Back in the USSR

Vacation: Freedom from any activity; rest; respite; intermission.

I'm a big fan of vacations. I think that we all need to step back from our lives from time to time to get some perspective on ourselves and the world in general. Over the holidays SuperK and I visited a developing country in Central America which doesn't have the level of creature comforts that we are used to here in the US, to put it mildly. We had the same driver each day, a 32 year old guy named Alfredo, who was as delightful a man to be around as we could have hoped for. And a very happy man at that. He proudly pointed out his house as we drove to our lodge in the jungle. It was a bit smaller than my detached two car garage, which was built in 1928, and appeared to be a little more rustic.

We made a habit of asking the locals that we spent time with if they were happy. The universal response was: "Yes, we're happy. We don't have much but we're happy." Maybe they were lying. Who knows? I always lied when people asked me if I was happy unless I wanted to put on a big song and dance about how totally disastrous my life actually was. These people sure seemed happy. I'm a pretty good judge of misery and I couldn't detect very much.

Alfredo told us about one of his brothers who had managed to accumulate some material things. He also managed to accumulate some angst about them. He worried about someone breaking in and stealing them. Alfredo said: "You want to break into my house? Go ahead. There's not that much in there." He was happy that he finally got a couple of fans to mitigate the brutal heat and humidity. I could barely breathe it was so humid. I can't imagine sleeping in that pea soup even if I had a ceiling fan to slosh the air around.

What do I worry about on vacation? Is my stuff OK at home? Am I spending too much money? Is my job going to go to hell in a hand basket this year? I don't want to over simplify things. I have some nice stuff and I enjoy it from time to time but it also carries some baggage. Nice car? Nice car payment. Big house? Big mortgage.

I have to remember that my needs are food in my belly, clean water to drink, and a place to sleep. Everything else is wants.