MC Quixote

Quixote Country and the Dream Machine Part 25

Dream Machine

To dream

To want dreams with everything you are

Books are dreams of words

Life is the dream that we forget we're dreaming

And death is a lie I'll never believe

Being a descendent of Cervantes, I take it a little more personally when I ask people what they think of Don Quixote and they give me the response of,

"What's Don Quixote?"

I give them some latitude because I know that Quixote isn't really taught in the U.S. school system, but I still get frustrated. I get really freaked when Latinos don't know anything about Quixote. So, I'm kind of this messenger sending out the word that everyone should know Don Quixote! He's all around here but most people don't know how to spot him.

It takes me back to my main mentor, Roberto Bolaño (Tio Robo). He once wrote that Moby Dick and Huckleberry Finn are two main archetypal novels of the United States. I think you have to add Don Quixote. Maybe it's a little bit bold to claim that one of the truly "American" novels wasn't written by an "American", but a Spaniard, Miguel Sevaadra de Cervantes. And sure, I'm biased being related to Don Miguel Cervantes, but I think it's clear that Don Quixote is not just archetypical; I find the spirit of Don Quixote as truly "American".

My dad is a little more practical than Quixote, but he basically came to the United States with fueled by the dream of having a better life for his family. First and foremost, getting enough money so my Abuela can get diabetes treatment and not have to have her legs amputated. I guess that's beyond a "better life" and more a matter of basic survival. Seeing his mom's health deteriorating, my father weighed out the risks and benefits and decided it was worth the risks, but we had no idea what damage we'd suffer and what price we'd have to pay.

These are the type of situations that lead people to the United States and they continue to come. The funny thing is that the movies, the media, the basic image makers in the United States, all keep the mythos of "The American Dream" alive, so there's always this new immigrant energy that will work tremendously hard to fulfill this dream and this energy has a tremendous benefit to this country, but you rarely hear that side of the migration story here. You mostly get demonizing and scapegoating propaganda with immigrants; and at the same time, the U.S. gets all the economic benefits of the perpetuation of "The American Dream".

I think "The American Dream" is one aspect of this culture that functions like a carrot on a stick that motivates a horse to pull a cart. The stick is just out of reach of the horse and this gets the horse to move towards it and pull the cart. I wonder how long you can fool a horse. There are a few key factors that seem to help.

First, there's a benefit if you keep your horse uneducated. The smarter the horse, the quicker he/she will figure out that it's not possible to reach that carrot unless the horse breaks out of the bridle.

Second, keep the horse focused on the carrot by putting on blinders so that the horse isn't distracted and to prevent the horse from seeing that there's food all around (blinders seem to be distractions like entertainment and the noise of the media).

Third, if the horse does get off task or start to stray from that carrot make sure to have a whip to scare the horse back on track, focused on the carrot.

Fourth, every once in a while, let the horse reach a little piece of the carrot so that the horse thinks that it's possible, but you can only give the horse a little piece because of the fifth factor, and probably the most important; always keep the horse hungry.

I know this is an oversimplification, but I think it shows some of the driving forces behind this "American Dream" / carrot-mentality which has created the largest economy in human history, and most people living on a kind of an "installment plan" and so many never get to the payoff point of understanding the beauty of the present moment and a quiet, content mind.

Think about it, there are carrots everywhere you go in the United States. Everyday you can see something that is just out of reach or way out of reach. It might be the next level of some "I" device, it might be the big houses up on the hill, maybe the bigger pickup, or the next level European car, expensive watches, fancy clothes, the latest handbag, expensive restaurants, dream vacations, exclusive spas and private clubs, and on and on and on, and we never see the beauty of where we stand ahora.

How does one live so close to such luxury? Well, if these are the carrots then someone is benefitting by keeping us horses uneducated, blind, scared, hungry, and always having another carrot out of reach.

So I try to keep learning, being aware, being brave, and finding nourishment in things that are within reach; like the satisfaction I get from creating something or helping someone out. I try to remember this stuff but it's hard to do up here because you see all of these cool material things around you every day.

So I'm creating an abbreviation to remember these things: LABS = Learning, Aware, Brave, Satisfied. There's one other component that I think goes with these virtues and that's the thing that I think helps Don Quixote the most in his life, the thing that allows a dreamer to stay grounded, that prevents all the great heroes from getting too close to the sun: Gratitude. So I'll change my secret abbreviation / reminder to GLABS = Gratitude, Learning, Awareness, Bravery, Satisfied.

In some ways this place is a dream (it's all relative). My dad told me he makes the same amount of money here in an hour that he made Mexico in a whole day; that's eight to ten times more, which is dreamy. And the funny thing is that his dream is fueled by picking up dog poop. I'm not joking; a dream fueled by shit.

Let me explain, people up here will pay twenty-five dollars per dog per week to have someone pick up their dog's poop. This is how my dad makes more money here picking up dog poop than he can make as a farmer / pharmacist in Mexico.

Yea, that's what Dad did in Mexico. He was a farmer until NAFTA made it so the Mexican farmers couldn't survive because the big U.S. agribusinesses flooded the Mexican market with low cost fruit, vegetables, and grain. So my dad went and did the schooling necessary to become a pharmacist.

The problem with dad's plan was that there were so many falsified college diplomas and certificates in Mexico that many of the pharmacists were just young kids who basically work in a sort of black-market pharmaceutical industry. Unfortunately, my dad didn't figure that out until he was almost finished with his degree in pharmacology.

I find it strangely coincidental that 500 years ago Cervantes' dad was deaf, he had a difficult career as an apothecary, and he moved his family north for economic reasons. I always wonder if he was unsuccessful because of his deafness. I wonder if that's why my dad has had so much economical trouble in Mexico. But there are so many people in Mexico suffering economic problems that I'm not sure our economic problems have anything to do with my dad's hearing impairment.

So my father's life is similar to Miguel Cervantes' dad's life. I'lljust go with it and try to write the next Don Quixote. Is that too grandiose?Yes, but thank you great, great, great grandfather Cervantes for the chance todream. Yes, books are dreams of words and they definitely fuel my dreams.