small world

after breakfast today i went for a walk on the beach. the waves here crest quickly and break close to the shore. there are strong tides and the beach is marked with the red flag that warns that it is closed for swimming. as i looked down the beach there were a few people bobbing in the waves on the miles long beach, but it was otherwise nearly deserted. i thought about the european sailors who would have seen this beach for the first time from their boats. how could they have seen this and not swam ashore to stay and frolic in the waves? maybe because they had seen so many other beautiful beaches ... okay, but why would they ever go back to england?

i have used the word paradise a few times in this blog, and there really are places in the world that are as close to paradise and one could get. but if you needed to go out and find a place to live, where would it be? as i sit under palm trees and listen to the waves coming ashore, washed in warm tropical sun, i wonder why anyone would select a location that involves the harshness of my childhood winters. i remember making angels in the snow, but i also remember falling on my aching ass because i did not break the ice on the stairs when my father asked. we are not really made to live in those conditions, being iced is not a good thing.

the selection process had to be easier when the bounty sailors looked ashore to tahiti. an open culture, an established trading system for necessities, chiefs who welcomed the ferengi ashore and offered them land and status to stay. but the modern world is more difficult. travel is fast, and information travels faster. we can watch the events of a far off situation unfold from nearly anywhere in the world. the world is smaller, with more options.

as you look over the world, where would you pick to live? bali is nice, but has no economy beyond tourism; with crazy traffic on anything including a motorcycle. amsterdam is nice, love bicycles, but needing to speak anymore dutch than i do would hurt. goa sounds nice, european influence and a desire to not be called indian, but i would spend all my time searching for the bridge that marie died on.

i don't have an issue working on my spanish, but don't really want to learn portuguese, i have had my fill of fringe languages. finding somewhere with english as a common language would be great in fact.

i prefer it socially relaxed, there has to be no issue with alcohol and pork; in fact a strong beer culture with tasty IPAs would be great. a cosmopolitan environment, that looks beyond color and orientation is a must in fact. it must have a newport-quality arts culture, so i can walk into galleries to poke around between the beach and coffee in a cafe. the closest i can come up with is bondi beach. the beach is nice, i would love to join that lifeguard club on the west point (the first official live saving club in the world), book, record and surf shops and great food all around; relaxed people playing between the flags.

there is also something i like about living in a place that was established as a penal colony, and that was a favorite destination for troubled irish to be deported by our engles overseers. the downside is cost of living, it feels like the overseas alternative to moving to venice beach. but venice has native burrito shops and quality medical care easily available, while NSW is still sadly behind the times in modern beach side comforts.

i was thinking about a house somewhere in baha california. buy a piece of beach, put up a doublewide and have a boat to take tourists out during the season. i have never been a fisherman, but i used to row so the other guys could catch off the "ship of fools", this would be the late-adult version of that. good weather, spanish and english, slow paced. it all sounds good, but how do i get back here and see the andaman sea again? how do i get back to bali and visit my ubud auntie friend who sells me batiks. she smiles as soon as i walk up, and gives me a hug. can i decide to leave that behind?

it's too early to come up with a retirement plan. i should just go back to the villa and read my book on born liars. the book talks about how lying helped drive the explosive evolution of humans over our cousin primates. it argues that we needed to learn to lie to compete in ever larger social groups. humans are known to have evolved to live in groups of 150, and later into villages of 1,500, this is significantly larger than the other higher apes groupings. lying helped us do it, driving our need for larger brains and the ability to project ahead.

but our world is much larger now. we have so many options, to travel, to meet and know others, to experience cultures. i am watching the sun drop towards the horizon, and i am so glad i am here. this trip was taken because i missed the US and needed a break, but if i said i was ready for a change and knew how to make it with a perfect choice... i would be lying.

if asked right now, i would think of cousin avi and say, "yeah, don't go to england"