1995-1999: a short reflection

Mexico City, december 1999
[click para ver en castellano]

Dear friends,

After four exciting years traveling through and living mostly in Asia, I have returned "home". During this time, I have met and forged lasting friendships with people from many different walks of life and cultural backgrounds. It will remain an unforgettable, and so far without question the most important, experience in my entire life --including my stay with the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, my stay in the Tibeto-Indian town of Dharamshala, and travels through the heart of Central, Southeast, and South Asia.

How to describe a dream of this magnitude, come true? I can say that I have learned a few things about places, peoples, and about human endeavors. Yet "encyclopædic" factual knowledge is but a small part of what I have gained: rather I have mostly learned about myself and the long road I need to tread in order to consistently improve myself; about how some people can be humble and compassionate in the face of pain and tragedy, about how others can remain confident and equanimous when faced with real danger and the unknown; about how yet others can be so resourceful and keep so cheerful even when living in the harshest environments on our planet. No doubt each individual I have shared time with is special, in their very own way, always harboring a jewel I could learn from. In this way have I begun to understand the Tibetan Buddhist mantra "om mani padme hum", or "hailing to the jewel in the lotus", which explains that each one of us can be likened to a lotus flower which has the potential to grow from the muddiest depths into a beautiful flower with a loving heart and a clear mind.

I have also had the privilege, over this time, to meet several hundreds of travelers and backpackers, and to understand and participate in their subculture. Travelers are an oft misunderstood breed: a true thin global tribe which knows no boundaries -- whose members share open-mindedness, an irrational feeling of togetherness with another, an irreverence towards established and outdated hierarchies, and a need to continuously question and explore. Yet oddly, we travelers share very little else, in terms of common values, interests, and views!

Many of you will know that about a year ago --while working on a Tibetan cultural/software project in Northern India-- I had decided to return to the Americas, so as to be closer to my family and to contribute once again to the dynamic software/internet world.

So after bidding farewell to India, the country and the people that had given me so much, by July 1999 I was back in Lima, spending time with my family and taking care of medical checkups and tests to ensure my health was in order. I also spent weeks organizing thousands of photographs and dozens of stories I wrote privately, and attempting to make sense of all I had experienced. And I tried to start planning the next phase of my life. I finally chose to move to Mexico, so that Cecilia --my girlfriend, whom I met over two years ago in India-- and I could continue to spend time together. In October, I landed in Mexico City, which was --quite paradoxically-- a place I had never been to before. This was to be my home now.

With the help of many of you, finding an interesting job (in a city in which I could count my friends with the fingers on my left hand) wasn't as difficult as it could have been. Last month I signed up to work with Siebel Systems, a software company based in California. I will be based in Mexico City, as a part of the Latin America and Caribbean team, which means that I will have the opportunity to see many of you in the near future.

I have also found a nice place to stay - an art-deco house in the neighborhood of Condesa, which was popular from the turn-of-the-century to the 1940's. It has recently become popular once again because of its many restaurants and sidewalk cafes, its large parks, and its bohemian, small-town feel --a rare luxury in this, one of the very largest cities in the world. I just moved in two days ago.

Some of you I have spoken to only hours ago, and with some of you, last contact may have been years ago. But friendship and good memories remain. Many of you have fallen in and out of love during this time, or married; others have added little ones (humans or otherwise) to their families; many have finished or started studies, many have started new and very different jobs, some of you have written and published books or music albums; and others have dedicated their lives to social work and those most needy, to their religion, or to live only with nature. (I think one of you has actually done ALL of these things!) Some will undoubtedly continue traveling, always restless and endlessly curious, for the rest of their lives. Such is the wheel of life.

We have all shared very special moments at some point and some place during the last five years -- whether dancing in Jerusalem or Dharamshala; watching the moon and later the sun rise over Tikal; freezing to near-cryogenic state in Uyuni; diving off Bunaken or Sharm-el-Sheikh; acting in an Indian movie in Hampi; cycling over 700Km through tiny Spanish towns and endless sunflower fields, and meeting a Templar Knight; attending a good friend's wedding in Mizoram; finding a way out of a survival situation on Mont Blanc; or just having a nice conversation and guitar session --competing with the insects-- at Sunderbans National Park.

So what is the point of this message, you ask? I hope to be able to recapture and extend some of those moments of hospitality, fun times, and understanding that we have shared. If you do come to Mexico City, be sure to keep in touch so that we can meet or if there might be something I could help you with. Here is my contact information, just in time for those holiday greetings!!

Ricardo Cárdenas
Antonio Sola 32
Condesa
Mexico DF 06140
MEXICO

Home tel: +52 5256.0209
Office tel: +52 5261.4356
Office fax: +52 5261.4355

My permanent email should remain for life (or at least until the Internet reaches Mars and other planets, when we will all have to add ".ea.ss.mw.3d" to our email addresses!): rcardenas at alum.MIT.EDU

With love and warmest regards,
om mani padme hum

Ricardo Cárdenas

Follow your dream
Take the risks
They will take you further