| When? Now! |
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Vesty Pakos, one of my best friends, gave me the best present a man could give. He initiated me in the now. He was a wild man, a well-known figure in the Andes and the Amazon, in cities and villages across Bolivia, where he lived. He was especially famous for his war cry, a full-lunged scream that he unleashed unexpectedly at any moment, at least twenty times a day. His cry was full of uninhibited exposure, for he would walk into any venue and put his hands to his mouth and shout his cry as loud as he could. His war cry contained the essence of life, the essence of living in the present. It was a question and answer that explained it all. Queste? Queste? Vesty would only shout the question: Where is it? Where is it? But he was a famous man and his cry flew before him, never going unanswered: Helaqui! Helaqui! It is here! It is here! Someone would scream back. The genius of this simple question is amazing. If you listen carefully, you will hear another question and answer curled like a hidden dimension inside the scream: Where is it? It is here! When is it? It is now! It is all the same: the here, the now, the present. One night Vesty and I jumped out of a truck after a long journey from the Andes to the Amazon. It was after midnight and the small village we found ourselves in was sleeping. Vesty shook the dust from his clothes and raised his hands to the sides of his mouth. I cringed knowing what was coming. "Queste? Queste?" He screamed so loud the veins in his neck threatened to explode. But there was only the howl of a dog in response. We waited. Vesty raised his hands again and screamed so hard I thought I felt the ground tremble. "Where is it?" Then we heard a distant shout: "Helaqui! Helaqui!" And then another shout followed, and another one. It was magic. The whole village woke from its sleep. Men, women, and children came out of their huts with guitars and tambourines, with food and alcohol. We drank and ate and danced until sunrise. This is how Vesty Pakos lived his life, always there and then in the present. Where is a better place than here, and when is a better time than now? Scream your guts out if you need to, anything to wake yourself up. You are in a deep sleep, and you are only dreaming of the future and conjuring the past. Scream like Vesty until the world shakes. Where is it? It is here! When? Now! |
