by Dr. David Fialkoff, Editor / Publisher

You know the story about the American tourist having a beer with a Mexican fisherman on the beach as the sun was going down over the waves. Under the palapa, between sips, the American suggests that if the fisherman invested in another boat and hired an employee to man it, he could greatly increase his daily catch. The Mexican asks, "What would I do with the additional money?" The American replies, "You could go on a vacation." Indicating the sea and sunset with a sweep of his arm, the Mexican just smiles.

Just yesterday, a character in my latest audiobook (Sinclair Lewis's Main Street) put it well, "I'm a confirmed doubter of myself." Such is my condition. I wonder how my life would be different had I had more, or different, ambition. And I speculate, also, on where my current ambition is taking me.

Like the Mexican fisherman, I ask myself what I would do with additional money, if I had it. And I struggle for an answer. All the personal changes that come to mind, the things that money can buy, travel and a quieter residence, involve isolating myself more, and I am alone too much as it is.

I am coming to terms with my new neighborhood, meditating on its closeness and noise. When I first moved to Mexico, someone told me, "When the young people are making noise, you know that they are ok." I am sure that greater engagement, such as I have here in Manantial, is best for me. Noise is a sign of life.

Ambition is a wonderful thing, but I have to remind myself that, like the fisherman, I am where I want to be, writing articles and publishing other authors in a literary journal in the best little city in the world.

I need to come to terms with life's rough edges. My imagining a better life for myself, an ideal state of affairs, prevents me from appreciating what the world now affords me. Buddhist monk Tich Nhat Hanh advised his students to repeat to themselves "I have arrived."

Martin Luther King and Tich Nhat Hanh
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Today, political idealism has taken on religious dimensions. The belief in the perfectibility of society is a matter of faith. If they asked for my opinion, which so far no one has, I would caution activists of all ages, "Just because you can imagine a better world does not mean that it is this one." But I need to take that, my own political advice, personally.

In my research I came across again philosophy's "best of all worlds" argument. Namely, that a good, perfect God must have created the best world. Refining that argument, addressing all the injustice in this "best" world, Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan asserts that given the greater good of free will, this world, with all its evil, is the best that the Creator could do.

A world with challenge, hardship, and even suffering is necessary for humans to develop moral character, courage, compassion, and wisdom. Virtue has to be earned, not handed out ready-made.

In my review of this subject, I came across another point of view (Robert Adams) denying that a good, perfect God would have to create the best possible world. I didn't look into that very far, but the idea that God doesn't have to do things perfectly was liberating for me. Best is not better. Imperfection is part of the plan, a feature, not a bug. However paradoxically, imperfection is perfect.

When I finally complained that it was too loud, my neighbor across the street, in a very neighborly manner, turned down his over-amplified ranchero music. He's been playing it at a much lower volume and much less frequently, gracias a Dios. That all by itself should be enough to make my day, every day. But other complaints creep in.

Club Lokkal's greatroom
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Yasna, my housemate on the second floor, has relieved a great pressure I felt about opening Club Lokkal here on the first floor. She suggested that her friend D. (who wants to move to SMA from Celaya) take a room on the first floor and so help with that rent. Relieved of that persistent stress, nervous type that I am, I look around for something else to worry about.

The Bible points out (regarding Eve and childbirth) that we forget suffering. We remember the fact that we have suffered, but we forget the quality, the miserable reality of the suffering. I should be more grateful for the things that I am not suffering. But I forget.

My noisy, celebrative Mexican neighbor is liberating me from my rigid, gringo correctness, drawing me back into the flow of life. The anxiety I feel about my new projects is the uncertainty inherent in any adventure. My rootless, counter-culture, cash-poor, bohemian lifestyle protects me from conformity.

Here on the chair in front of the window, the cat, who stayed behind when Veronica left, swings effortlessly back and forth between sleep and wakefulness, eyes closed and ears open.