Shopping, or The End of the World as we know it.

People think that writing is easy. Someone once said, "Writing is easy. Just cut a vein and bleed the story." I'm doing my best to write a good script. I get 10 pages done, show it to the boss, and then discover that I have to rewrite it, even before I come to the next idea. It's more difficult than it looks.

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Back in Mexico, life was easy. I have my regular job at the University. I work a few hours a day and have time to eat lunch with my wife Aurora, play the Ukulele, hang out with friends. I even do a little painting. Why am I doing this crazy world tour?

It's hard to explain. This blog is my attempt to understand it myself. The best I can do is say, "It's my karma," or "I'm fulfilling my dream." Maybe I'll have a better handle on it all after we finish the journey, but the journey itself is worth it. The call to adventure doesn't come too often in one lifetime. Shakespeare says, 

There is a tide in the affairs of men.

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.

It's not often that someone offers you an around-the-world ticket based on your writing, or past-life abilities and skills. So when the mysterious Russian Swami, Avadhuta Maharaja asked me to fly to Thailand and Russia and work on this movie, of course I said yes.

 So, I miss Mexico, but I feel that Krishna called me here to Thailand.

Land of orchids and elephants, to fulfill an important purpose. 

And so each morning I meet with Avadhuta Maharaja to go over the script. 

We sip cold juice from the green coconuts, and go over the literature. I feel quite unprepared to take on such a complicated subject, so rich in meaning. Each morning our talks range from the scope of the Khmer empire to the distinction between Vishnu worship and Krishna consciousness, to the Vedic Cosmology as it was seen a thousand years ago in Cambodia, to practical considerations like what the characters in the script say while riding elephants or dugout canoes on the Mekong River. Mostly we're in the planning stages.

A Cool One, Thai style: the juice of the green coconut.

We realized that our source materials were lacking so, I was dispatched to the local shopping mall to buy some guide books and coffee table books on Angkor with plenty of pictures, maps, and diagrams.

And it was strange, after contemplating the ruins of Angkor, to see these megastructures dedicated to consumer capitalism with families shopping for the after-Christmas bargain. Will these buildings stand in ruin centuries from now as mute witnesses to the great petro-civilizations of rush-hour traffic and nuclear missiles?  When there's no more oil to power the escalators and keep the lights on, what will archeologists make of these temples of exploitation, hundreds of years hence?

Empty suitcases

Empty Shoes

Empty Shopping Mall near the Airport in Chiang Mai.

Maybe I'm missing something, but it all seems so empty, so purposeless. I miss Mexico with its color and vibrant life, its scandals and fiestas.

Cavalcade in San Miguel de Allende

But for now it's back to the bamboo by the little stream in the jungle.

Here in the jungles of Chiang Mai, life is quiet and contemplative. The trip to the big city was jarring. Outside my door I hear the sounds of children running, the gurgle of the fountain in the fish pond. It's a good place to write and meditate.

 We found some good books in the Airport Mall, and now I'm back to work on the script, trying to imagine a place I've never been to.

That's all for now. I'm going to study hard and see if I can make progress on the script. Thanks for checking in. Dandabats all.