April 21st, 2025
I mean space as in mental space. This might have been one of the longest spells between entries in this journal. I’ve been busy with my children and work, but the main reason for not writing was the lack of motivation, which I interpret as my brain not having been able to allocate limited cognitive resources to update the journal. Until a couple of days ago when the thought of writing this post was not longer a source glycerol.
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As for the main events since my last post, just a quick update, for me to keep track of things. There was Sofia’s visit. She came to BKK just before Christmas last year and stayed until March. She was going through a difficult period in the long and hazardous transition that will take her from the early teenage years to adulthood. We had ups and downs but when she left to join her mother in DC, she was in a much better place. I keep great memories from our Christmas and new year celebrations, with Natalia, her mother, and Woland.
There were also work-related trips and a set of virtual lectures for the ILO training center in Turin. To Riyadh, January 28-30; Colombia February 16-22; Tunisia February 23-March 1st; and Morocco March 9-18. Colombia and Morocco were consequential trips, the others not so much. What is clear is that work related trips are becoming more of a toll on my health. And it’s not only the jet-lag. I don’t exercise enough, I eat more (particularly in Riyadh which remains dry), therefore I gain weight and loose muscle. Only a couple of weeks ago I was able to resume my routine and I’m, slowly, getting back in shape.
Marina also visited during her spring break. She came on the March 23 and left on April 6. Except for the first and last night we spent our time here in Hua Hin. I was not on vacation mode, but we did enjoy time together walking or running in the morning with Woland, reading at the beach, playing board games, and having dinners out or at home at night.
I like my life here in Hua Hin. The days I spend in Bangkok, usually because of work, doctor’s appointments, upcoming travels, or family obligations, are always difficult for both Woland and me. He is a beach dog and living in the city, specially in BKK with no green spaces he can access, is depressive. Walking him around the neighborhood surrounded by pollution, noise, and traffic; having to pick up his poop in the street or when lucky the sidewalk; and not been able to run or play ball is distressing for both of us.
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I just finished reading Robert Kaplan’s Waste Land. It’s a good book to read in these times of geopolitical conflict and uncertainty. Kaplan equates the world today to the Weimar years in Germany. He argues that when there is an institutional void — which can happen when a large number of, presumably, marginalized people no longer trust the political system and their elites — there is fertile ground for charismatic chieftains to take over. These chieftains replace the functions of formal institutions with patrimonialism; informal relations based on loyalty and mutual benefits. Leaders like Hitler during the Weimar years, Putin after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and more recently Erdogan. The book was written before Trump’s re-election to the Whitehouse, but he is also a good example of a chieftain. Kaplan argues these chieftains believe that their opponents can be destroyed because they are in their eyes, fundamentally illegitimate. On this Kaplan quotes Kissinger in a World Restored, “the most fundamental problem of politics…is not the control of wickedness but the limitation of righteousness.” I am still an optimist about the evolution of humankind, but it is not a linear process and we might be entering a period of bad times.
Another good book I read is Guido Tonelli’s Matter. Setting aside the author’s diatribes about art, it is an entertaining vulgarization of recent advances in physics and what we know about what constitutes matter. Part of the book is about the Higgs field. You might recall that back in 2011 two teams, working independently, at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC), discovered the Higgs Boson or God Particle. It is the particle that gives mass to other particles. It was a major discovery and the physicists — François Englert and Peter Higgs — who predicted its existence got a Nobel prize. Tonelli’s, also a physicist, was the project manager of one of the teams at CERN.
The story he tells is that after the discovery they continued analyzing the data. They knew by then that Higgs particles pop up from the Higgs field that permeates the entire universe (like drops of water from a lake disturbed by a falling stone). They were trying to figure out whether the Higgs field was stable, meaning whether it would remain as is forever and ever. They discovered that it is not; it is meta-stable. The implication is that, in principles, major perturbations in space-time can shatter the field. Forget about climate change, a large asteroid hitting the earth, or the moon breaking into pieces. If the Higgs Field is shattered, all particles in the universe would lose their mass and matter as we know it would cease to exist. Imagine that here on earth, we wouldn’t see explosions or blood, we would not even feel pain, which also involves chemical reactions and therefore molecules and elementary particles, we would simply dissipate. A fantastic way to terminate our existence.
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As for the near future, while alive, I’m traveling this weekend to Antananarivo Madagascar for work. I’m back on May 4th and then on the 11th I go to Rabat, also for work. I return to BKK on the 18th and then my lovely wife is taking me to Singapore to a concert of an artist she very much likes, Lady Gaga. I watched and enjoyed her movie A Star Is Born, so I’m happy to tag along.
Back to BKK on May 22nd, on the 23th I fly to Paris to meet my father. He is traveling to France on May 5th and will stay with my sister Carla in Corsica for a couple of weeks (until I arrive). After my mother’s passing, he has been living with my sister Gabriela in Quito and, while my son and brother are around, most of the time he is alone, mourning. A couple of months ago he decided he wanted to travel to places he’s always wanted to see. So, I’m taking him on a short European adventure. A trip of decadence — museums, opera, good wine and food — through Paris, Rome, Florence, Venice, and Athens. Around June 3rd will fly to BKK so that he can rest for a few days here in Hua Hin and then discover some of the islands in Thailand.
We’ll stay until the end of June when I have to go back to Colombia for work. Once there, the plan is to go on a well deserved vacation to Ecuador and then Panama where I finally will be reunited with BEHEMOTH, cross the channel, and do some cruising on the Pacific side. Natalia and Marina will join me.
Updates will follow.
Sailing to the Pacific 