PERPETUAL POSSIBILLITIES

The very first time I started to wander into the rural abyss that is Mexico, a recurring observation kept creeping into my psyche. At first I couldn't put my finger on it, then like a hippo on a rampage, and after a somewhat extensive bout with an Afghani hooka, it hit me. Mexico seems to be stuck in the perpetual confines of the 1950's.
Don't get me wrong, it's not that I mind. Oh contrair, I beleive in many ways, this was a decade of untold possibilities, and in many ways, our finest hour. Dios Mio, we had the pop up toaster for goodnees sake. It was chrome and shiny, not unlike our very souls, fresh from a very sucessful global victory in the European and Pacific theatres. (I have always objected to this comparison...war... theatre...but what is life without tearing down a few personal barriers.)
The world was in fact, if not our oyster, it was, at the very least, a damn good scallop.

Racism was, if not being irraticated, it was at least being exposed.
Decency was a virtue.
Good seemed to be overcoming evil.
Men wore hats to church for Gods sake.

Was it all an illusion? Were we in fact becomming insulated from the realities of our own prejudices. Hard to say. I like to think that there was in fact an honest, and sincere element to this time in history,and yes a certain amount of innocence.
As with all things I suppose there is a time and place. And as with many things, what you try to hang onto the most, becomes the most fleeting of all.
Venice in the Renaisance must have seemed to be the cat's meow at the time, and I must admit to a degree of desire to have waxed poetic with the ever timeless, and relevent rhetoric of Socrates, and Plato during Greece's heydey. Forgive my vanity please.

Is man truly born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward, or can there be a moment in the omnipresent calidascope of consciouness, when we in fact, do get it right.
I think sometimes the best we can hope for, are those gaps in the cosmic arpegio that allow us the clarity and conviction of free will, to understand certain aspects of our own reality, humble ourselves, and appreciate just being among the non-horizontal, oxygen inhaling, thankful for what we do have, imperfect perfection that we all are. Either that or get a job. Frightful proposition I know.

I hope Mexico fares a little better with the rapid accelleration into their own destiny, and doesn't lose sight of all the things that make it a wonderful, and generous country.
Family first. Everything else is secondary. This is the glue that will bond this culture, and country together as it has always done in the past, and will be the very thing that they can always return to, no matter what.
This is their time now and they know it. The demographics alone confirm this. This is a very young country, with fifty percent of the population being twenty-five years of age or younger.
But it isn't the knowledge of demographics that they are interested in. They can feel a chance at prosperity and they don't want to be left behind.
They don't need a lesson from the north however, and I hope for their sake none is forthcoming.
Not that I think we totally mismanaged the afterburner blast into our own flambouyant, and voyeristic, kick at the destiny cat, or that we didn't have some pretty wacky, and wonderful adventures along the paths of our own history.
Walking on the moon, the hoola hoop, the sexual revolution,(almost),sock hops, and hip hops, mood rings and pop rocks.
I just think that unless asked, and like a good mother-in-law, we should observe the decorum, and tact, that only comes from an underlying feeling of hope and good will, that one should adorn upon all of their neighbors.
Enjoy the ride Kiddies.
My sincerest wishes for success.

Your most humble, and forever grateful to be here, observer.
BoBo JoJo

"WHY MUST WE BE ETERNALLY ON OUR KNEES BEFORE THE KANTS AND HUGOS?
ALL PRAISE TO THE MASTERS INDEED, BUT WE TOO COULD WREST IRON FROM THE BOWELS OF THE EARTH AND FASHION IT INTO SHIPS AND MACHINES
WE COULD RAISE PRODIGIOUS CITIES, AND CREATE NATIONS, AND EXPLORE THE UNIVERSE
WAS IT NOT FROM A MIXTURE OF TWO RACES THAT THE TITANS SPRANG"

JOSE CLEMENTE OROZCO

Aren't they great. These are my tres amigos in Jalisco. The little guy in the middle is Patcho. He steals the refresco out of my hands whenever I'm not paying attention, for a living. He also likes to pee in the street whenever the mood strikes him. They hang out on the street outside of the market, that the smallest girl's family owns. She dances in front of the mirror for a living. The other girls occupation seems to be whatever the others are involved in at the time. Freelance funhaver I suppose.
I am always content and happy when I see kids in Mexico playing the way I did in my own neighborhood, with my large family, and all the other kids from the hood. Back in the day when I was raising hell and peeing in the street. Mexican kids are allowed so much freedom, to just run about and explore their surroundings.
O.K. I know what your thinking and for the most part I am in agreement with you. Yes their are larger dangers around, moreso than when I was young.
O.K. I get this. But I think we lose something fundamental in our growth when we are supervised to the degree that children seem to be now. Some of the fondest memories I have are of me taking long ways home from school, and turning what was a twenty minute walk down the road, into a two hour hike through the forest. I never told my parents I was intending to do this, simply because I didn't know I was going to do it myself. I had no plan. And that's what I believe we lose. The ability to be spontaneous towards living. It seems the kids in our culture's lives are so planned out, and organized, that the joy of whatever activity or endeavour is being pursued, is diminished in some way because of the vigilance of scrutiny that is employed. I'm not sure what I'm suggesting, if any thing at all. It just seems to me that we ought to be able to allow our kids the same freedoms of thought, that are only learned at young ages, and often from just being allowed to wander aimlessly and daydream, that I had the privelage to embark on.
Albert Einstein was a great believer in the power of day dreaming, and thought that most breakthrough revelations in the formation of science, and ideologies, were the direct result of an uncluttered mind..... A.K.A. Daydreamers.

Richard Branson has told a story of being five years old when his mother was walking him home from school one day, and she stopped at the top of a hill about two miles from their home. She pointed to the house and asked the young boy if he could see their house. When Richard replied that he could, she told him that she had to go back into town and that she knew that if he believed in himself he could find his way home. A brave undertaking for a mother as well as a five year old. He found his way home through wheatfields and pastures, and the event changed his life. He understood he could.
So let your kids play, let them stare at bugs for an hour or so, let them dance in front of mirrors, hell, even let them pee in the street from time to time.
Who knows, maybe we'll get some more Einsteins and Bransons, and whatever else daydreaming might conjur up, in the bargain.