A REFRESHER ON WHY YOU SHOULD CONSIDER MEXICO AS A PLACE TO LIVE

I've said before, but it's always worth repeating.  Consider Mexico as a home, regardless of what your age is or what you do for a living.  It all starts with:

1) Abandon the notion that you just can't do it.  Necessity is the mother of invention, and you might need to leave here for a better situation somewhere else.  Mexico is the best option.

2) Purge your mind of almost everything you know about Mexico through American news sources.  It's mostly all bogus.  They have crime, yes, but many places there have far less crime than you live around here.  Their government is corrupt, you say?  Can you hear me laughing?  Like the one you live under here isn't?  Mexico is poor, you say?  Have you looked around lately?  It's here too, you know, and it affects upwards of half our population.  Mexico is backward?  Think of it this way: They didn't just elect a misogynist, xenophobic jerk to the highest office in the land, and we did.  I could go on and on about this, but the bottom line is:  Don't believe what you hear here, not from our press. Do your own research, go take a look for yourself.

3) Don't dive into the deep end of the pool without your floaties.  Plan adequately, make contacts, form alliances, and again, do the research.  You'll find out some interesting things.  All of them won't be good, but you'll know what you're up against and can weigh the costs of moving there against the benefits.  You'll find the benefits enticing.  I did, and it only took a short while to do that.  We all have different situations and circumstances to deal with.  I'll reveal mine, show you the difference, and you can go from there.

I live in a nice house in central Texas and am on a fixed retirement income.  We, the wife and I, have a steady bankable income of about $4,600 a month, but she still works to help make ends meet.  On a monthly basis we spend about a thousand a month just on various insurances.  A move to a nice town in Mexico cuts that in half, even a little more, and we're just as well insured.  We spend over five thousand a year here on just property taxes, and for the same kind of house in Mexico, that goes down to more like two hundred.  Utilities here can run as much as $1,000 a month, almost always around $800 (that's for a home and my wife's business), and in Mexico that would be no more than $100 a month.  Three things, folks, just those three things would save this family around $20,000 a year.  With other reduced cost of living there, that number edges up close to $30,000 a year.  I fact checked it all; it's not a myth.

4) Be prepared to give up some things, and one of them is your spoiled American attitude.  Be prepared to change and adjust to another culture.  Mexico is mostly a pay as you go society, and if you go there and try to live like you do here (credit cards and big debt), you're very little better off. You won't have to sacrifice in lifestyle, just mostly in your style.  Don't be the ugly American.  One of the hardest adjustments you'll face is to shake your fearfulness, something you've been trained to be here.  You can't be fearful of people who're not like you and get along well anywhere.

5) Relish the adventure.  What do you really have to lose?  Nobody leaves a place that's working well for them.  They go looking for a better life, and that doesn't just land in you lap.  I'm trying to make that move, and I'm 75 years old.  If I can do it, anybody can . . . if they need to, and want to.  My need to move there is greater than my wanting to be there.  In in a position to say, "I'd love to stay, but they won't let me."  Too many people want to take too much here.  I want out from under that.

WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU WERE A BILLIONAIRE?

How about going on an adventure to Whatiflund, a place where you could let your imagine run wild?What about going there with lots of money, enough to indulge your fantasy while there?  What would you do with an almost limitless supply of money?  You might find that you would do more practical things than you think you might, like creating a place that's unlike anything you can find here in the U.S.  Enter Hiram E. Butts, billionaire industrialist and the creator of Whatiflund, a real place and not just a wonderland.  Hiram had enough money to build anything that struck his fancy, and he knew the people who could get it done.  Everyone has toyed with ideas of what they would do with big money at their disposal.  I've dreamed of living in expensive houses, driving high dollar cars, traveling to places around the world, and living a high life . . . but I no longer want any of that.  If I had millions of dollars, I'd still drive a car like I own now, and I'd live in a house much like the one I have now, and I most certainly wouldn't travel the world.  But would I build a village where life is different than anywhere else?  Damn right, and I'd do it with lots of imagination.  And as a writer, I can build anything . . . even without the money to do it.  I'm going to build it in Whatiflund.

Once upon a time I studied to be a manager, took up the study of public administration, thinking I might end up being a city or country manager somewhere.  I scraped that idea in favor of a career in teaching, but I know some things about how government should be managed.  Almost any real student of public administration looks at the American system as a disaster zone, a place where politics takes precedence over practical management.  And we have to train people in this country to adapt to that style of management.  If you look beyond the confines of that, you'll find places and people who do it much better than we do . . . not just a little better, but a great deal better.  The U.S. is dregs of good management, almost top to bottom, and we all pay a big price for that.  In short, as a citizen of this country, you've been screwed by inefficiency.

What if government did function more efficiently?  What would life be like without all the oppressive demands from government on its citizenry?  Forget the oppression of income tax; it's not that bad. It's bad enough, but it's nothing compared to the other levies we're forced to pay.  You get doubled dipped every time government gets a chance.  Federalism is a fraud, this duplication of function idiocy we've created that only loosed more tax assessment and collection on our society.  And what do you get back for all that money?  Uh, would that be freedom?  Bullshit.  That's just bullshit to keep you paying out the ass.  If you check it out, you'll find free people living all over the world without all the tax pressure, or if they do pay higher taxes, they're actually getting something back . . . like decent health care coverage, or good educations, or an infrastructure that's maintained - the things you're not getting.  I'm pushing hard to get out of here and be free somewhere else, but in the meantime, I'll keep writing stories about places like Whatiflund.  I know these places don't exist in real life, but if we lose vision of what could be possible, we've lost everything.  And we're getting there.  We need to stop looking at the world around us from the top down, or the bottom up, and work toward finding something in the middle.  And we can't do that very well when we're neck deep in all the refuge our current system dumps on us.  We can still look up, and maybe that's where the answers are found.  I don't know anywhere else to look.

A SMART BIRD BUILDS A SAFE NEST

A smart bird builds a safe nest, but apparently all birds aren't smart.  You'd think a tall tree would be a safe bet, but cats climb trees and so do snakes and other predators.  Want your eggs kept safe?  Put 'em where the predators can't find them, and that's not easy to do.  If safe nests were in the order of things, the world would be overrun with birds . . . but it isn't.  Most of them aren't endangered, but some birds have already vanished.  Too many predators they couldn't stay clear of.  Makes you wonder if they weren't just dumb birds, but that's probably not the case.  Maybe they were highly sought after by predators because they tasted better than most birds, laid bigger eggs, or were for some reason considered a prize.   Perhaps you can see where I'm going with this analogy, but in many ways people are in the same boat with them.

Like birds, people seem to have a nesting instinct.  We want security, and most of our energies are spent trying to create safe homes.  We can't do that without money, and we can't get that without finding some way of making it.  Jobs, professions, a craft . . . that's what I'm talking about.  Earning money is all about being able to build our nests and settle in, and that's not easy to do.  Too many predators out there, too many people trying to find ways to get in our pockets.  That threatens our security, makes it hard for us to build strong nests.  Some of us overcome the obstacles and manage to prosper, but many of us don't.  Some people, like birds, just aren't as smart as others.  Some people, like birds, are more of a prize than others.

Nobody really prepares us for what will happen when we grow up and start building our own nests.  Our parents warn us about predators, and schools and other social institutions point out some of the pitfalls in life.  The problem here is that the predators are often considered the good guys in our society.  They don't look or act like predators, but they often are.  Take government for instance (you had to know I was going to get around to this).  We look to government to help us build strong nests by securing our basic freedoms.  And they do a pretty good job of this, better than most countries.  But to do that government is placed in the same position as a person.  To be secure and build a strong nest of its own, they need money.  You are the source of that money, and government doesn't miss chances at taking it away from you.  If you end up being a decent wage earner, say something like $75,000 a year, you'll end up giving somewhere around a fourth of that to government.  Depending on where you live, that might be more.  Some states and communities are tax friendly while others are tax predatory.  What this all means is that where you build  your nest can be important.

When it comes to finding good nesting ground it takes some research, and an inclination to build there should you find the right place.  Most people pay far too much to keep from having to move.  "I have roots here," I'm often told.  "I was born here, my family and friends are here, and I feel secure here."  I can buy into that, but there's no need in being stupid about it.  if your home gets unfriendly (in ways you might not notice right off), it's time for a change.  If the state and community where you live saps your income to the breaking point (high housing, utilities, taxes, etc.), you'd be wise to start looking for another nest.  Wisdom, though, sometimes comes after you've reached the breaking point.  I don't understand the tolerance of those who continue to be victimized by bad situations, and just because they're reluctant to leave a particular place.  There are lots of ifs here - if you can find a good job somewhere else, if you can accept moving as an adventure, if you're bold enough, and so on.

On the other hand (and this is important), there are lots of ifs to consider when a chance to move comes along.  Get a better job offer somewhere else?  Opportunities seem better somewhere else?  My advice is:  DO THE RESEARCH.  Check out every conceivable factor in the move.  You need to know housing costs (what kind of home can you afford there), schools, crime rate, taxes, utilities, insurance costs, etc.).  Don't jump into a move too quickly, especially if you're content where you are now.  It's good to be bold, just don't let it overrule your better judgment.  And if the move looks good, don't let home attachments hold you back.  Nest building is hard to do, and to do it right, it takes some practice.  Sometimes, it takes a little luck.

WHAT IS DISSOCIATIVE FUGUE?

My son told me about a real life event that unfolded in the city where he lives, Austin, Texas - about a man who disappeared was wasn't found for months.  He was a man of some means, came from a good family and had a job and family and all that.  But he simply walked away from it, and that touched off a search that went on for months.  Police couldn't find him (surprise, surprise), but a private detective finally did.  The guy was living in an abandoned motel in a bad section of town, and he'd taken on the persona of a street person - new name, an invented history, and no memory at all of who he'd been before the disappearance. 

"So where have you been?" My son asked the guy when he finally reappeared.  "They call it dissociative fugue.  I forgot who I was, just walked away and became somebody else," he said.  Then he went on to tell about how the private detectives found him, about his therapy to recover his memory of his former life, his real life.  This guy was fortunate to have had relatives who could afford to track him down.

Hearing that story set off all sorts in bells in my head.  As a writer, I'm always looking for a good story, so I started doing research about dissociative fugue.  It's a very real thing, and although rare, there are some interesting stories out there about people who've gone through it.  Researchers don't know a lot about it, but they've put together some interesting facts.  A victim of dissociative fugue often creates an elaborate history of the new character they assume.  They don't remember a thing about their former lives, and once found and rehabilitated, they can't remember their fugue state.  Stress is the most common cause for this disorder.  A person can get so stressed, so unhappy with their existence, that they simply walk away from it.  In other words, put a person under enough pressure, make them disenchanted enough, and dissociative fugue can take place.

I'd been going through a tough period when I heard this story.  A major heart attack had put me in a hospital's ICU ward for a week.  My hospital and doctor bills were enormous, and my high dollar health care insurance turned out to be bogus.  They paid a fraction of the costs, then announced they'd pay no more.  I hired a lawyer to sue them (that didn't work out), and then I hired another lawyer to get me out of the mess.  Bill collectors were unrelenting, vicious, and I nearly folded under the pressure.  I hated my life, got depressed . . . and then I got pissed off and fought back.  And I won.  But I never stopped thinking about what could've happened to me, and so I wrote about it.  Writing that book was good therapy for me.  It made me study the rotten health care system we have in this country, and it made me do a lot of research about how to deal with stressful situations.

The book ended up being called The Blue House on Sterling, and I called upon my down to earth, common sense voice Cletus Duhon to write it.  I wanted to take all the highly technical and difficult to understand stuff and turn it over to someone who could break it down to where the average person could understand it.  I wanted to point out the flaws in our health care system, and I wanted to show how to deal with them . . . and I think I did that.  Is it easy reading?  Not exactly, but it is factual and not difficult to understand.  Is it interesting, engaging?  Yes, I think it is because the book introduces some unusual characters.  It is a story of discovery.  It's about how a man was rescued from a dissociative fugue state and how he recovered. 

I started the book in 2005 and am now in the final stages of proof reading it.  Once that's done, it will be published.  Although I never expect immediate success with a book, The Blue House on Sterling is perhaps my best work as an author and it will do well . . . when people start to discover it.  If you like to read books that are different, filled with adventure in route to discovery, you'll like this one.

THE MAN GOD FORGOT

Cletus Duhon Books

He's a cowboy, rancher, adventurer, and storyteller . . . and he's not real.  Oh, he's real in a literary sense because he's the cowboy voice of author Philip Martin Cawlfield.  And there's a story there, too.  Phil had gone on a brief vacation with his then girlfriend, an outing one Easter weekend, and ended up stopping off to visit with a friend in east Texas.  He met a few interesting people and came away with a story, or at least a story line.  Several months later he had written his first Duhon story, The Duck Ranch.  That was just the start of what has turned into a series of novella length stories that are showing up in The Altos Cuentos Trail: The Adventures of Two Old Cowboys.  The first two volumes of that series are out now in paperback, and more will follow.

But back to Cletus Duhon, the focus of this blog.  Although he's just a pen name, Cletus has taken on an identification that makes him more than just part of the stories he writes.  Phil created him as a voice for his cowboy stories, but he has used him extensively as a blogger.  Perhaps that's what did it (give him a personification), but he's now got a history.  I've Googled him several times and find that he's even got a criminal record, or at least you can conduct an internet search for one.  He's got an address, phone number, and even a ranch (that doesn't exist either).  So the question is this:  In this digital age can you create a big as life character like that?  Apparently you can.

I remember reading once about a group of students at a university who created a student.  They got him registered and enrolled in classes.  It took a team of students to work this ruse, but the got him up to being a junior before getting caught.  They'd enroll him in a course, let's say English 101, then have one of the team members attend class and take tests for him.  And they'd pick a team member who was good at that particular subject, and that's how they got caught.  It seems this imaginary student ended up winning an award because his grades were high, and somebody had to show up to receive it.  Professors started talking then, comparisons were made, and the jig was up at that point.  I don't know exactly what point this team of students was trying to make, but they made at least one point.  If you're clever enough, you can make the unreal appear to be real.  And if you can do that, what's real turns out to be what people think it is.

Cletus Duhon seems real to readers because his name is on the books they read, and he's a character in the book.  His narratives are always about what he's involved in, meaning first person or up close and personal . . .and that makes him more personal, more familiar, and more real.  When it gets right down to it, I'm not real either, at least by name.  D. Paz Dalton is also a pen name, with the man behind the pen being the same author who created Cletus - Philip Martin Cawlfield.  I sometimes wonder if this is wise.  Perhaps it would've been better to keep that secret, to just allow people to think we actually exist.  But sooner or later someone would recognize how much alike we all look, that we have the same address and all that.  And as writers, there are differences between us - different voice, different style, and different stories to tell.  And it's fun.  Today I'm D. Paz Dalton, writing about Cletus Duhon.  I'm OK with that, and I'm not crazy . . . yet.