Without Title

Written April 6, 2009

Dear Constant Readers,

A hummingbird invited itself into the dining room today as I was eating my breakfast of fried bananas and fresh cheese while reading “Ender’s Shadow” by Orson Scott Card. At first I thought the buzzing noise behind me was a big bug and I expected the disgust I felt to be justified. I turned around just in time to see its hovering silhouette disappear over the balcony and my heart leaped to see such a little bird, something that I’ve never seen in the United States (except for once in a zoo).

While attending a meeting in Lima about putting together larger projects that will span several weeks or months, I looked around and asked myself, again, what exactly I gotten myself into. Even writing this now I can feel some of the wind leave my sails. But I have reflected and come to realize, once again, if I were left on my own out here with no assistance as far as instructional meetings go, I would still likely find a way to get things done, and that comparing myself to the other volunteers is a fruitless and worthless endeavor. I chose to be here, outside of my element, i.e. out of my culture, out of work I understand, and so forth. But in a larger sense, sometimes wondering what we are doing here is a common feeling, not for what we have chosen necessarily, but regarding life itself. In a sense we are all on some kind of service work trip. And this service comes in many different ways, but ultimately in a way that is hopefully helpful.

Someone once said, and I wish I could remember who now, “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” I chose to be here because I was following my heart that I wanted to see and do something in another part of the world. While out walking today I reflected on the size of the world and the opportunities we are presented with. I used to believe that the world is big so we can try as much as possible. But I started to think today that maybe that is incomplete. Opportunities are there for us to see and do, but not like an amusement park, but instead more like a shoe store: Find where you fit, where you belong. Some people are absorbed in music, computers or (like me) languages. I believe in trying to keep interested varied, but most of us probably have that one thing where we belong, that “world” where we can go off to.

For many it is sports, yet for me I have never understood sports. I enjoy running, but that is only so I can retreat into my imagination with more ease. In fact I describe myself as a “sports agnostic” meaning that I believe in the possibility of sports being exciting and fun, and can accept that others find meaning in it, but I have never once seen anything that gives me proof of these attributes. I have never had anything that would amount to a “spiritual” experience if this were a theological topic. This has sometimes baffled those I’ve spoken to, and it’s been an occasional source of frustration for my parents because I lack the ability to relate with others about something so common. But it simply has no place in how I fit into the world. It’s not that I’ve rejected it. It simply has never taken root in me anymore than the desire to be a trapeze artist has.

The world doesn’t change around us perhaps as much as we change in reaction to what we learn. That may be a silly statement, and I realize I don’t have the wisdom to back it up perhaps, but as we find, or lose, ourselves more profoundly we see the world differently. I came here, deep down, wanting an adventure. A romantic adventure into the world, but as always, a journey into myself, to learn more about myself. I must say, I pride myself on being, for the most part at least, an autodictat in languages, but in the school of the self there often is no teacher, either. You learn by trial and error and a lot of pain. I’ve become gentler in that I don’t think pain is so necessary in life, but ironically that is a lesson usually learned by experiencing pain, and so perhaps in a sense as a teacher it is necessary, after all. We are all here to do a service, to come alive, but to help others, either actively or through example. Because we don’t live alone, and while we seek out our loves in passions, our “worlds,” by the virtue of being individuals, we are all part of a tribe, and our lives intersect like the links of a web, like the grains of a beach of many minerals.

Tristan