Hopes , fears, love , guns ….. Choices.

“I dont know how it happened that I the admirer of logic and rational thinking became obsessed with the world of feelings and hopes and love and beauty” I said to Ertyass.

She smiled and said ” And you still worry about taking this decision? ”

We were sitting in a beach bar in a nice big costa rican’s resort enjoying tacos with Guacamole dips and black bean souce with Zacapa. It was my first trip in the Caribbeans and i was already feeling at home in the lovely world where Marquez’s butterflies were flying, Neruda’s cherry blossom was happening and every created thing looks like Octavio’s fountains of water…

” No i do not worry anymore of my inclining, but i was just thinking how come i changed so much!”

She said,” Well! People change…. Look at this country we are sitting now , Costa Rica…., used to have a size-able army to safeguard its pretty exposed boundaries, very logical and rational to have such an army when you are surrounded by the same, every one does without asking why 🙂  , and then one day costa-ricans decided not to have an army at all. It is 60 years now and they do not have an army and they are still surviving, I would rather use the word enjoying than surviving. And can you see this subtle sublime smiles on the faces of these Costa-ricans….such hope in the middle of a world surrounded by such big standing armies….. Viola!”

“It is very difficult to sell hope then selling fears” I said.

“Yea, you are perhaps right …. very few people dare to do that…. look at our country .One bomb destroys the hope of thousands of flowers blossoming around in our country…One ideology of fear makes us spend so much on cuddling our fears that we forget nourishing our hopes and love of mankind” and smilingly added ” I hope someday our people will also realize the power of love over the shadows of fears……..I really hope, that one day comes soon enough in our lives, when there is no army in our country too, when their is no army in the whole wide world….“

And our flights of imaginations were interrupted by our smiling hosts literally pulling us to join the Meringue dance classes.

On our way back we landed from the land with a constitution allowing no army, to a land having the biggest army in the world and with a constitution safeguarding the right of every individual to have a gun. It was so funny, this country having the biggest army in the world fearing us small people, letting us wait for hours on the airport, asking silly questions…….and we were comparing the two extremes in the subtle facial expressions of immigration people on both the sides, just 2 hours away……..

One thing I figured about America is every body is so possessive and obsessed about the choices they want to make, I met some lovely republicans from the south discussing the medical care and socialized medicine, and as per them the choice should be given to them to decide who to help…..a choice that in reality ends up with insurance companies robbing masses, of billions of dollars, but choice is important…(reminded me of the forced zakat deduction system in our country)…. The democrats on their part also use the same word choice in their own way… On one side they want strict regulation on medicare, and on the other side they support gay marriages, seeing it as a personal choice….

On my days in America, walking through  the streets of Los-angeles, and Seattle… I was thinking, can choices be taught? It certainly seems to be the case in my country where our choices are dictated by our strict moral upbringing, but is this a case in the so called free world of America as well? May be the forefathers who migrated to America made difficult choices in their own lives, disregarding all that was taught to them from the society morals and ethics and religion… perhaps its the DNA of those adventurous people which still boils when it comes to making personal choices?

On the other hand, is not the choices that makes people’s life so difficult? can a world not be beautiful without choices…is choice not just a confusion between what is beautiful and what is not.

May be i am getting too old to think about choices and feel blessed in my already achieved world of beauty and love.