What we do

This is what we do. We hide ourselves behind masks. Hiding gives us an edge. Hiding protects us from social harm. We lie, in garbled screeches, sending out a false echo,, and the reflection emitted is not as we are but what we wish to be. Are we as inseparable from our veils as bark from a tree? 


 

Am I too hard on the human race? Perhaps. Yet don't we bend the truth in real time as if our mouth extrudes everything that comes out of it shaping the words of the moment to more befit our "look"? Could altruism or philanthropy exist without an audience? Are we nothing more than cunning organisms that have exploited each other for milenia? Are we driven by a genetic pulse that motivates us so we act with one another as if in a grand theater, the only plot, self preservation,,, the only comfort coming from wearing a mask. The mask define us as humans. We go on talking, pretending to understand each other yet all the while we are plotting. We are drowning in contradiction,, trading our freedom for a preservative "cover".  On the other hand perhaps the mask is more real than the face beneath it. The mask is so much a part of our make up that we may not be able to function in the world without it.


  
    
     Yet the need for a mask has evolved with us. We choose it like a hermit crab chooses a home. Perhaps more than any other unique human trait, even more than our capacity for cooperation, our artificiality demonstrates our superiority on the planet. 

 
    

 

Luigi Pirandello who often spoke of the masks in our existence said: 
"I present myself to you in a form suitable to the relationship I wish to achieve with you."

                  

Luigi Pirandello wrote in his diary in 1934, the year he won the Nobel Prize in Literature, and only two years before his death. ''There is a someone else living my life, and I know nothing about him.''

             

El Tajin

      The day began hot and humid. By 8:30 AM it had reached 34° C. The heavily drenched air resembled its rarefied thinner cousin that dwells at extreme altitudes,, and why,, because neither arrives in abundance. Strange bird calls emmanated from the surrounding hills. Wispy finger-like mists formed slowly above the trees and seemed to caress the mountainsides.This is a jungle, this is Tajin, the enigmatic city of niches. A few tourists ambled between the buildings like colorful insects taking selfies. Except for the calls of the birds, an Ozymandian silence prevailed in the sultry air. It must have been noisy back then I thought. The pyramids, planted in the manicured grass are more like sculptures now, mute keepers of secrets. Tajin is the mystery city. Who built this place Totonacs or Huastecos? Each lays claim to the legend. Tajin may be a good example of how history just disappeared into the jungle and the reasons for existence are left up to the discretion of academics. Even the great Tenochitln, conquered mostly by smallpox and a little by Cortez was a functioning city during the conquest, yet there are but very few accounts of its daily life.The only thing I can say for sure about the history of Central America is that in all these ancient cities there was a  football stadium. Perhaps that is what will be said of the USA one day when it disappears,,, my god, my god, these people really liked sports,,, and some latter day archaeologist will add,,, "and the losers were sacrificed". That may not be too far from the truth.
     El Tajin, according to the experts was occupied 100 years before Christ's birth to 1200 AD. That's 1300 years. Other experts say it was occupied from 800 AD to 1200 AD. Big difference. Not an exact science archaeology but I can understand its retraints,, from funding, to finding,, to bias,,, to pride and self promotion,,,, it suffers from "versions" of the truth,,,,,but then again recreating history is like writing fiction,, not completely invented, because all fiction, even science fiction,  is aided by lots of historical care packages. Archaeology is serious fiction created from a plethora of back breaking digs that unearth artifacts large and small. I imagine, though, in so many places where looters came before the academics, some of whom were looters themselves, the historical evidence is more scarce, or out of context. Latin Am,erica has been well looted. Putting the puzzle back together again without all the pieces requires some imagination. 

                  

Cosmic Loneliness and Happiness

"After a short, productive explosion of early activity, the universe has begun its long mope towards oblivion. To the extent that anything was ever important, it won’t be. Time, space, energy, matter—all gone.
What is to be done?
 Just the fact that you are alive now is a novelty, a signal that vanishes against the vast noise of cosmic space. You think cosmic spacetime cares whether you buy an iPad Mini or a Kindle Fire? It does not, my friend. Absurdity is born in this confrontation between your need for reason and the unreasonable silence of the universe. Camus understood astrophysics better than any of these guys."

     I sent this article to a good friend and she responded in an unusual way but each has their own manner. It can be so colorful to live with an open mind in a world where we can taste freely of the minds of others. From my friend:  

     

     "Each month I have these fluctuations in my hormones, such magic! (read with sarcastic tone) 

Actually just before "Aunt Flo" comes to visit I have a very dark outlook at life. Quite like The End of the Universe email you recently sent. It is the absurdity that digs its nails into my mind and make my skin itch. So it seems very clear to me that nothing has lasting meaning. And really only the present is anything at all. But we also have a conscience and we think about the past and how the present will tilt the future. So when I feel like death is as easy as life I get snapped back in by memory and thoughts of the future despite I feel that this is the only moment. Would I leave my husband and children and mother to be without me because I see absurdity? Should I care that I eat healthy so I can feel good in the long run? Should I run a marathon or sit on the couch?

So when it comes right down to it, it is all about how I feel. And feeling love is better than anything else, even better than peanut butter cup Ben & Jerry's. Feeling love is about connecting and acceptance. Eating ice cream is finite."

I responded to her:

     "While I was reading your PMS oration and the effect hormones have on women I realized something. The monthly hormone fluctuations in women give females an existential advantage. Hormones racing through the gates and alleys of the bloodstream have the capacity shake you out of the doldrums,,, cyclically,, and then return you to earth again. Men, however, change hormonally when they see a fleshy ass or feel a threat to their manhood. Fuck it or fight it.The hormones in men are like blinders and those in women jolt them out of the quotidien. Look some hormones prompted you to ask questions about your condition. Men, on the other hand, aren't converting injections of testosterone into self awareness.  
     The human condition hovers between making sense in one's own twisted way or being consumed by death. This is the crux of existence. If one cannot use curiosity and love as tools to help unlock meaning,,, well then you are committing slow suicide." 

I also sent the initial article to my brother and he responded: 

"That's it I'm jumping off. But actually a full day of crabbing with the grandkids today made it good."  

I responded:
     So much for impending doom and unbearable cosmic loneliness. A few kids and some blue crabs is enough. Carpe Diem your way to happiness,, leave that creeping nihilism behind. We have two choices. We can look to the heavens and be overwhelmed with grief or invent constellations. However, why do we buy insurance? We are an insufferably egoistic species. 
    I think Camus was right,, as always. The human condition hovers between making sense in one's own twisted way or being consumed by death. However being conscious of our absurd existence and learning how to live with it may be the only truth worth looking for. 
     In "A Happy Death by Camus "there are various quotes,, in fact almost every line in the book could be a quote. Put together and they become a code for living:

“You see, Mersualt, all the misery and cruelty of our civilisation can be measured by this one stupid axiom: happy nations have no history.”
 
“I feel like getting married, or committing suicide, or subscribing to L'Illustration. Something desperate, you know.”

“He realized now that to be afraid of this death he was staring at with animal terror meant to be afraid of life. Fear of dying justified a limitless attachment to what is alive in man. And all those who had not made the gestures necessary to live their lives, all those who feared and exalted impotence— they were afraid of death because of the sanction it gave to a life in which they had not been involved. They had not lived enough, never having lived at all. And death was a kind of gesture, forever withholding water from the traveler vainly seeking to slake his thirst. But for the others, it was the fatal and tender gesture that erases and denies, smiling at gratitude as at rebellion.”

“On good days, if you trust life, life has to answer you.”

“Believe me there is no such thing as great suffering, great regret, great memory....everything is forgotten, even a great love. That's what's sad about life, and also what's wonderful about it. There is only a way of looking at things, a way that comes to you every once in a while. That's why it's good to have had love in your life after all, to have had an unhappy passion- it gives you an alibi for the vague despairs we all suffer from.”

“He discovered the cruel paradox by which we always decieve ourselves twice about the people we love-first to their advantage, then to their disadvantage”

“You make the mistake of thinking you have to choose, that you have to do what you want, that there are conditions for happiness. What matters- all that matters, really- is the will to happiness, a kind of enormous, ever present consciousness. The rest- women, art, success- is nothing but excuses. A canvas waiting for our embroideries.”

"Live to the point of tears".

 

Nevado de Toluca o Xinantécatl

     I just cannot stop thinking about volcanoes. About ten years ago on the west end of Tenancingo Rodolfo's father started removing a large hill. It was to be flattened so he could have an area in which sell heavy equipment. I watched the little mountain disappear cuchara por cuchara. When about 4 meters were removed a black strip was exposed,, perhaps 8 inches thick,  like a geologic magic marker. About the time ithe black strip was revealed I happened to be investigating Xinantecatl. What the hell I've never lived near a volcano before, and I had just returned from my first trip "up" with Carpis in October when the air is cleanest so I needed to ferret out information about this behemoth Madre de los Madres de la region. It seems so close at times as if you could touch it,, in the clearest mornings el pico fraile thrusts upward like a gold leafed spur, during the day it is a monk in amaramthine cowl, at times cloaked in clouds of its own creation, and after heavy rains smoothed white with snow.  To walk from inside the crater around the rim to the parking lot is well over 5 kilometers.   It is 4690 meters tall (15,354 ft), a giant cup,,, a geologic pimple that funnels water from its high wrinkled expanse to all below even all the way to Tenancingo 40 kilometers distant.

  
Snow Covered

  Walking around the peak

Looking into the crater from the rim

                                     
                 I remember well my first time up with Carpis, We parked below the rim. Immediately one senses the air is different,, clear and crisp. The ground was frozen, crunchy and raised into tiny icy columns.There are no trees just stiff hard grasses and lichens. The more primitive species live in the alpine environment. The only people were the guard, and a family from Toluca. Dad exited his car first and did a slow swivel. Mom and the kids followed, mom in medium heels and a leopard coat, the kids already looking bored.  Dad took a deep breath and spoke. "You know we live in Toluca and I have never been up here. I thought we should see it." Off they went Dad in the lead, the kids in tow, and Mom bringing up the rear, complaining,, her ankles wobbly from her heels. Carpis and I and began to walk towards the rim. The edge seemed so close, just up the trail although immediately one senses the lack of oxygen and the pulsing of your lungs erase the concept of closeness and far away. Walking is laborious. I looked like one of those greek sponge divers in Florida, out of my element in a brass helmet with lead boots. When 

Walking to the rim

we reached the rim and I had the first glimpse of the crater below  I was mesmerized by its size. A huge plug from the last eruption separated two small ponds, one sapphire and the other emerald. It was breathtaking. 

On the rim towards Laguna Del Sol and the "plug" on the left

View from the rim looking towards Popocatepetl and Iztaccíhuatl

Looking into the craterand Laguna del Sol

     
The information about eruptions has been published in various journals yet I have found conflicting results about the size of the ventings. There have been at least three plinian eruptions recorded, about 12,000 years apart, the most recent 10,500 years ago. I have read that the the most recent spewed anywhere from 10km3 - 14km3  of pumice. Either estimate is a mind blowing figure. The last eruption was smaller and took place 3300 years ago. 

An excerpt from Living Under The Shadow:


The Upper Toluca Eruption
The Nevado de Toluca Volcano at 4680 meters above sea level is the fourth tallest peak in Mexico. It is 22 kilometers from the city of Toluca and 80 kilometers from Mexico City. The deposits from Nevado de Toluca have been studied in detail since the 1970's (Bloomfield and Velastro 1974,1977, Bloomfield et al 1977 Cantagrel et al 1981) These authors agree in assigning a late pleistocene age  for the volcano, with three large volcanic eruptions recognized: a Vulcanian eruption that ocurred in 28,000 BP ( before present) and two plinian type eruptions that resulted in the emplacement of the lower Toluca pumice at 24,000 BP and the Upper Tolucan Pumice c.10,500 BP.
     Stratographic studies of the volcano have found a complex history of volcanic construction and destruction of central dacitic domes and secondary collapses that started before 50,000 BP with the latest eruptive activity occurring at 3300 BP. The volcano is currently dormant but its past history suggests that a plinian eruption scenerio might be possible in the near future. Such an event would put 30,000,000 people at risk in the modern metropolises of Toluca and Mexico City.
     The Upper Toluca Pumice was produced by the largest plinian eruption of the Nevado de Toluca volcano. The ashfall to the northeast of the volcano covered a minimum of 2000 km2. This together with the total volume (dense rock equivalent) of erupted magma 14 km3 rank this volcanic event as one of the largest recorded in central Mexico during the late pleistocene era. We know that humans were already present in the basin at the time of this eruption as the oldest radio carbon dated  paleoindian so far is the semi complete skeleton of Peñon Woman III with an age of 10,775 BP. She along with two other skeletons found may be the first victims of volcanic action in mesoamerica.

     What Xinantecatl has done is change everything around itself. Several years ago we were hand-digging a well and at three meters down we encountered branches of wood. The fellows I was working with, Tomas and Cesar, said when they were digging other wells in the area they found trunks of trees at that same depth. I held the grayish wood in my hand and it began deteriorating in the sun like a movie vampire. Quickly I put it in sealer which stopped the deterioration. I still have the wood. (By the way as a footnote those skeletons mentioned above were found at a depth of three meters).  It gave me pause however to think about the origin of that wood,,, so I developed my own geologic history. Tenancingo is a high valley, 2020 or so meters above sea level. Toluca, to the north, 2660 meters above sea level sits upon a large plain. Underneath most of the Toluca area is volcanic pumice from eruptions of Xinantecatl evident in the many gravel pits some of which are 30 or 40 meters deep. I imagine the pumice runs much deeper except usually the water table is encountered and the gravel operation ceases. To the west of Toluca it is marshy where the Rio Lerma begins. Near the river one can still see ponds and vast cattail marshes. My theory is derived from three sources,, the wood found in my well, the marsh near Toluca, and the volcanic pumice.  Simple, but then again I am a simpleton. I believe before the plinian eruptions of Xinantecatl which blanketed the Toluca Valley in ash and rock the entire area from Toluca to Tenango was a large deep lake. At some or various points in its eruption history the lake breached its natural retaining wall outside of Tenango and a cascade, or several cascades of mud, rushed towards Tenancingo, more or less following the present path of highway 55. The onslaught of mud from Tenango raised the Tenancingo valley 10 feet just like that, destroying and entombing the trees.It most likely changed the climate to one more temperate.
     At this time in its geologic  history Tenancingo itself may have been a marshy area or lake. I say this because there are hand dug wells everywhere. Water can be had at from 6-10 meters, enough for a household. When we arrived at 6 meters while digging the well the soil changed to black like old lake bottom or perhaps just an indication of another previous eruption. I suspect an inundation of mud may have occurred several times in Tenancingo. The city's artesian wells average about 150 meters and never encounter bedrock. They do however hit a deep layer of golden sand at about 70-100 meters. I wonder where that came from?   
     Let me talk about the large black line I mentioned at the beginning of this entry, the one Rodolfo's father exposed while removing the hill. At that time ten years ago I kept bringing it to the attention of everyone I met but no one seemed interested. Very few have the time or luxury for wonder. Soon after my exhortations the evidence was erased as they removed hundreds of truckloads of dirt.I don't know the correlation between meters of soil and time. I wonder how long ago the magic marker line was laid down on the soils of Tenancingo.

Sitting on top of the world

Sapphire colored Laguna de la Luna

Laguna de la Luna

 

Looking towards Toluca