Transdescentalism* On The Sea

In the middle of the big room, enormous quantities and varieties of food were scooped and picked at by clusters, lines and rows of big people filling up with practiced dexterity and skilled piling of meats, fishes, potatoes, pastas, breads, sauces, grilled vegetables and unknown morsels into deep rounded plates of a design that further encouraged consummation through augmented capacity. I had followed my nose here, and now my eyes twitched and bulged in disbelief. Then I looked at the wagon – yes it was on wheels- of cakes, pies, custards, fudge topped ice creams, cookies, and candies with amazing incoherence. All this can’t be walked off, let alone explained. You couldn’t ball a jack for a double shift or hand dig graves after a hurricane to earn half the amount of food being eaten by many here.

At least I got part of a table to myself. Close enough to hear conversation not close enough to have to say something. No wonder they ate so much, that’s all they talked about. The worst part personally was the pesky, forced English-speaking staff that wouldn’t let me be. Did they think I’m helpless and incapable? Couldn’t they understand I’d had my fill in one trip to the feeding trough?

The worst part was clearly relative. In my wondering about earlier I came upon a gathering where loud, profane, shameless dress and behavior was rewarded with laughter and applause. Why did young smiling facilitators whose only talent seemed to be goading on the assemblage promote the repulsion? Why were they successful in their promotion? My own inquiry into the activity yielded a foreign term- carryokey (sp?)- to describe some of the shenanigans. Once again there was food, liquor and occasional participants but mostly spectators to blame. I was confounded to calculate how stupidity and silliness occupied the time and produced what had to be empty fun, bereft of meaningful enjoyment. It was just like even earlier at another big room filled with machines, devices, laid out money and tuxedo clad dealers. It was here I almost took the blank expression on older people’s faces as they pulled levers, to be a meditative state, that is until more ascertainment yielded the look to be the numbness brought on by a continual state of winning or losing. My guess for all this had be an easy tendency to boredom that must be thwarted at every interval by a distraction of imposed stimulus. I’d read about boredom, and while never experiencing it, deduced that it plagued the boat’s population to no end.

Or was the worst part my lack of funds and in a moment of weakness, an agreement to be here? Surely stone lament overrode my presence on this voyage. This would be the first and last time that much was certain. But what to make of it? I’d signed on for eight days, seven nights and three lectures. The masters of the boat assured me ample passengers would come to hear me speak. The topics I’d chosen; patience, observation, and identification, seemed inappropriate now. These people I’m stuck with used their senses for purposes and pleasures I cannot comprehend. If I were them, I wouldn’t be. Yes the moment is of utmost importance, yet that moment should be blessed with deep thought and not shallow feeling. Could I challenge them to think, contemplate, question or would I be taken as a strange freak, an odd performer of mental acts? It doesn’t matter anymore; I have no choice but to unload the basics on them. They would be stuck with me and I will make them wake up to the natural order of things if I have to shake it out of them. It can’t be helped.

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I brought several books and thought this situation I must endure a good place to read. On the look out for other books during my wondering about, I searched for the library. Finally giving into failure, I asked and was told there was no library but a magazine shop, which upon my visit was deemed in short order to be completely lacking of suitable material to sit down with. These magazines were filled with snapshots of people in garish garbs and bold looks, with words accompanying the pictures that reiterated and regurgitated the contents of the images, rendering the publications a worthless combination of rubbish and hogwash.

A scratching sound, I thought coming from rodents or fowl, called me into a room of people sitting and facing illuminated boxes with words on them. As they typed, the letters and words appeared on the box. Intrigued and more than interested, especially by the lack of other sounds and even more importantly by the absence of speech, I intently watched, in absorption that soon gave way to disgust. They were having mindless conversations with someone else, somewhere else. Can’t these people just be and let the world come to them?

Tomorrow we’ll be in Santo Domingo, then days after, Charlotte Amalie, Fort-de-France, and other ports. Shopping is advertised, hopefully I’ll find firm ground to saunter on and escape from these travelers, a congregation of predisposed gluttons. While they’ll be doing what they could do anywhere, I’ll long for finding the differences the plant and animal kingdoms of the tropics bring as compared to my more familiar temperate climate. I will also watch for land formations and watered portions with an empty notebook ready to be filled. All they know is that it’s warmer here and the closest they’ll get to my world was taking pictures of last night’s sunset. They didn’t see it the first time, what chance would they have the second time? I want to banish all filming, all talk, all laughter, all drinking, all eating, make them watch in silent, reverent awe the beauty and power of what is provided for them every day. One can dream I reasoned. Great progress would be realized with the installation of short term, temporary silence to this bunch. Even if it lasts but for a few breathes.

* Not to be found in the dictionary – yet.