Don't kill chivalry just yet.

I spent some time working in Latin America, back in 1999.

I quickly realized that treating people different because of their gender was not only acceptable, but expected of me. For instance,  at a crowded elevator, women would exit first whether they were standing right by the door or all the way back.  I was pushed out of the way a couple of times and got dirty looks from them as they zoomed passed me. 

My coworker, a local, explained that men should not leave an elevator until all the women have, even if the elevator is not on fire.  Chivalry in Latin American culture, he explained, was the way men and women showed respect for each other.  

I remember bringing this tidbit of inter-cultural wisdom to my middle aged female boss in Chicago.  Her answer was sharp:  Yep, you Latin guys are all pigs!! I had heard this comment before, so I was ready.  OK, if chivalry holds women back, why there have been dozens of women presidents in Latin countries and not one in the US?  My boss was stunned by the question.

A couple of weeks ago,  I purposely looked for an opportunity to act like a "gentleman" in a work situation, this time in Connecticut.  I volunteered to carry my coworkers's rollie-briefcase.  I felt triumphant for about two seconds ( hey, she agreed!), but it really didn't feel quite right after that. Looking at the situation with a North American mindset, I was either being overly subservient to a work peer, or hitting on her.  Ughh.

Maybe the US culture has moved too far from chivalry in the workplace that it now feels contrived. This could be good thing, specially after watching "Mad Men" and seeing how women were treated both at work and at home back in the sixties. 

We feel that we have gone such a long way, but the culture has taken several steps back. All the hip-hop, rap, country and pop culture blatantly objectivizes women.  Shaking it and twerking it is the way to go to make a quick buck in the music industry if you are a woman.  Shakira, the poetic songwriter from Colombia, has made it big shaking her hips. No lie.  We need a cultural vaccine against this trend.  Chivalry may be it. 

If based on mutual respect, it is a life enhancing behavior. In Latin countries, it's this deep sense of respect and appreciation for women that drives both men's polite behavior and their votes when they are warranted.  

    

Hearts and minds

I enjoy playing the role of the gracious host during my summer dinner parties. Curiously enough, my dog also turns up the charm during those events.  She walks around and greets and meets with the best of them.  She is a guard dog by breed and naturally distrustful of strangers, but she takes the cues from me and acts playful and friendly towards the guests.  It is hard to miss the connection between me and my dog Sage. 

During dinner, an old friend of mine asked me if I would buy another dog after Sage is gone.  She mentioned that her dog passed away a few years back and she’d never buy another.  There were many reasons why not to bother, the walks during winter, having to pay for housing during family trips, having to deal with all the maintenance and the expense of caring for the animal. In conclusion, a drain of energy, time and money. 

Interestingly enough, I had to agree with every one of her reasons.  At an intellectual level it all made sense to me.  At that point Sage somehow noticed that we were talking about her.  She came over to sit by my side.  What a beautiful creature she is, caring and perceptive. I completely enjoy the warmth of this bond between us.

Love is when your heart listens to what the mind has to say and still shrugs. 

We have moved!

New address:

www.yoloconcepts.com

Great sex- chapter 1

Sex is everyone's obsession.  At the grocery store, most magazine covers will feature some type of article about better sex as their main feature.

The interesting thing is that these articles are geared towards the younger crowd, the mainly vibrant and healthy folks whose bad habits haven't had enough time to interfere with their body's natural ability to thoroughly enjoy themselves in bed.

This group does not need to spend any time reading the "Cosmopolitan words of wisdom", they have plenty of free time and energy to experiment on their own. Lack of experience? This should be a good reason to read less and get more "hands on" experience.  

Men and women are trying to impress their partners using sex to either stroke their own ego, gain power or win a competitive sex game to secure a mate.  Sex then becomes about something else, not about intimacy, but about relationship power.  A sort of competitive sport performance. 

Ouch, why did we get so much in our on way?

Marketing is the science of fulfilling needs with products.  The more needs companies create, the more products they sell.  Do you have the right clothes, shoes, make up, perfume, follow the the right diet, drive the right car, the right restaurant?  The marketing machine creates a vortex of requirements for success.  Our minds can become very complicated, needy and insecure places if we buy into this. The more we stay in our own heads, the more disconnected will be from our bodies and our emotions, the places where all the good stuff happens.  

What is the best sex you can ever have?  

If you ask the question to a bunch of people, the most common answer is: "make up sex".  This is the no-bullshit, simply the "I'm-glad-you-are-with-me-'cause-I-really-thought-we-were-toast-five-minutes-ago" feeling at work.  Explosive positive emotions for each other makes for the greatest sex. You have to find ways to get there without having to constantly piss off Jane Doe.  In other words, skip the fight and go directly to the make up sex, will you?

  

El Gordo - The Big One.

Since 1812, buying an “El Gordo” lottery ticket has been a Spanish Christmas tradition as dear to everyone in the old country as setting up the Christmas tree or displaying a nativity scene.   

El Gordo is a very democratic lottery system.  About 70% of the money collected is paid out; in 2013 the number was an extraordinary 2.5 billion Euros. Hundreds of numbers win, even though there is only one “Big Prize” “El Gordo” that will get a 4 million Euro payout. 

Even the otherwise gluttonous Spanish IRS will give the winners a break and take only 20% off the top. An extraordinary number of people end up winning some type of prize.  For the rest, the non-winners, December 22^nd is also called “Health day”.  Hey!, you still have your health.

Everything about “El Gordo” oozes tradition.  Artistically carved in small wooden balls, the numbers are randomized in two large and shiny copper-wire spheres.  An enormous one, on the right, holds the 100,000 numbers at play and a smaller one on the left, for the winning amounts.  As the spheres spin, the wooden balls make a unique sound that I will always associate with Christmas and good fortune.

A team of two kids reads the numbers using a special singing voice. The children are closely supervised by an adult, whose only job is to make sure the abacus-like board is properly filled with rows and rows of winning numbers.

When I was a kid growing up in Spain, it was hard to avoid hearing the angelical voices of the children singing the numbers out loud in that melodic tone.  As you walked down the street all the small local businesses had a TV or a radio on, tuned to the drawing.  The children’s voices were something special and their signing of the numbers, a jewel of cultural uniqueness. 

That time of the year, especially during bad economic times, the apparent “easy odds” drove many people to hang all their financial hopes on winning "El Gordo".  One of my neighbors, the owner of a “hole-in-the-wall” newspaper stand, won.  He had bought a fractional ticket, so his winnings were probably less than a million dollars.  For a poor man with a history of financial trouble, that amount must have seemed an inexhaustible fortune. The time had come for him and his young family. 

Over the next year and a half, he blew through all his winnings and got into debt. He bought two Mercedes Benz(s), the second one right after a drunk-driving accident. Realizing that his money wouldn't last long, he became a compulsive gambler. In the process of becoming a high roller he befriended dozens of women of ill repute that, he thought, would bring him good luck. The experience destroyed his marriage and his newfound fortune.  He ended up selling his newspaper stand and moving out of town in shame. He was now a divorced alcoholic with severe health issues. 

El Gordo is a fantastic tradition and I hope it maintains its present form for years to come. May the carved wooden balls survive well into a future world of networked machines and shiny holograms.  This is a tradition that blends all the best elements of the Spanish culture in terms of timeless style, social solidarity, a strong connection with the Christmas spirit of giving, hope, and the key role of family. 

El Gordo will continue to spread good fortune to hundreds of people for years to come. As the philosopher said, good fortune is a tasteless drink.  It is up to the one that holds the cup to turn this drink into one of water, wine or poison.

The Rudolph files

One of my favorite Christmas stories is Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.  It is a Christmas story about being different.  Rudolph's glowing red nose, a shameful feature that had to be kept hidden from Santa, ended up saving Christmas.

Our magical time as children, when we experience life flowing and openly, ends abruptly when we compare ourselves with others. "Am I like everybody else?". This is the precise moment when our early childhood ends.  In the movie, Rudolph's childhood, unfortunately, was only a few seconds long. 

Buying into social definitions marks the beginning of our the lifelong endeavor of creating an acceptable front to the world.  Somewhere along this process, our true self may get buried under an avalanche of convention.  Developing a persona is an important step in growing up, but if in the process we lose our connection with our core, we are in trouble. This is where our energy, creativity and joy for life reside as well.   The further away our persona is from our true self, the harder our life will be.  

In this process of developing a persona that reflects who you really are, nothing beats the company of open minded, clever people that have done this before.  Nothing is more toxic than the influence of people that severed their own connection. My advise to you, hone your skills, treasure your uniqueness and remember that saving Christmas could be up to you someday.   

The Santa files

For years the Sears catalog offered a Santa Claus hotline. Children that were too young to write a letter to Santa could just call in their wish list.

The legend goes that the 1955 edition of the catalog had a misprint.  The phone number shown was the direct emergency line to the Commander in Chief of the Continental Air Defense Command, the military agency in charge of tracking airspace threats.  This was during the height of the cold war, when an all-out nuclear missile attack from the Soviet Union was a real possibility.

As Colonel Harry Shoup started getting calls from children from all over the country, he rolled with the punches and immediately ordered his staff to track the current position of Santa's sleigh as it flew south from the North Pole.  A new Santa tracking department was formed that year, manned by voluntary military personnel that would answer the children's calls.

The Colonel also got a new hotline with the president, just in case...

Over time, the US and Canada integrated their air tracking operations under the umbrella of the NORAD and their coverage only got better.  Today, the NORAD has a website and Santa's sleigh has GPS navigation.  Progress leaves no one behind. Check the site out below:

http://www.noradsanta.org/

The NORAD Tracks Santa Operations Center will open beginning at 4:00am MST on 12/24.

Via Phone: 1-877-HI-NORAD

A few years' back, when my son David's faith in Santa started dwindling, we called the NORAD hotline.  A very professional sounding young woman gave David a no nonsense update on Santa's present location and ETA to Connecticut.  As the lady suggested, that night we tracked Santa on the NORAD website.  David was elated.

It was great to rekindle a child's connection with magic for one more year, a tribute to Colonel Shoup that showed us that no matter how important our obligations are, being there for others, especially those people we don't know, is the true spirit of Christmas.