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The QuestionPersons of the traveling persuasion from the U.S. are inevitably asked, by almost every new person they encounter, in whatever be the language of the land or the new person’s best stab at English, “Where are you from?” This we will call the Question, or the Query, or the Q – as you wish. I learned years ago during my first trip to Europe that being from Texas has its advantages. When queried with the Q back in those days, answering “The United States” went over about as well as stepping in a puddle while wearing socks. It’s the same today. For whatever reason, despite how Americans may or may not view their culture, global sentiments towards the U.S. are very schizophrenic. On the one hand, the global brain has been sufficiently washed by half a century of efficiently exported, ferociously imported, mostly mindless Hollywood illusions, that many people outside the U.S. identify its culture with the material fantasies portrayed on the silver screen – lavish homes, flashy rides, chiseled heroes, and an endless fount of blonde hair and perfect tits. We’ll term this the right brain response to perceived notions of what is Stately and United. It’s this right brain response that continues to hold the world in awe of the U.S. and all it has achieved in its short adolescent life. To the global right brain, the U.S. is still the beacon of hope that somewhere on this rock orbiting in cold black space crawling with corrupted governments and oppressive regimes, there exists a place where dreams can still be realized by anyone with the passion and will to realize them. Call it the “American Dream” if you wish, others have. And resting next to the mass of spongy gray matter on the right is what we will term the left brain, complete with its own unique response pattern to perceived notions of what the oceans, mountains, deserts, forests, cities, towns, and people of a third of the north American continent are really about. We can theorize that it’s this left brain response which identifies the State of fifty “United” sub-sovereigns with the love of “intelligent” governmental coups, corporate aggression, larcenous banking, and general, all around bullying on the geopolitical playground. It’s this left brain response that continues to hold the world in contempt of the U.S. and all it has achieved in its short adolescent life. To the global left brain, the U.S. is the child that’s grown too big for its britches and needs and nice good spanking. Now normally, when meeting your typical Jose en la calle, either the right brain response or the left brain response is dominant. This leads to two virtually identical conversations, which after going through them for about the 300th time, become quite boring, non-productive and extremely wasteful of that precious resource afforded the traveler - time. Occasionally, the traveler is fortunate enough to meet persons whose left and right brains work more or less in harmony and perhaps have a bit more current passing through their circuitry. These people generally recognize that both the left brain response and the right brain response to things red, white and blue are largely illusion, and also that those responses exist for a reason, because beneath all smoke burns fire. Conversations with these types is often quite interesting, or at the least, unpredictable. These people are rare. We’ll say they comprise 20% of the whole, which is too high, but it will make our math easier. Some quick math informs us that when answering the Q with “The United States” or “Los Estados Unidos”, the traveler has an 80% probability of being sucked into a programmed conversation that is at best, practice in the language of the land, and at worst, the very root cause of the problems humanity has created for itself. So, I learned years ago during my first trip to Europe that being from Texas has its advantages. Why? Because Texas holds a pretty cool place in the global mind. Playground of J.R. Ewing, oil, cattle, cowboys, Cowboys, Cowboys cheerleaders, wild west gunfights, pickup trucks, groovy Austin, land, lots of land and the starry skies above. Damn I miss Texas. The programmed right and left brain responses to “Texas” or “Tejas” are also fairly predictable…but they’re FUN, with smiles and laughing!!! Or they used to be. Nowadays, some yahoo claiming to be a Texan (when one look at his actions makes it quite clear that he is not a Texan, not a true Texan anyways) has the robots around the world so stirred up about what a jackass and mal tipo they perceive him to be, that it’s no longer fun to respond to the Question with “Texas.” Tears have begun to smear the ink on this page as I write. Never in all my life could I have imagined that some day it would no longer be fun to tell people I’m from Texas, but así es ahorra, that day has arrived. And isn't having fun kind of the point to living? It really doesn't bother me what people think about the U.S. or Texas (except to the extent that it serves humans to view their brothers and sisters through eyes of love) because almost all of what they "think" about all things geopolitical is merely reactionary and programmed into them by their media and government; BUT, it does bother me to waste my precious life having the same boring conversations over and over. It was bearable when it was fun with smiles and laughter, but now it's not. I suppose I'll have to work harder at making it fun again. But for now when people hit me with the Question, I usually just tell them I’ve been traveling for a while. Love, Eric |