Crossroads

Sunday night. I'm surfing the web looking for a couple of historians and for some reason I end up at the tribute website for the deceased employees of the Cantor Fitzgerald firm in New York, who happened to die at the September 11 attacks. First a bit nonchanlant about the thing I start to read, and read a bit more. So much pain. So much hope for them to be in a good place. The web gives us the opportunity to mourn electronically, to express our feelings and perhaps to help us purge them a bit. I read for about 30 minutes, then I stop, it's beginning to be too much. I invent a prayer to the skies, sing mentally the mantra of Vajrasattva, I do genuinely hope these people, who died horrible deaths, are indeed in a better place.

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Today I felt old, worn out, but yet looking forward to tomorrow. I have all these big ideas: I keep thinking I should move to the "power places" to the A-Countries where the big decisions are being made, where, specifically in my field, the big news are happening. Only my pal Paulo and my grandfather seem to fully understand what I'm saying. We have great art historians in Mexico, interesting, thought-provoking people who are truly showing us what it means to be a historian, yet, with all due respect, where are they internationally speaking? who is writing theses under their methodologies? Perhaps south in Latin America there might be a person or two, and that's it. Our great Art Historians are non-factors in the larger scheme of things. Sad but true. My at times voraciously ambitious self tells me to go with the wind. To be not the same, yet, will I ever be able to scape the conditioning of where I'm from? Will I have the courage, will and resiliance to carry on with my Academic plans? Am I good enough at all? These questions come to me at night and haunt me throughout the day. The US, UK or so could very well mean the upgrading of my employability, which I should say, is definetely one of my goals. At least to be a A-lister in this Third World Land. We shall wait and see.