From the Valley to the Void

The last time I thought about God in any real way, I was here in this valley.

They say that the Valle de Elqui is a mystical place. Mountains cast shadows over dead or dying vineyards, and a river cuts through cracked earth, pressed in on both sides by green banks. At night, the universe is put on display, and telescopes pull whole galaxies in for a closer look. Some say there are magnetic forces that lend the valley a sort of gravitating power, a focal point of energy at the center of the world. Each of these things, the stars, the mountains, the rivers, the natural forces at work, compound to make this a divine place. And it is here that I think about what divinity means.

I have seen glaciers stretch across the horizon. I have watched sunsets and sunrises on different costs cast the same oranges, pinks, purples, and baby blues. I have watched moonlight filter through the wreckage of a sunken ship as I sit on a sand bed. I have been to places that are strikingly beautiful without thinking of God for a moment. Here, in this valley, I do.

I'm not sure that I believe in God enough to designate a pronoun or delineate from my beliefs an entity that is a separate individual. I don't believe that God, or the divine, exists in any way that we would be able to articulate. When the Buddha reached enlightenment, he refused to teach. He believed there was no way for him to formulate and convey a way to enlightenment. Brahma/God had to beg him to continue his existence on earth and teach what he had learned through his individual experience. But the Buddha knew that many times, the teachings get in the way of learning.

“[A] true seeker, one who truly wished to find, could accept no doctrine. But the man who has found what he sought, such a man could approve of every doctrine, each and every one, every path, every goal; nothing separated him any longer from all those thousands of others who lived in the eternal, who breathed the Divine.” -Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

Out of all of the teachings in the world (Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Jainism, etc.), none are perfect.  None convey divinity simply because divinity, by nature, cannot be conveyed. Each religion is a path that is limited by language and the distance that separates a story from an experience. Each seeks to express the ineffable, and all of our sermons, services, and ceremonies are merely shadows on a cave wall.

I spent the afternoon by the river, listening like Hesse's Siddhartha did. I didn't hear what he heard, but I listened anyway. I meditated for the first time in months with the sound of white water running in the background. I wrote down my thoughts, scribbling out half-formed beliefs and rhetorical questions. I reached zero conclusions, and I feel just as distant from understanding as I did before. I'm not even sure that understanding is a goal I have or an objective to reach.

I came here with three concrete objectives: drink pisco, read poetry, and watch the stars scatter across the night sky. Yes, it was the most romantic vacation I could think of, and like the Romantics before me, I contemplated my relationship with the divine. I was intentionally existential.

Going back to my normal, un-Romantic life, I ask myself what it all means. In the silence that follows, I keep going, waiting for the next time I get the chance to come back to this valley and shout out over the void.

What's in a name?

Since coming to Chile about a year and a half ago, my name has been the source of endless grief. I brace myself for every introduction, prepping my memorized summary of how to say and spell it with as little confusion as possible. Almost everyone forgets by the second time we meet. And the reason is simple.

My name is Joe. Pronounced with a hard English "J" followed by an "oh."

Joe= J-oh.

In Spanish, "J-oh" is written as "Yo," which translates to "I." So every time I introduce myself, I say "yo soy Joe," which sounds indentical to "Yo soy yo" or "I am I." They look at me, eyebrows furrowed, mouth turned up, and I read their expressions as "yeah, and who the hell isn't?"

I understand their confusion.

For a while, I sought solace in the Bible. When God manifested Himself in a burning bush, Moses asked Him who He was. God's answer, "I am who I am." Sound similar?

My train of thought: "Yo soy yo," becomes "I am I," becomes "I am who I am."

Conclusion 1: my name echoes God's, and thus my, claim to divinity.

But still, I wanted to help people pronounce my name correctly, so I broke it down to its most fundamental components. Really, Joe sounds like "Jow." There's that sneaky blended vowel at the end  of my name that blunts the abruptness of the "Jo." It's been a while since I've taken math, but here was my basic arithmetic:

English          Spanish
J             =     Y
O            =     O
W            =     U

My name, written phoentetically in Spanish, is "You." "Yo soy You" or "I am You."

Conclusion 2: my name is simply recognizing that you and I are not only equal but synonymous.

Yes, I am smiling while I write this. Who knew that "Joe," a name that is used to embody mediocrity and the common man could actually be one of the most profound existential statements about the divinity you and I share?

Average Joe
Morning Joe
Joe the Plumber, no more!

I am Joe
Yo soy Joe
Yo soy yo
I am I
I am You

My given name may be "Joe," but underneath the name, I think all of us are just "Joes" trying to identify and distinguish what is truly an essential and shared existence of Joe-ness.

The only other alternative is that all of this is purely coincidental. But as Sherlock Holmes once said, "there is no such thing as coincidences." And isn't he also, underneath his intellect and fictional existence, just another "Joe"?

Aren't you?

The Gringo Gone For Far Too Long

There is something intrinsically insecure about blogging.

My everyday existence and my occasional adventures are shown to the world in a way that says, "look at what I'm doing. Please read it, please like it, please comment."

But what I'm really saying is, "please tell me that what I'm doing is worth doing at all."

Last year, while I wrote, I wanted people to read about my life and wish they were living it. But, beneath the bullshit, the winter months were cold and lacking any sort of purpose. I had few friends and a job that was underpaid, moderately rewarding, and ended each night long after the sun set. I wasn't happy, so what was I doing here? I read through the comments section looking for an answer and never found one.

Then, when spring came, the city thawed and I warmed up. Life was good. I cut back on my work hours, picked up some Spanish, and filled my day with sunshine and red wine. But it wasn't "blog worthy." It was just what it was: life with no profound realizations beyond the fact that the Starbucks on Manuel Montt never changed their Wifi password.

In short, I stopped writing this blog because no one seemed to care. Including me. My family knew that I was okay, and Facebook kept any interested friends well informed of my mundane meanderings. So why write about what everyone already knew?

I didn't have an answer. At least not while I was writing with the hope that on some far-away screen, someone would read it and walk away any better because of my two cents.

If I am writing for a reader, I'm forced to be cognizant of them. I am forced to present, refine, and exhibit my experience so that someone tells me that it was worth living through and sharing.

Now, I've decided that I don't care. I want to remember my year because a year is too long to not remember, and this blog is a way for me to keep that record. Yeah, I have a paper journal, but it's mostly full of nonsensical chicken scratch and brain barfs. Here, I feel the need to synthesize those bits into a post with pictures and a title. The structure of blogging makes me write something real enough to refer to later when I'm old and struck by the desire to remember.

So here I am, embracing to its core my self-centered reason for coming back. This blog is officially reclaimed as a journal in the truest sense of the word: reader-less.

So if you are here, tip toe around and quickly take your peek. Look over your shoulder to make sure that no one else sees what you're doing. Open different tabs and go into Private Browsing mode. Then go on and read as if you are guilty of doing something wrong. You are. When you finish, delete your search history and pray to God that no one finds out about our secret rendezvous.

Because this is not for you. But forbidden things are always a little more exciting. Here you are, or may be, reading thoughts that are private. And here I am publishing them on the Internet, knowing that I'm a hapless Google search away from being found out.

If there is any hope of me exposing my long-buried secrets and scandals or hanging dirty laundry out to dry, I can't promise that you'll be gratified. It's very possible that what I have to write is completely unremarkable, and the most I can guarantee is at least one rant about how shitty and gritty Nescafé is. Then, because I'm shameless, I'll confess that I don't even mind it anymore.

Maybe this blog isn't worth reading. But for me, and for me alone, it's worth writing. And finally, that's enough for me to keep going. That's enough for me to come back.