It is customary here in Puerto Escondido, when the need to extend one's visit arises and the infinite bureaucratic bludgeoning of immigration becomes impossible, to venture forth to the mysterious border of wild and wily Guatemala. Here, it is said, one may renew one's vows with green and pleasant Mexico and return to her bosom with a minimum of border guard abuse. Seeing as how the crucible set before me by immigration was unquestioningly beyond my grasp, on Monday at 5:30 I set out for the southern reaches of Chiapas to try my luck at the quick frontera exchange.

As Murphy pointed out, nothing ever comes off without a hitch, and this seems to be especially so for me in southern Mexico. Many might point out that according to nouveau esoterica my bad attitude makes such things happen, to which I blow my nose in their general direction. I try my best, like every good monkey, to take the ill tidings of life at their own sway. I simply don't try to lie to myself about how romantic it all is, or that the stupidity of people who suffer under poverty is somehow an enobling simplicity. As Nietszche says, " ... aware of life's terrors, (a person) affirms life without resentment." It is only when we expect the disappointments of life to somehow edify us that their inability to lend more than pain leaves us feeling poisoned.

The truth is that the border of Mexico / Guatemala is a nasty several mile wide example of everything that is wrong with humanity. Poverty, greed and its accompanying lack of imagination and hope when it comes to the problems of existence combine here with the vapors of brimstone. OK, they're just people doing their best and if that means trying to get as much as they can from stupid tourists like myself, then that's the way it is and I shouldn't be resentful.

I can only plead that stupidity is something insidious and contagious. If poverty makes low IQs, and the spread of poverty and low IQs and rampant population growth among the poor makes the world stupider and stupider, the reactions of those who should know better are becoming more and more in concert. I was raised to not categorize, to give each individual an even break, to give each person the opportunity to be uniquely stupid. But as I am judged by those with what I believe is a myopic point of view, I lash out with my own vindictive stupidity. As I am gawked at like a three headed dog dressed in golfer's attire I find my tiny mind taxed to the limit of its patience. It's that look WE get from THE OTHER, that look that says WE really don't know anything about what's going on anywhere at anytime otherwise why would WE eat anything but tortillas, why would anyone eat their meat other than thin and well done, why would anyone believe in anything but the catholic god, why would WE believe in anything, why would anyone laugh and do nothing, why would WE go to war, that gets my back up. One believes the other is stupid and the stupid are incredulous.

Amidst the stumbling rabble of which I too often must count myself I met a man named Nehemias, named after the biblical character assigned to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. While the cambistas crowded round me to try to steal my passport and dole out bad exchanges on pesos and quetzales, Nehemias, in no extraordinary way, offered polite conversation. And returning from Malacatan I was offered a fair price for a taxi, and after braving the cambistas one last time, was given a six month tourist visa when all I asked for was three by a joking and laughing immigration officer. As a matter of fact, almost all the immigration officers were decent, helpful people. But despite such small kindnesses, it's the belief in getting the better of that other's ignorance as a sign of cleverness, and seeing apparent cultural unawareness as a sign of stupidity that leaves enduring bone chips in one's joints. It may be that in the absence of truth the rules that we invent and have the strength to uphold will be the laws of existence. We might be persuaded to believe that the thoughtless money grubbing of the cambistas is something more in the nature of necessary evil, the cruelty of survival. But I cannot help but be petulantly and, yes, stupidly resentful because I want individual strength to uphold the chimeric niceties of a respectful social contract. As the saying goes, "Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity." Stupidity, not cruelty, is survival's paradigmatic quality; to survive at all costs without a thought as to why is the nihilistic footnote to the world's folly.

And I, sir, have a full belly and the pretensions of a garden to guard my vanity.

"It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value." - Arthur C. Clarke

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." - Friedrich Nietzsche