Thursday, March 31, 2011

NO THOUGHTS, JUST TUNES!

So, I thought that I'd loosen things up by providing some links to some of my favorite tunes. Hopefully, they provide some smiles, a little dancing and maybe some booty shaking. Here they are:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jf91bs8PVoE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14DBc5j1vmE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7e0n6H7jak&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNgbQv7BJws

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAGJ17-A_v4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1dm91kWZ2s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-13luIq8vI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8Gmaurug0I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJoMMGaPzYs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZ0BpzVRQPc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGh_k0Y99Oo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oB1kKewkvqE&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXAicoEsWdU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_o5Bujo5kWk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4BTLoHSGMk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uy-qD5Mr-c&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5_Fusasy2s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQqTxK7VhSk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fginS6uhw-8&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pq1w0syylZI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_5hQ8cEE7Q

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehu3wy4WkHs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J85QrbR5oUE

I think that's enough for now. One love

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Additional Thoughts

Thank god for children. At least they smile without needing a reason for doing it. Also, I tried to start conversations whenever possible, for the most part. In Cape Verde, I've developed the habit of sort of staring at people for a little longer than we normally deem acceptable; it's normal there. So, I practiced this on the metro, but did not receive a response. Something would've been better than nothing. "What are you looking at freak?!?" "Why don't you take a picture it lasts longer?!?!?" Anything. At least, I would've have felt acknowledged.

From what I've learned and seen, life seems to be an upside-down bell curve in terms of happiness. Meaning all throughout our infancy and childhood, life is great, not a care in the world. Everything is new and appears to be the shit, as a result we smile on a whim. Your slipping on ice is the funniest thing that ever happened to you. Life is great. Then as we grow out of childhood and youth, graduate college and start to think about "making money" and "a career". Your life immediately goes into the shithole. You start wearing suits, acting like a douche-bag, honking your horn in traffic, basically being a huge ass-hole because you realize that your life sucks. This is a terrible stage in life; one that needs saving. We only care about ourselves and our situation. The world doesn't exist outside of our bubble. This stage is can be saved by major events, births of children, marriage, etc. But sometimes these things can complicate the problem and worsen things. And as we grow old, we see the bottom coming up, causing us to be a little more cheerful. In general, elderly people seem to be more open to conversation and start to value their time a little more. As a result, I think that they begin to value the people around them a little more.

Why do we let our younger working years and middle aged years blow balls? These are seemingly are most productive years, but what is it that we are focused on producing? What is our ultimate goal? We change this, maybe will find a little more happiness.

Again, these are my opinions and may be completely wrong. There are probably a lot of crabby old people who don't care about anyone but themselves. But, in general, I think life breaks down as I've explained.

One love

City Blues

So, for the last couple of weeks I've been on vacation: 10 days in London/English Countryside w/my parents and lil sis and the last few in Barcelona by myself. But, after these few weeks the city has got me down. I just got off the metro here, and I'm not sure if I've ever seen such a depressing sight in my life. No one was smiling. They looked like lambs going to slaughter. Complete indifference on their faces as if not another human was on the train. What does that say about the jobs and lives that they live? They must be cleaning toilets or some shit like that. It doesn't seem human the way we treat each other. There has to be something more to life than our own sort of personal bubbles. I wish that people could just take a step back from their busy lives and look at how they're living. I realize that I don't face most of the constraints that many working people face, being a Peace Corps volunteer. But we must allow time for ourselves to act like humans and use the abilities (speech, higher thought, etc.) that we were either given or have evolved. Hopefully, I don't have to eat my own words when my Peace Corps stint ends or start a family. But, así es la vida. Something to put a smile on your faces http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfXwmDGJAB8

One love and keep it real

Monday, March 7, 2011

Mo' Money Mo' Problems

What up to my 19 followers and others that periodically view my blog. Thanks for making me feel better by reading my blog. Geniunely, though, thanks; support is always good.

Life is good. Just got back from In Service Training, which was awesome. Got to see all the volunteers that I've failed to keep up with. Hopefully, I'll do better at staying in touch now that I've been reminded how cool my fellow SED (small enterprise development) volunteers are.

During the training a lot of interesting discussions came about, some techinical talks about rumpshakin' and others that were a little more serious. The one that I felt was the most provoking was about monetizing a homestay. Two (actually a very cool married couple) of the volunteers from another island brought a story of how families in their village had housed tourists and had refused payment, which then led to the discussion of whether they should charge or not.

This argument had come up before in previous economic discussions that I had at college. It's obvious that there is a market for the good (shelter), but should they charge? My argument was that they shouldn't. If they were absolutely desparate for money, then it's another story, but it seemed as if they were doing alright, relatively speaking. The point that I always brought up was by charging for a good does that inherently change the good/service; in this case, I think it does. It changes a genuine act of compassion, providing shelter, to just another business transaction with people "looking to get ahead in the world". I don't think that it would be wrong to charge, they are providing a service, but I think that it would change the service/good. Once we start to turn everything into a business transaction, human relations turn colder (if they haven't already in many parts of the world). Sometimes accepting a gift is just as important as giving one. This family in Santa Antão (the other island) didn't have much to give, but they had space in their house for the tourists. Being nice and compassionate, they offered it without any real benefit to them. To offer money in this case would be extremely awkward, to say the least, it may even be considered rude. Who's to say the family needs the money? The best thing to do, accept it. Be grateful that they're people like that in the world. Then, return the favor somewhere down the line to some tourist/homeless person. In Small is Beautiful, Schumacher uses Gandhi quite a bit, especially this quote, "The world has enough for every man's need, not every man's greed." Our generation needs to heed this statement because who knows what's going to be left for our kids. Or maybe our generation can take some of Sean Puffy Combs wisdom:

I don't know what they want from me
it's like the more money we come across
the more problems we see.

Truth, this coming from a man who has a net worth in the hundreds of millions of dollars. U.S.A!!!

Talk to some stranger today.

One Love and Peace