After that hot summer evening, I would always give the same answer to the frequent question of adults, “What do you want to become when you grow up?”

“An astronaut!”

I don’t think I was alone. Many children of my generation grew up watching the same black and white scenes of rockets shooting off to space and of humans in strange-looking spacesuits and helmets floating in zero gravity or walking on the moon. Seriously, was there a job more fascinating than literally … flying to the stars? Suddenly, the fairytales my grandma and aunts used to tell me, with hares and tortoises and ducklings and swans, seemed so uninteresting. The real fairytale was the one being shown on television – that magical box that connected Morfou, the small town of my early childhood in Cyprus, to the larger world that I had just begun to discover existed beyond.

My fascination with space continued into my early teenage years in the 70s when I started spending most of my pocket money on illustrated books explaining the American and Soviet space programs. The new space frontier seemed to be inexhaustible. The universe turned into a mysterious and magical place once again – ready to be revealed to those who spent time exploring it. *

As I delved deeper into the subject, however, I would gradually realize that to achieve my dream of becoming an astronaut, I would have to be a US or a Soviet citizen plus an Air Force pilot. The first was already ruled out, the second was not at all to my liking – although I had taken up flying as a hobby (thanks to the encouragement of my best friend who wanted to become an airline pilot) and earned a private pilot’s license in my late teens.

I therefore revised a bit my childhood dream by deciding to become an astronomer instead. At least that way I could be closer to imagining myself an astronaut. But, yet again, I soon discovered that there was no undergraduate course in astronomy in the UK, where I was set to study. The fall was complete: I ended up making the final compromise and studied physics. Physics was useful and served me well, providing the best foundation to subsequently learn about the other sciences. Yet physics never fascinated me, nor did it nourish my imagination as much as astronomy or space exploration. After years of studying science in general, I realized that my childhood dream would never materialize. I put it aside and almost entirely forgot about it as I moved along in life.

But our childhood dreams never really vanish. They are like the live embers hidden beneath the ashes of last night’s fire. Lurking underneath the commonality of everyday life, they may be rekindled with the slightest spark when the time is ripe. So, when later in life I decided to travel around the world, something very unexpected happened. The more I explored the planet, the more I realized that I actually knew nothing about it – the Earth was basically unknown to me. Suddenly, my childhood dream seemed to materialize in a way I could never have imagined: Instead of becoming an Earthian astronaut visiting other planets, I now became an extraterrestrial astronaut from another planet who had just landed on Earth and began exploring it for the first time! Furthermore, this was not a trick of the imagination nor a game of words. It was real: Planet Earth, my own birthplace, had turned out to be as alien to me as any faraway planet I dreamed of visiting as a child.

As I roamed this unknown planet and marveled at its varied beauty, its natural wonders, its inexhaustible wealth of peoples and cultures, I understood that I was not alone in my ignorance: All of us are extraterrestrials on Earth! The overwhelming majority of people I encountered in my travels had never traveled outside their own country, and sometimes not even outside their small region. Many did not even understand why they should travel and had no inclination to do so. Paradoxically, those who had traveled the least felt they knew the most about the rest of the world by watching TV or reading magazines – there seemed to be a proportional relationship between ignorance and arrogance. Many of the least traveled even thought that their country was the best in the world – their arrogance turning into grandiosity.

Being extraterrestrials, we are all therefore potential astronauts. And Earth, our Larger Home, is the planet on which our spaceship has already landed. As such, we quickly discover that our planet’s natural and cultural wealth is so immense that there is no end to our exploration. Though it may seem finite, our planet is actually infinite with respect to our time-bound and space-bound life – it is, in fact, the ultimate Infinite Microcosm.

Two extraordinary realizations concerning the Earth soon began to stand out, both of which augmented my new status as an alien astronaut: **

The first was that the Earth actually encompasses more than one planet – so, in effect, I was exploring many planets. The reason for this is that our planet possesses an extreme variety of landscapes, natural wonders, human cultures, customs and ceremonies, which are often so far removed from the world we are accustomed to that they seem as if they belong to other worlds. This may sound paradoxical, since everything on our planet belongs to it by default. Still, when I first experienced these remote and alien-to-me “other worlds,” I felt that I was on a Star Trek that took me light-years beyond Earth’s gravity. And the most incredible of all is that I did not even have to board Jean Luc-Picard’s spaceship Enterprise to achieve it.

The spaceship, surprisingly, turned out to be a simple boat! I only needed to climb aboard, visit White Island off the coast of New Zealand, and don a gas mask to protect me from the volcanic fumes to travel to another planet. This planet actually belongs to … another galaxy, the center of which lies a little bit further south, on the North Island of New Zealand: the extended volcanic area of Rotorua, with its steaming valleys, lakes, and many other odd features.

A boat, but also a snorkeling mask! Exploring, even with these simple goggles, the other-worldly Great Barrier Reef in Australia, or even the stranger vertical reefs off the north coast of Sulawesi in Indonesia, is like entering a magical kingdom. Our oceans’ inexhaustible marine-scapes are only a dive away.

But also a drive away! One need only rent a car to drive through some of the most extraordinary extraterrestrial landscapes in the world – the wondrous national parks of Utah. Going through the Arches NP, Bryce, Zion, the Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, and more, feels like a journey through different planets belonging to other solar systems.

But one’s bare eyes and simple attention are all that is usually needed: Rare natural phenomena, such as the phantasmagoria of a lightning-filled sky during an electrical storm, when experienced with an open spirit of exploration and wonder, may also be considered portals that transport us to other worlds. There are also special cultural ceremonies that have the same effect: The strange Balinese Ketchak choral dance drama, where men behave like wild monkeys while playing with fire; or the Fiesta of the Virgin of Paucartambo in Peru, with its theatrical parades, marching bands, and fireworks, make the astronaut-traveler feel as if he has left the Earth.

The second, even more impressive realization, was that I could time travel! I was not just an ordinary astronaut, but one with abilities that are currently beyond the range of scientific possibility. When I climbed the active volcano Pacaya in Guatemala or witnessed the overflowing red lava of the Arenal volcano in Costa Rica, I came to experience what the Earth looked like millions of years ago. Similarly, when I walked on a glacier, I felt how the first humans may have lived during the Ice Age. When I visited a Stone Age tribe in the Solomon Islands and slept next to pigs on the lumpy floor of a thatched hut, I had traveled to humanity’s distant past. And in Fez in Morocco, I soon realized that I had entered a living medieval city whose residents live and work in almost the same fashion their ancestors did centuries ago. On the other end of the spectrum, in Japan, I got a sense of what the whole world might look like in the future (say, the twenty-second century). It is not just the technological advancements of the Japanese that set them apart. Often bypassed are their social mores: the way they rear their children, their sophisticated and detailed rules of propriety, their sense of aesthetics in everyday tasks, their elaborate work ethic, and their advanced sense of duty. Japan is a positive version of the future of humanity.

But I did not need to visit remote places or cultures that actually live in the past or in the future. A big part of ordinary travel already contains an element of time-travel. One of the reasons people travel to the ancient sites of Europe or explore the ruins of Mesoamerica is to somehow travel to the eras in which these architectural marvels were constructed and to imagine themselves being there. Throughout the centuries, archaeological and historic sites have lured educated travelers to other countries because these places ignite the imagination and help relate book knowledge to the space and time of older civilizations.

With the 50th anniversary of the Moon landing celebrated in 2019, I am overwhelmed with a sense of gratitude that I did actually achieve my childhood dream. I may not have been rocketed into space, I may not have traveled to the moon like Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins. But I did become an astronaut who has explored a multitude of planets, and a time-traveler who effortlessly jumped from one epoch to another by virtue of the simple act of becoming a world-traveler.

* It was during this period that I also discovered that behind the US space program lay the brains of more than 1,600 German scientists who were effectively “abducted” by the Americans immediately after WWII. The landing on the moon was actually the product of a collaboration between a group of great German minds headed by Wernher von Braun and American financial prowess and steadfast determination. Unfortunately, the Germans are rarely given their due nowadays. For example, in the otherwise excellent recent documentary, Apollo 11, there is not a single mention to the major contributions of the German team!

** In this section of the essay I have incorporated in modified form some passages from the first chapter of my book.

In my country it is called “Thermitron.” Here, they call it “Termo.”

It is an electric showerhead that instantly heats running cold water to provide a hot shower in remote places where the installation of elaborate water heaters and tanks is difficult or just too costly. While I’m in this part of the world, my morning and evening companion is my friend Termo.

Termo is a very sensitive, or rather very basic, showerhead. It needs a minimum amount of water flow to activate the heating coils. Once activated, the more you increase the water flow (water volume), the lower the water temperature becomes, since the same coils end up heating a larger amount of water as it passes through. Simply put: hotter temperature, less water. Because of this simple equation, Termo only has a single dial that one can turn clockwise or counter-clockwise to simply increase/decrease the volume of water (and proportionally decrease/increase the temperature). Consequently, at the point of maximum heat, which is the point of lowest water volume, Termo automatically switches off because there is not enough water going through the coils – the water flow falls below the minimum required to activate it. At this point, Termo leaves you standing in a deluge of freezing cold water. In other words, while you are enjoying the hottest possible water, if you turn the dial a millimeter more than you should, you end up frozen!

Here I am, for the last twenty minutes trying to regulate the water temperature in order to have a nice hot shower. But the hot is never hot enough – just warm. And as I’m about to get it right, just a little bit hotter…bloop, I get a quantum jump from the warmest to the coldest water. The point of maximum comfort and pleasure suddenly becomes freezing hell.

Having the perfect shower is impossible, but slowly-slowly (half an hour to regulate the water temperature gives one plenty of time to philosophize) I realize that my struggle with the playful behavior of Termo is a perfect simulation of Life itself:

Our moments of greatest triumph can often be the beginning of a fall; the highest peaks are the points from which only descent is possible. Was not the Greeks’ furthest expansion, with Alexander’s conquest, the beginning of the end of their Classical Civilization? Did not Britain’s victory in the Second World War mark the end of her global empire? Is not the moment of our highest wisdom, in deep old age, the moment of our maximum physical deterioration?

There is still more: what separates my property from yours is a thin wooden fence around the garden, as thin, compared to the size of the earth, as the millimeter that separates Termo’s hot from cold water. What separates life from death is a single heartbeat that goes missing. What keeps sanity from insanity is a thin line one might cross in a single moment of weakness.

But Termo’s rich symbolism does not end here. Like its running water, it keeps the stream of symbols and analogies flowing:

Termo teaches us the simple fact that “Life is not easy.” Like a Termo shower, our life is in constant need of adaptations. It requires constant mindfulness, endless readjustments, a harmonizing of opposing forces and elements. Is not the constant dance between our dreams and aspirations on the one hand, and our constant failings on the other, what moves the strings of our lives? Are we not all constantly dancing between our changing moods – between our own personal hot and cold? Is not our whole life but one long balancing act – are we not all tightrope walking, constantly readjusting the water temperature?

Termo also perfectly simulates our ordinary daily life with its endless desires: What does our normal daily life consist of? We first desire something (hot water). We achieve it (nice warm water running over our bodies). But then we get used to it (we take it for granted) and start thinking “what if it were just a little bit warmer?” The handle-dance begins: more money, larger house, greater social status, fame. And we start dancing to the tune of our own music, around the cravings of our own creation. Our desire for more does not allow us to enjoy what we already have. Yet in the end, most of us manage to go through life and live our days in full, playing a game we ourselves have chosen (even though we often ascribe it to other external “forces”). Just like in the end, with Termo cooperating with or resisting all my efforts, I always somehow manage to have a shower!

If all the elements that constitute our being alive were to be given one simple and clear symbol, I think my friend Termo would be as good as any other. But we are not done yet. For Termo keeps his final secret guarded until the end:

What sets Termo apart from all other gas or electric water heaters and tanks is one major advantage that more than balances all its nerve-breaking defects: it gives an endless supply of hot water.Unlike the gas or electric heaters that heat a specific amount of water in a reservoir that runs out once it is used, Termo continuously transforms an endless cold stream into an endless hot one. So one can enjoy a hot shower for as long as one wishes. Herein lies the major symbol of Termo: our days on earth, like the hot water that never ends, are ceaselessly renewed, abundantly offered for as long as we are alive. Irrespective of what comes and goes in our lives, Life itself, the constant stream of aliveness that is at the core of our being, never ceases – even if we, as a rule, fail to feel it, notice it, or even acknowledge its existence. Although our body is constructed of molecules of dead matter (like the dead cold water entering Termo), our being is continuously permeated by Life. A Life that is like the warm, soothing, abundantly supplied water of Termo.

Japan is, first of all, the greenest country I have ever seen. Even more so than Bali or New Zealand—a great part of which became grazing fields. Its natural beauty is overwhelming, not least because it strikes the unsuspecting traveler departing from any modern Japanese city with a strange contrasting force. Verdant mountains, lakes, rivers, waterfalls, geothermic areas, and active volcanoes are to be found throughout the country. Furthermore, the Japanese augment what nature has bestowed upon them: The Japanese man-made landscaping is simply beyond anything else on the planet with its masterly rice terraces, geometrical cultivated fields, manicured flower beds, and traditional tsukiyama gardens. Japan’s rural architecture, although modern, has traditional design elements. Many villages and isolated houses in the countryside blend into their surrounding landscape, often as perfectly as the villages of Tuscany or Provence.

The strangest thing is that the visitor encounters all these rural marvels in a highly advanced industrial nation—one with the fastest trains and Internet, the most well-preserved highways, and the best mobile-phone connectivity in the world. Trains in Tokyo run by the second, not by the minute. Japan is the most technologically advanced society in the world, by far. Tokyo is the most futuristic-looking city (even though Dubai perhaps surpasses it in outward appearance) with advanced systems, small and big, that permeate everything, whether it be traffic signals, the subway, or facilities in offices, restaurants, or cafes. Strolling the streets of Tokyo or Fukuoka, getting lost inside the futuristic shopping malls or visiting an industrial complex, one cannot fail to realize that the Japanese have a technological “literacy” on a completely different level than the rest of the world. For example, everybody under the age of sixty knows how to program the ten or so different brands of GPS systems in cars in less than a minute—something that is critical in helping one travel with a rental car along the whole length of the country.

Although Japan is so advanced technologically, and one would have expected automation to have replaced human contact almost everywhere, the opposite is the case. In some utterly unexplainable way, Japan manages not only to retain its human face and values, but to cultivate the art of human services to an unimaginable degree. Customer service in Japan is a century ahead of the US. This is so, because at the heart of the extremely complicated and elaborate Japanese customs lies a deep respect of “the other” (any other) and an authentic passion to serve and please. In which other place on earth does the taxi driver round down the fare in favor of the customer? In which other city in the world does a senior manager walking in the street with his colleagues leave his group to accompany a tourist (who has just asked him for directions) to his destination 300 meters away, so that he makes sure the tourist does not get lost? I will never forget a restaurant owner who accompanied us to the street bowing a hundred times on the way. He then stayed with us until the ordered taxi came, and never losing eye-contact, he kept waving good-bye for a minute after we entered the taxi until the car was out of his sight.

But customer service is only the most visible outward expression of this complex society. The Japanese culture encompasses a myriad of other aspects that cannot be explored in a short essay. Still, I would like to highlight a few things about these unique people. The Japanese have very sophisticated social and ethical norms. There is a social awareness that is grounded in mutual respect, politeness, aesthetics, refined rules of conduct. The passing visitor cannot easily unveil this, although he can easily feel and experience it. Education and child-rearing have reached a level unequaled in any other country. Young and adult Japanese alike exude a maturity beyond their years. I have not seen a child crying in Japan, nor a mother holding a kid by the hand when walking in the street. Most often children walk behind or next to their mothers, with a confident stride, the mother almost oblivious to their presence. Elementary school children demonstrate an air of independence and focus of attention that I have not encountered elsewhere. This is an advanced society, in a definitive and absolute way, however one may wish to define the term. And precisely because it is so advanced, it is sometimes mysterious to the rest of us, or, oftentimes, utterly misunderstood. That is why many visits are necessary to delve deeper and understand this fascinating culture.

If I were to choose one word to describe Japan, one that would include all of the above and more, it would be Beauty. In everything the Japanese create, in all they do, and in their social interactions and manners, there is an underlining emphasis on beauty, harmony, and exceptional quality. In landscaping and interior design, in the way they dress and walk, in how they pack the items in the supermarket, or serve food in a restaurant, or refuel the tank at a gas station, the Japanese express beauty in their everyday life like no other nation on earth does. Actually, since the Japanese are the best-dressed people in the world, we could go so far as to claim that they literally embody beauty! It is not that they are wealthy and spend an inordinate amount of money on good clothes and accessories (although this may be partly true). Rather, it is that they grew up being taught how to dress with style and taste, and they carry this for life as part of their personal well-being. They consider it their obligation, both to themselves and especially to others, to be aesthetically pleasant, attractive and beautiful. Some of these well-dressed moving bodies resemble living ikebana arrangements or mini landscaped gardens beautifying the stern lifeless cityscapes through which they move. One wonders how the rest of the world came up with the strange and quite irrational idea of dressing up only for special occasions! For the Japanese every single working day is a special day.

But beauty extends beyond form, to manners. The Japanese have a grace of movement in whatever they do: walk, sit, talk, eat, lie down to relax. This is one of the most difficult things to describe, because it is not specific to any one thing. This gracefulness permeates everything, yet it is ungraspable. To the sensitive eye, it unveils a depth of upbringing and overall education of the highest order. When a shopgirl passes you the small tray to put your money on to pay her (the Japanese don’t like to exchange money hand to hand) while uttering a soft-spoken arigato, there is a harmony in her movements and sound that no description can convey. Even though many behaviors are the product of strict rules of propriety and rigid traditions, the Japanese have managed to willingly interweave them into their individual souls. Therefore, the expression of such strict and elaborate manners and traditions is, paradoxically, uncontrived and spontaneous.

This brings us to the famous Japanese work ethic that is so far ahead of the rest of the world that, I dare claim, has reached the supreme ideal of karma yoga: the concept that someone is totally dedicated to his work and its perfection without regard for the reward. But so many things have been written about the Japanese work ethic that I need not say anything more here.

Of course, all this does not mean that Japan has no negative aspects. No society has ever reached absolute perfection. Some things had to be compromised for Japan to achieve such advancement. There is a tendency toward conformity and imitation; considerable rigidity that occasionally borders on the absurd; over-exertion in work and workaholism (evidenced by subway cars full of sleeping people); there are many societal and financial pressures to succeed, perform, and advance. However, when all aspects of this society are taken into account, the net result is one of a great living civilization that all nations on earth ought to study and learn from.

I would actually dare claim that Japan is the only country currently living in the twenty-second century! So, if one wants to see a positive version of the future of humanity, a glimpse of the planet after all of us will have passed away, Japan is the place to visit. This country represents today’s equivalent of Greece in the fifth century BC, Rome in the second century CE, Florence in the fifteenth century CE, or Britain in the nineteenth century CE. Although Japan failed to forcefully exert its influence around the world as other great civilizations did—albeit trying hard!—and although it is confined to a relatively small area, still, its position and influence in the modern world far outweigh its size and population. Japan leads the world (or is among the top leaders) in science, technology, manufacturing, business, contemporary art, fashion and design, the culinary arts, classical music, architecture, social policies, customer services. Even in the field of religion, where countries with a much longer history and development have had the “lead” for centuries, Japan, through Zen Buddhism, has given a most potent new approach for the modern individual.

What a pity that so few people actually travel to Japan, and that from those who do travel, so few leave the triangle of Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto. People ought to come and study this country and learn from it, as the Japanese studied and imitated the West 150 years ago. It is time for all of us to imitate the imitators who ended up surpassing those they imitated.

Overall, I think Japan is, at this moment in time, the most advanced civilization on earth.

This essay was first published in the Huff Post on July 27, 2016.

I had been searching for the Arabia of my childhood imagination for a long time. I had searched for the archetypal magical world of the 1001 Arabian Nights, “The Thief of Baghdad,” the magic carpets, the mysterious towns with narrow streets, the noisy colorful bazaars, the Muslim chants and unfamiliar music. I had searched in the heart of Asia (Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Iran), in the Near East (Egypt, Syria, Lebanon), on the Arabian Peninsula (Emirates, Oman). Nothing. In Central Asia, the communist era has destroyed all elements of the traditional past, forcing a homogenization of all its cultures. Iran was given a double blow: first by the Shah with his Westernization, and then by the Ayatollahs with their fanatic Islamization, which left almost nothing of the old standing. The ancient Persian towns of Kashan and Yazd are faint reflections of their glorious past. Iraq and Syria, striving to become modern and imitate the West, have preserved little of their unique culture, and are now sadly one huge war zone. The Arabian Peninsula, aspiring to become the Arab equivalent of futuristic Japan, has become a medley of highways, skyscrapers, shopping malls, and artificial islands! As for the famous old markets of the Middle East, such as the El-Khalili bazaar of Cairo, they are nothing but soulless tourist façades.

I was about to proclaim the disappearance of the Arabia of the imagination – at least in the form that had been luring Europeans for centuries. However, just as I was about to depart from the region where the old Arabian civilization once flourished, at the westernmost tip of Africa I discovered the only country that has preserved a big part of the old Arabian world intact: Morocco. Ironically, Morocco is the least Arab of the Arab countries, due to its strong indigenous Berber culture and the modern French and cosmopolitan influences. Yet, the Moroccans have managed to navigate masterfully through all influences, and to modernize without losing their soul. No other Arab country can claim as many well-preserved medieval towns as Morocco. Marrakesh, Essaouira, Meknes, Sefrou, Chefchaouen, to name the ones that stand out, are incredible towns, each with its own unique Moroccan character. But above all of these town-jewels, there is one city that keeps alive the magical world of our imagination. Sitting alone on its royal throne, it is the Queen of all medieval cities, the true heir of the 1001 Arabian Nights: Fez.

Fes el Bali, the Medina or old town of Fez, is the most fascinating and enchanting town of both the Arab World and the African continent. Built in the 8th century C.E., Fez was the capital of Morocco until 1912. Boasting the oldest continuously operating university in the world, Al Quaraouiyine, which was founded in 859 C.E., Fez has been the cultural, social, and spiritual heart of Morocco for centuries. Today, the old town of Fez is the only accessible preserved living medieval city in the world. It is living, because unlike most other medieval cities, it is not artificially maintained just for tourists. Encircled by high walls stretching for eight kilometers, the Medina’s inhabitants live a normal life and work there, preserving their centuries-old crafts and skills. And although many modern comforts and amenities, like electricity and mobile phones, are of course present, the rhythm and pace of the city is the same as it has been for many centuries. This is helped by the fact that the Medina is the largest car-free pedestrian area on the planet, and it is also much less touristy than the other great towns of Morocco.

A typical work day You need not read anything about Fez beforehand. You need no map, no list of sites. For there is only one way to explore it: enter Fez through its magnificent blue gate, get lost in its labyrinth-like alleyways, and allow it to consume, absorb, and assimilate you. As you meander under an endless series of arches, just observe the women filling their jugs with water at the communal fountains, the faithful taking off their slippers before entering the mosque for prayer, the children playing in the narrow streets. Walk along the covered markets, the wonderful squares, pass through the metal-workers’ quarter, the baboush slippers quarter, the fabric market, the legendary tanneries. Admire the interlaced blue glazed tiles and intricate woodwork adorning the buildings’ façades. Step into hidden basements to see stained glass lanterns and bronze chandeliers, and enter into the grand multi-storied riads to finally discover your own Arabian magic carpet! And make your walk “a long one” so that “with what pleasure, what joy!” you may stop… “to buy fine things, mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony, sensual perfume of every kind— as many sensual perfumes as you can” … as Cavafy says in his immortal poem “Ithaca,” which alludes to this Arabia of the imagination. Cavafy’s deliberate focus on smells actually touches the heart of hearts of Fez. For nothing moves the visitor’s soul as strongly as the mixture of Fez’s disparate smells that constantly change and recombine as one meanders, creating a ceaseless stream of sensual phantasmagoria: the smell of worked leather mixed with that of oxtail brewed in casserole, or the smell of freshly laundered shirts drying in the sun combined with the refined scents of mint tea enjoyed by old men in jelabiahs. The smells, but also the sounds of Fez: the merchants’ voices, the butchers’ commanding shouts, the clanking of large metal bowls carried by donkeys, the muezzin’s repeated calls for prayer. It is its smells and sounds that in the end conquer the visitor, who, as Cavafy suggests in his poem, ends up postponing forever the return to his lodging, subconsciously pretending to lose his way back. Fez is the archetypal magical Arabian city of our childhood imagination. And, surprisingly, it actually exists.

Traditional handmade baboush slippers

Choose your magic carpet!

As a child of the 1970s, I was fascinated by the nascent exploration of space. I spent a good part of my teenage years in bookshops searching for books that explained the American and Soviet space-programs or had amazing colour photos of the Apollo missions. The new frontier seemed to be replete with new and unimaginable possibilities. It was also at this time that most of the theories of extra-terrestrial life were explored as never before in the history of humanity. The whole spirit of the age was contained in the Pioneer 10 spacecraft, launched by NASA in 1972, which included the first aluminum plaque with information about the Earth and humanity addressed to any alien civilization that may have found it. The universe seemed to be a mysterious and magical place once again, and it was ready to be revealed to those who spent time exploring it.

So, when I was not mesmerized watching the black and white moon landings of the Apollo missions shown on TV, or movies like Close Encounters of the Third Kind shown in cinemas, I was immersed in books about mysteries, the supernatural, and advanced lost civilizations. I grew up reading the non-fiction bestsellers of the day, such as Erich von Däniken’s In Search of Ancient Gods and Robert Temple’s The Sirius Mystery, which supposedly proved that advanced extra-terrestrial astronauts visited the earth in ancient times. In particular, Temple’s theory was that these visitors landed amidst the Dogon tribe in Mali sometime in the third millennium BCE and planted the seeds of science and technology that would later be disseminated and transformed into the Egyptian civilization.

All these theories kept me busy thinking and investigating throughout my adolescence. Däniken’s, Temple’s, and other similar books were crucial during those formative years. They made me investigate ideas on my own, and forced me to think out of the box. Not to mention the hundreds of heated conversations I had with friends and adults, trying to convince them with rational arguments and “scientific evidence” that, unlike them, I knew the most important secrets of the world’s past!

Although the theses and arguments of these writers have long since been disproved by many scientists and researchers, the lure of their ideas is still alive. I still feel a romantic longing for all those theories and the unique zeitgeist of the 70s and 80s. It was another world back then.

Well, being an incorrigible Doubting Thomas about everything, including all the debunking of scientists, I wanted to personally investigate Temple’s theory up close. So when I was traveling around Africa I included a “small expedition” to the Dogon tribes in Mali for a few days. Would the Dogon be different from other African tribes still living in the preindustrial age? Would I see in the Dogons’ eyes the spark of a Klingon, a Romulan or a Vulcan?* I was determined to find out for myself.

Piloting our motorbikes from Bandiagara to the heartland of the Dogon country, we made a pit stop in Ogousogou, a remote village that rarely sees any visitors. As is usually the case in such isolated places, I became an instant star and had kids following me everywhere. Suddenly, I realized that being a white man, wearing strange shorts and a huge motorbike helmet, I really looked like … an ancient astronaut from another solar system re-visiting the Dogon! Spontaneously, I decided to start behaving weirdly amid the surprised kids, augmenting their enthusiasm and awe. I started dancing, and the mesmerized little Earthians soon joined in by singing and clapping. Jane started capturing the monumental encounter on film.

All my teenage sci-fi reading, my decades-long search for mysteries, lost civilizations, and more, seemed to converge on this one impromptu moment.

Without realizing it at the time, I finally became the extra-terrestrial I was searching for!

PS: A few days later, while traveling from village to village among the Dogon, I was bitten by a very special Earthian mosquito who had found a rare delicacy in my exotic blood. Soon after, I was carried through the rock canyons and bushes to a hospital in the nearest town, Bandiagara. There, I would sweat profusely, ache, moan, and vomit while trying to recover from malaria. Instead of seeing the spark of extra-terrestrials in the Dogon eyes, I ended up seeing the huge eyes of my African doctor, who worked ancient space-age miracles to heal me.

* Reference to the corresponding fictional alien civilizations in my beloved TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation that was aired in the late 1980s.

On board a minibus in Guatemala, from the town of Coban to the village of Uspantan in 2005, I had a wide range of experiences that led to many inspirations. Later I would write a number of essays under the general title “Uspantan (A, B, C…),” the first of which was included in my book “Destination Earth.” Although these short essays are so disparate in their subject matter, I always felt that there was an invisible thread of harmony and rhythm connecting them, like the movements of a quartet. Somehow, the whole is more than its parts. Here it is in all its purity.

Chickens On board a mini-bus on my way from Coban to Uspantan traveling through the Guatemalan Highlands – the heart of the modern Mayan Nation. Me and my huge red suitcase, for which I bought an extra ticket so that it could travel as a passenger inside the bus – otherwise the driver would have put it on the roof and my books could have been soaked by a tropical downpour. Me and my books: cramped between legs and boxes and bottles and colorful Mayan blankets and baskets. We are 22 people cramped inside a bus made to carry 12 without luggage. I was wondering why they call them “chicken-buses.” I never saw anybody carrying a chicken on board. Well, now I know: We are the chickens!

What an irony: The national bird of Mexico is the magnificent Aztec-eagle; the national bird of Belize is the exotic toucan; that of Guatemala the otherworldly quetzal; and that of Honduras the scarlet macaw, the most colorful bird on the planet. Yet, all of us in these lands, locals and visitors alike, have been reduced to miserable chickens, cramped and squeezed in old, dirty, smelly, and uncomfortable cages-on-wheels moving from village to village on the donkey-paths they call roads. The eagle has lost its wings, the toucan its playful mood, the macaw its palette of colors, and the quetzal – the sacred bird of the Mayas – its freedom.

Books
I turn back to check if my suitcase is OK. There it is: my enormous Bordeaux-red suitcase standing out among all other objects in the back of the mini-bus. It looks so foreign among the colorful baskets full of food and personal items. Next to the suitcase, between two local Mayan farmers who occasionally push it a little bit to make more room for their crushed legs, sits my other huge black bag with 20 kilos of books.

My books: Aurobindo’s Synthesis of Yoga, Brother David’s The Music of Silence, a teach-yourself-Spanish method, an English dictionary, books about the Aztecs, the Mayas, the conquest of the Americas, travel books. And my most recent proud acquisition, sent from my home country by post to prepare me for my upcoming travels to the South Pacific: an enormous black hardcover book from grandpa’s old library, with the imposing turn-of-the-twentieth century title, The Indigenous Tribes of the World. Buried in those pages is an amazing black and white photograph of a cannibal that gave me goose bumps when I first saw it as a teenager! Books, books, books, feeling each and every pothole, each and every curve of the Guatemalan highlands’ rugged dirt road connecting the isolated Mayan villages.

Will there ever be another time when Sri Aurobindo will be traveling along this route?!

(Maybe I’m funny.)

And then, my music in the digital player: Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, the Beatles, Alela, Hadjidakis, … traditional Russian songs with Galina Kovaliova. Me and my odd international company, a huge colorful troupe, invisible to others, moving from village to village as small circuses used to do in Europe not long ago.

(Yes, now I’m absolutely certain: I’m really funny!)

Simulator
I close my eyes. I imagine being in the digital simulator in Trocadero (an amusement park in London). All the ups and downs I experience are just movements of the simulator-capsule that have been programmed by the expert computer engineer to give me a Guatemalan highlands trip. It is quite convincing, actually.

The smells have been masterfully introduced, while the wind is created by special fans on the side. The sounds are the work of a very imaginative sound engineer, who recorded them in a studio in London. I’m still. Sitting inside the simulator capsule. There is no real world around me through which I move. There is no road, bus, mountains, towns, or people. It is all a well-constructed virtual reality show. I’m in Trocadero. I can leave the capsule any time I wish. I only have to press the red button in front of me. It’s all a grand amusement. A game. The Lila of Hindus. How did I ever think it was real?

Color
I’m the only “pure white” in the bus. In Europe I’m a dark Southern European. Here I’m also tall. In Europe I’m a dwarf next to a Swede or a Dutch. The locals here have to turn their heads up to look at me. What a strange feeling to be tall! Is it possible that what I perceive as their “politeness,” which often borders on downright servility, is nothing but their natural instinctive subservient attitude toward the white Spaniards (with their haciendas), developed and cultivated over the past five centuries? I hate to imagine such a connection and cringe at the thought.

But suddenly Einstein’s Relativity Theory comes to mind to clear things up! Contrary to what most people think, Einstein’s Theory is not about the “relativity of everything.” It is about the absoluteness of the universe. Space and Time are relative because we unnaturally separated them from one another in order to make sense of the world in our everyday lives. But four-dimensional Spacetime is absolute! Wherever you are, at whatever time, once you get the four coordinates of Spacetime they are invariant. Einstein revealed the invariance of Spacetime, its absoluteness.

Back to color. Now everything falls into place. Just as Space and Time are relative in Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, skin colors similarly vary and have a relative significance at different places and historical times – White, Brown, Black, and more. However, there’s always a Scale of Color that, like Spacetime, is absolute. Wherever you are, at whatever age and time, someone will always tell you where you belong on that scale. And here, at this place and moment in history, by being the whitest, others position me at the top of the hierarchy of color!

Comforts
Here I am, in this remote corner of the world, consenting to experience the daily life of the less fortunate of the earth. Of course, the people here do not experience my discomfort while traveling with me in the bus. That’s what they grew up taking for granted. What constitutes my discomfort is probably their greatest fortune – for to be able to travel in a bus here is a kind of privilege; at least it means one has managed to save some money for the journey. Most move on foot or by standing (or hanging!) on the back of pickup trucks.

Comforts. What are comforts? We grow into comforts. We improve upon the known, get used to the new, and consider the older state to be less comfortable. But our improved state is soon taken for granted, and we seek something still more comfortable.

Hard-soft-softer-softest toilet paper. Hard-soft-softer mattress. Synthetic-cotton-silk. There is no end to the grades of comfort we keep redefining and modifying. However, at each and every moment, we become adapted to what we have become accustomed to through our previous adaptations. So, paradoxically, each and every person on this earth is already comfortable with what he has by virtue of accepting it as his normal state of being. For he knows no better. When he comes to know better, then he may make this better his new aspiration. But while striving toward the new, his present state still provides the comfort of the familiar.

In the final analysis, every person alive chooses to go on living, irrespective of his present state. Every person chooses life rather than its cessation. Being alive has an inherent value that very few states can cancel. This “aliveness-value” of life represents, in the end, a kind of absolute comfort. We are “comfortable” with our being alive. With our being-in-the-world. With going-on-being. With our given-at-each-moment state of affairs. Even now, here, seemingly in a state of utter discomfort, I am in reality in a state of comfort, for I have both chosen to experience the normal state of other people and also have consented to go on experiencing it even after I became acquainted with it. So my discomfort is unreal, illusory; at any moment of my choosing, I can stop it. I can jump out of the bus and rent a taxi, or rest and continue the next day, or even stay in any one of these villages for a week!

Furthermore, I have to admit that I have the unique comfort of being able to philosophize – as I do now. Philosophizing presupposes that all the other discomforts that keep the majority of the less-fortunate-than-I in bonds and chains have been dealt with. Philosophizing is, in the final analysis, the ultimate luxury!

Well, I would like to believe that, although truly privileged to belong to the very small percentage of people on our planet blessed with so many comforts including the ultimate one, I still do not lean one-sidedly on the “Universe of Comfort.” For philosophy and its quest for meaning have their own inherent discomforts and even suffering – the mental, the psychological, the spiritual. In the end, all of us, immersed in the default comfort of being-alive, simply move like a pendulum between our constantly shifting comforts, and our relative discomforts.

We were supposed to reach Uspantan an hour ago. Glad we didn’t.