"VON, DON'T TAKE LIFE SO SERIOUSLY"

People have often give me advice. "Von, you need to be thinking about your future." "What you need is a hobby; you need a day off, take a vacation." "Von, don't take life so seriously, after all" ... etc., etc. These friends are well-meaning. Their advice is sincere and I understand where they are coming from ... however, I doubt whether they understand where I'm coming from. I wish they did.

May I be honest? I find it hard to buy into advice like that no matter how logical and well-meaning it might be. Why? I guess I have seen too much of the world ... the real world. The plight of the poor. The vivid pictures I've seen of an unfair world have colored my philosophy. What I have seen has truly affected my life. Both my philosophy and my perspective are not "normal." How can I not take life seriously? Life on earth is limited. I'm here to do what I can't do in heaven. Do I indeed have the time and money to pursue an amusing hobby when so much needs to be done by so few? Retirement? I don't think so. It's true, with what I've seen and experienced, I have a hard time defining "balance."

In Mexico they have a saying, "What I don't see doesn't exist". Which is to say, "If I see it I am somehow responsible for what I see, so I simply look the other way and I'm off the hook." What a comforting perspective. I only have to keep my eyes focused on the beautiful blue horizon above the ugliness of reality and maintain a positive attitude. True, life is indeed great ... if you don't look down! The mindset of "What I don't see doesn't exist" is as deceptive as it is popular. The flip side of this perspective is actually more truthful, " What I do see does exist!"

The images that haunt me weren't gotten from the television or the pages of a book nor did they come from secondhand illustrations. They were created in three-dimension from the permanent and smelly stuff of reality ...right before my eyes!

Every week more uninvited images come my way. Frustrating and unfair, they're images that rip out the very concept of our American "balanced life".

The little mother standing before me asks for money to buy milk for her children. Her husband has been in the U.S for over two years now. She's received no word from him. She is holding her infant in one arm and her one year old boy in another. (She has another man "paying the rent") Her thin, barefoot six year old boy stands next to his little sister holding her hand. All of them are looking at me. They are hungry. They are waiting for my answer.

If you look closely you can see that Emilia had once been an attractive lady. Now she's older and is no longer as attractive. A barrio prostitute, and at her age she makes very little money. Emilia has no husband. Her thin, bastard son who's dirty and unkempt is sitting in the corner against an equally dirty fence. He is more of a vegetable than a young man. He and his mother live together in a small shack. Inhaling paint thinner has produced his vacant stare. She stands, avoiding my eyes as she asks for some money for groceries.

Enrique is always there. He is big. He is quiet. His thinking and speech are slow. He just stands there on his two swollen legs that are always infected. They drain into his dirty socks. Enrique has walked over a mile on those painful legs for some free produce. He is upset because his teenage son and his wife are sleeping together. He's asking for some money also.

Young teenage Carlos in tears confides to me that their living is hard. They haven't much money anymore. "My mom is old and the men don't want her anymore." (Referring to his prostitute mother, whom he loves.)

Maria presents me with her two year old son Felipe. "What am I to do?", she asks. "Will you help me?" Her sons eyes are not focused. She tells me how the doctors had operated on him. "Look", she says as she brushes his hair back to reveal the many scars. I'm looking at a warm, human vegetable. Maria wants some hope, some help and some money to buy his milk. You see, that's all she can feed him. She squirts the milk into his umbilici with a syringe several times each day. I look at her as she walks away with Felipe in her arms ... I could only buy her milk; I could do no more.

I would like to look the other way, but somehow, I can't.