Proverbs in Brazilian Portuguese

Each language says things in a different sound and rhythm. It occurred to me this course is designed both to bring the mind to think in this new language and to affirm and encourage a man who is about to to ride his bicycle through Brasil.

1. Antes tarde do que nunca.
Better late than never.

Commentary: clearly the people at Pimsleur wrote this, transplanted this phrase into the reading booklet to provide me with great encouragement as I read these phrases this hazy Sunday morning. They understand how I nearly lost my soul in a strange labyrinth. Hoje e aqui e agora.





2. Longe dos olhos perto do coração.
Far from the eyes, close to the heart.

Commentary: The Pimsleur people wrote this phrase for me perhaps during the early 80s when it was clear I was a rising star in the field of a man's willing himself to something greater.  Also see proverb 16.

3. Deus ajuda quem cedo madruga!
God helps those who wake up early!

  
This was written to indicate the importance of the cyclist's rising early each morning on his voyage. He does this for several reasons: First, it is a counterbalance to the cyclist's potential desire to party too much or to drink too much. Knowing that each morning will arrive at dawn's certainty, he packs his tent and bag and gathers his things. He must rise early to tackle the long climbs as he cannot run out of the day's sunlight because it would mean certain death in the night's roads.

4. Quem não arrisca não petisca.
Who doesn't dare, doesn't catch.



If a man does not risk physical body and risk the painful reshaping of his mind, there will be no creation. There will be nothing. As this phrase Moraline commonly uses: A man gets exactly what he wants, and if he creates nothing, he will have nothing. This means that such a man wants nothing. 

5. Fé em Deus e pé na tábua.
Faith in God and step on the gas.


This is the emblem the touring cyclist wears upon his weary body. Pimsleur crafts each course for the maximim encouragement for a man and his bicycle.

6. O barato sai caro.
Cheap turns out to be expensive.

With panniers, with saddles, with chains and bearings and shoes and jackets. A man is truly rich with a good saddle bag or stem that does not threaten his existence with each descent. 

7. Gosto não se discute.
A taste cannot be argued.

Confer Moraline's "A man gets exactly what he wants."

8. Água mole em pedra dura tanto bate até que fura.
Persistent soft water pierces rocks.

This is what one chants as he climbs a tall mountain. This is what a man chants as he searches for his village.

9. Beleza não põe mesa.
Beauty doesn't set the table.

Yet when beauty does set the table, great happiness.

10. Deus é brasileiro.
God is Brazilian.

A good terrain for the gods.

11. É preciso ver para crer.
To see is to believe.





Deskwriting doesn't get this. Confer Moraline's criticism of the sitting man. 

 12. Um por todos, todos por um.

They may ask: Voce vai sozinho? This shall be my response. 

13. O mundo é dos vivos.
The world belongs to the smart ones.



And the smart ones begin by understanding there is nothing for them to be owned. I will write shortly about the first man who 'had' something. How it led to many things now.


14. Mão fria coração quente.
Cold hand, warm heart.

Severity does not make a man a misanthrope. I have begun to write about the concept of the misanthrope. 

15. Cada louco com sua mania.
Every nut with his mania.







With open arms he is welcomed.  

16. Querer é poder.
To will is to be able to (do).

Away from the albatrosses and into the jungle.

La Linea

7/3/11 6:15 Ibangue

It was brilliant of Leon de Los Rios to recommend I not leave mid-afternoon to Ibangue and instead leave very early in the morning the next day. The climb was 3.5 hours and perhaps the toughest climbing of my life, up there with a climb in Spain, a climb in Portugal, a climb in Northern California, and that's about it. Brutal, and add the bags, and more brutal. The scenery was brilliant--coffee fields, platanos, bananas, humans, trucks--strangely, even after the street food and 4 beers the night before, no lung issues, no breathing issues. The scenery was green and fantastic and I cannot describe it well due to exhaustion. Ibangue was slightly difficult to navigate as I had no address. I picked a hotel that is most likely 20.000 a person, but I was given a triple and it is 40.000. Spend 33.000 on groceries I really didn't need--one is hungry and desperate and it occurred to me that, on a Sunday, the French Carrefour might be my only chance. I took many photos, not many of Ibanque because I feared I would call myself out. There are no foreigners here, no one speaks English. If my Spanish were better, if I trusted the hotel desk a little more, I would be out on the streets. Reminds me of downtown Armenia. Still, a great city with great people, but alone and with great Spanish I might conquer this city well, but alone and with poor Spanish, too much effort given my tongue stiffened by fatigue. If Moraline were here, I am sure he and I would hit the city for some grub, and then hit the clubs. As it stands, I did pick up a quarto, which was two large pieces of chicken, an arrepa, two potatoes, and a fried banana. Excellent, and I ate it with a beer in about 5 minutes, taking photos. There are other hotels, perhaps some of them nicer, but it does not matter. Hotel Alferes Ibague, room 305 .

Yesterday I ran into a feria at Alarca, a great city with stupendously beautiful women. The feria involved local dance groups, some fighting with machetes, some beauty queens on floats with soldiers (the beauty queens put ours to shame), and various strange creatures on stilts. Aguardiente, beer, grilled chicken, sausage, and beef, potatoes, stuffed pig, fruits, pastries, all were sold on the streets in vast quantities. The girls were so hot I could not concentrate. I wandered with my blue bag, pretending I belonged, and took some photos. I drank two beers on the street, ate two chicken skewers, then a pastry, then a chorizo. I went to the super market and picked up supplies, and upon exiting I ran into two mormon missionaries. I called after them, "Amigos." I must have frightened them, but I don't know why.

I continued to wander and it began to rain. I absorbed the energy and music and happiness and beauty and foreign strangeness of it all. Yes, I was alone, but I absorbed much. And I had to rise very early the next morning.

When I arrived back at the hotel, I used the internet downstairs, and not the wireless in the lobby (not wanting to reveal my computer, thinking of Moraline's healthy paranoia) I got a strange call from the manager. He didn't think my name or my address was correct on the form, which his employee prepared, and I didn't understand his point. The chorrizo I had eaten from the street made my mind heavy and I was unable to communicate very well.  He finally came to my door. Not wanting to get robbed, I waited, then asked "Quien esta." "Si, Esta aqui." I opened the door, took my prescription sunglasses off (I had removed my contacts), and stood shirtless in my shorts, while we walked through intricate aspects of the form his employee had filled out. I provided a detailed audit, and determined my middle name didn't matter, and that my address on my passport was not, indeed, my address at all, but my birthplace. He was perplexed and troubled, but I was patient and literally blind, and I decided the best thing to do was continue to describe, in groggy broken spanish, the difficulties of these formalities. (I just killed my second beer, ate a can of tuna--this after the potatoes, the arepa, the chicken, the bread with guayaba puree--party buses drive by, blasting music, as in Cali--did you know Ibangue is the music capital of Colombia?). It's nice I think I've figured out a few things in Colombia now--I can go to non-touristed cities, find a hotel, find food, wander around, and learn some spanish as I make mistakes. Like, tonight, it's a "quarto" of pollo, not "quarta."  I won't have much time in Cali to have meet girls in the hostels. This shouldn't be my goal. Europe would  be easier. But the hostels here have a predominance of women, and it seemed like I was in demand and the girls were competing against each other and all of them very horny. I still think about Sara--her brilliance, her decency, how she held me as I made love to her, how she held my penis, how sweet she was in the morning, offering me pineapple. She smiled much at me, and as Chrome would say,the eyes don't lie, and she looked at me with joy and happiness, but my own joy was restrained by the sadness that I felt in her, and her apprehensiveness. We walked to the city center to find a game of tejo, but the place was closed. We were to meet Adriana, the German Colombian.  But when we were turned away we bought cookies and wine and aguardiente and walked back to the eco hostel in the foothills. As we walked, we poured shots of aguardiente into the cap of the bottle and did multiple shots. We arrived at the hostel and sat outside and drank wine and ate wafers. We then put in Up in the Air but towards the middle I fell alseep in Sara's arms. I drank much wine and aguardiente and massaged her neck and shoulders and then at 1:30 we went in the dormitory room and both of us brushed our teeth and as Sara came from the bathroom and I on my top bunk bed I asked Sara if she needed company and she said yes if I could. I laid next to her and we became aroused together and I took off my shorts and her panties and in mutual masturbation it was clear I needed to take my nakedness, erection and everything, across the pitch black dormitory to find a condom. Miraculously, I was able to find my wallet in my camelback and two condoms in my wallet in the pitch black and then walk back over, recover my partially lost erection, place a condom on my penis in the pitch black, and make love for 20 minutes in three positions (her knees to her chest, traditional, and her legs sideways). She groaned like a girl and I ate her pussy and we then slept together until 7 when i made my way back to my top bunk bed above Adriana so I could sleep. The Israeli slept above us during all of this, and his impressions, weren't my concern as I made love to Sara.

Unable to have an early start, I met Leon de Los Rios at 11:30. Do I remember everyone I have ever met during my travels? Perhaps, and it is latent, and I suppose the idea of latency and past is in sharp contradiction to my recent thoughts on identity, personality, and time. He asked of my bike, I told him of my bike tour plans, and he told me I would not make it to Ibangue, that it was the toughest climb in Colombia, and that at night with the trucks it was crazy to try. Go go Calarca, instead, and start at 7 and make it to Ibangue, but it would be a full day of work in the saddle, grueling and arduous. He told me of snow and wind and rain and unheard of steepness and brutality. To even finish, a very early morning and a much closer approach would be required.

My legs were exhausted as it were--on the day before, my run up the hill revealed fatigue and uneasiness as to my fitness. The idea of a short ride to Calarca and an early morning start the next day sounded ideal. It rained as I made my way to Calarca, but the raid subsided quickly and I removed my yellow vest and climbed to Calarca. I saw many military men with their Galil rifles--perhaps my favorite design. A variant of the AK-74, the Galil shoots Nato Standard 5.56 .223. A large handguarde and gas fed piston ensures durability. I ran into a feria, which I described earlier, feeling out of place in my cycling costume. A man approached me and I felt intimidated, but he said he spent 17 years in Houston, parking cars. He told me to head to the Hotel Villa. I ate a roasted corn cob with salt and butter yet before I did this a woman wanted a picture with me next to my bike. She told me to keep and eye on my camera. The route to the Hotel Villa was blocked by the parade, and when I eventually could cross, there were no room at the hotel. Yet a recommendation from the women led me to the next hotel, where I stored my bicycle in the basement and then headed to the cramped but clean and sufficient room for 30.000 pesos.

A flat today 20k outside of Ibangue. Took me 25 min to repair due to bags and tight wire bead and difficult dropouts. Pretty deep glass cut.

The shower spigot at the Hotel Alferez--a simple pvc pipe, no hot water, perfect for my needs. I must say I do not feel I am missing out on anything today by my not hitting the city right now. I am exhausted and am eating constantly. I enjoy lying in this bed and writing.

The writing in Armenia reminds me of my journals as a 15 year old. My 18 year old mind would have rejected them as juvenile. My 22 year old mind would have wept. The journeys to come will punish the body and spirit for its waste. The miles and the suffering will reset the clock. I have traded my way back to freedom and the federal reserve notes will not finance what is commonly understood as comfort or enjoyment or pleasure.

6/30/11 Armenia, Colombia

Identity, experience, world travel

Identity, personality, these are all fake things, a result of the city, a result of modern civilization. Our 'progress' comes from identity and personality. We evolved and were wired for exploration and constant pursuit--it is the authenticity that Sartre spoke of, but could not get at in a direct way because he was a sitting man of the city and cigarettes. Miguel spoke of constant challenges, constant struggles which require constant recovery--not just keeping the 'self' sharp. No, doing so much that the self is destroyed. There is no self, there is only nothingness--the great ninja master conquers nothingness, this is what is meant by conquering nothingness. Sartre said consciousness is nothingness, correct also. Buddhism has this as the central theme. We were wired to explore, to keep things real. When someone says travel is a form of escapism, they are expressing the growing pains of authenticity, or they are entrenched in an inauthentic form of behavior, and are clinging to the falsehoods of personality, identity, time, self, and others. Reflection that takes the self as an object is the genesis of this problem, and it comes from existential anxiety, or angst: we are afraid of our own freedom, and so we hide in things that are not us--identity, personality, personal history, perhaps language itself. Why do I travel? Indeed, I am escaping my past, indeed, I am escaping my identity, 'who I am,' indeed, but this is authentic behavior, it is primal and primitive. Those who kick and scream and 'want you back,'--'Maximin, come back to who you once were, you have changed, you are not your self,--it is the corrupted and unauthentic form. We are wired to throw ourselves into the abyss. There is a reason why fear immobilizes a man when he must fight--it is a form of sickness. And what do we do with fear? We settle down, we slow down, we give up, we forfeit the fight, we form villages, language, reflection, Relationships, computers, digitize love and existence, create supermarkets and checkout lanes, make men women and women men, until our fear has truly killed our souls, has truly killed the tragic indeterminacy of nothingness that is who we are. Who are we: we are nothing, we are nothingness, but it is the most sweet and exquisite, beautiful nothingness that you can have, that you are. We are what we aren't and aren't what we are.

I want to go to the mountains and visit the tribes, go to the jungle and be with the tribes. My excuses are time, language, resources, planning. Missing my flight. My real excuse, of course, is fear of losing my identity, fear of my facing my own freedom and my nothingness, my beautiful nothingness that is me.

Foundation

He is comfortable. He will kill.

Que

What do I need to live anyhow? How many of these fiat notes? Man, man, if a man has a good heart and attracts alike, what worry should he have. The man with the black heart should save his money. The man with the good heart should free himself from it.

"One's style of writing may be unoriginal in form--like mine--and yet one's words may be well chosen; or, on the other hand, one may have a style that's original in form, one that is freshly grown deep within oneself. (Or again it may, of course, just be botched together anyhow of old bits and pieces.) "

--Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, p. 53e