a way of measuring how far a data point falls outside what one would expect to be the norm.  So, for example, if a data point is within one standard deviation of the norm, then it’s not as statistically significant as a data point that is, say, two standard deviations.  Outliers are the people who exist as data point way outside the norm.  We’re talking about the Bill Gates’, Robert Oppenheimer’s, and…well…Malcolm Gladwell’s of the world.  It’s not as mathematical as I may be leading you to believe.  It is a gift of a book that is as compelling as it is because Mr. Gladwell has a way with words and weaving those words into stories that prove the point.  I could not recommend it more highly.

But I digress.  What has my mind spinning is this idea that I am where I am today precisely because of all the little variables and all the big variables that improbably slid into place to set me down this path I am on.  My hard work plays a part.  My laziness plays a part.  Luck plays a part.  Chance plays a part.  My genes play a part.  My family history plays a part.  Culture plays a part.  No duh, right?  Right.  I know; it’s common sense.  However, sometimes common sense is all too uncommon and, when analyzed, doesn’t make as much intuitive sense as we would like.

And it’s not only about me.  There are the bigger pieces that slide into place.  I am a product of the history of the United States of America.  The day of the month on which I was born plays a part.  The month in which I was born plays a part.  The year I was born plays a part.  The places I lived play a part.  The history of Los Estados Unidos de Mexico plays a part.  The colonia I lived in during the years I lived there play a part.  The Colegio Americano, it’s history, and the administration in place when I was there play a part.  Every cuate, compadre, amigo, amiga, novio, novia, and companero(a) de clase I ever came into contact with play a part.  

My life is as much about my efforts as it is the efforts of the billions of people with whom I share the Earth.

As HH Dalai Lama reminds us every chance he gets, we are all interconnected.  Our currency is love and compassion.  Everything that happens to me, affects all of you.  Everything that affects to all of you, affects me.  Degrees may vary, sure, but we are attuned to every vibration in this Universe.  

I feel overwhelming gratitude right now for the totality of humanity.  It is an odd thing to feel, and it is an even odder thing to try and express.  It’s an odd thing to go out on a skinny limb and profess, too.

I feel an obligation to myself and my own evolution as a human being to begin to understand all the personal variables that played a part in getting me to this point.  I feel the drive to find these, acknowledge them, and experience true, focused gratitude for them.  What a fantastic voyage to undertake.

At the end of “Outliers,” Malcolm Gladwell brings together all the disparate pieces that compose his central thesis, and he does it with the most personal story I can think of: the story of his mother’s life and how she came to marry his father.  It’s a beautiful story, and he tells it so swiftly only to deconstruct the romanticized version and reveal the layered chances and opportunities that brought his mother and father together at that poetry reading in London.  She was a woman from the back hills of Jamaica.  He was an Englishman, born and raised.  Somehow, they wound up together in that room one night.  It’s a great story.

But it’s not a story of chance.  Instead, Malcolm uses that story to reinforce every point he has made throughout his book.  He uses it to teach that one final lesson: opportunities are made and opportunities are exploited.  Whether you believe that people create their opportunities or you believe that a diety presents them to us, the bottom line is that it is up to each of us to exploit the moment at hand.  It is up to us to determine how we will use that moment to our advantage.  I am quite sure of that, if nothing else.

As I sit here and write, my beautiful children are quietly sleeping two floors above me.  My house is silent; my wife is out and about, and I am sitting here writing.  My heart is heavy with a grief that is hard to explain and hard to understand.  My kids are safe.  They live in a place that is relatively free from the nightmares that are befalling other children on this Earth at this very moment.  My children have opportunities that other children cannot even comprehend.  My wife and I sacrifice and sweat so that they can attend a school that we believe will make a difference in their lives.  As a father, I sit here, and I give thanks a million times over that I can provide for them in a way that leaves them able to pursue a relatively carefree life for the moment.  My good fortune, their good fortune, and the good fortune of my family in our little corner of the planet is something that I do not take for granted.

I grew up in a foreign country where such opportunities were not so abundant.  I grew up in a country with poverty that would make some of the poor of this country, the United States, grateful for what they do have.  I can remember seeing so many things in the years that I spent in Mexico that made me profoundly sad, even then.  But I can remember seeing even more things that showed me how easy it is to find joy in life.  This latter point is what I carry with me today.  

I remember stopping at a church once in a small town in a rural part of Mexico.  I cannot for the life of me tell you where it was.  I just remember men selling iguanas by the side of the rode.  The town was a dustbowl, as so many towns are in the dry summer months.  There was an immense tree in the town that was surrounded by the walls of the main church.  It was probably the only church for miles.  It was more cathedral than church.  We’d stopped there before, so my attention was less on the church and more on the grounds around the church.  In the shade of the tree, there was a group of children playing.  They were smaller than me; I suspect I was entering adolescence at the time.  The children were screaming and laughing as they ran around and around the small garden at the base of the tree.  They weren’t so much younger than me that I didn’t yearn to run from my parents and join them in their revelry.  In fact, I felt just that urge.  I wanted to run to them and kick that little blue ball.

I can’t recall now if I actually thought this at the time or if it’s reconstructed memory.  That’s irrelevant, I suppose.  The point is that I cannot count the number of times similar scenes played out in front of me.  Some I failed to notice, while others I did notice.  My realization was the same each time: despite the lack of shoes, despite the dusty and grimy faces, despite the filthy clothes, these children were having fun.  They were having the kind of fun that made me jealous in the moment.  I have never forgotten those screaming, laughing children.

I don’t sit here in judgment of those who do not have the good fortune to live a life like mine and with the opportunities I have.  I recall making that point with my parents on another trip: you can’t assume that people who have “less” than you are less able to experience joy.  In fact, if we look at the great spiritual leaders again, a life of poverty makes way for a like of richness in enlightenment.  Joy comes from the spirit, never from the trappings of the physical world.  

What does bring me sadness is the fact that there are children in this world, in this country, that should have the opportunities afforded to children like mine but do not really have access to the resources that will create those opportunities or that will enable them to exploit those opportunities.  That is a crime.  That is unforgivable.  That brings me shame.

When will I do something?