I'm Not a Worker, I'm a Scout

When as a child you consider what you will be when you grow up, the panorama appears full of images that evoke professions such as medicine, architecture, engineering or administration, among others.

Your parents and relatives will encourage you in that sense and there will be no place for careers as a musician, journalist, writer, painter or explorer (or its more “social” version: archaeologist).

There is no rule that determines that we are going to be rich or successful in any of the typical careers, especially since the competition in those fields is tremendous.

Today the panorama has expanded with trades such as chef, hospitality, hospital administration, coiffeur or even soccer player, but “those” are still relegated to the box of the professions for crazy people.

As his aunt said to John Lennon: “playing the guitar is fine, but you will never make a living out of it.”

And curiously, the most fun and challenging races are considered outside of any family box of choice.

I would never have told my father that he wanted to be a diver (scuba diver) or drive a sailing boat… he would have changed my idea to captain of a commercial boat, as he did with his younger brother.

Despite my inner revolution and my discontent with planet Earth and its gods, I was a fairly docile and obedient child of my elders. So I diverted my life to architecture and then to international trade, to end up being a computer technician, as each of those trades fell apart in my life.

Successfully in the beginning and in disarray at the end, none of those ideas naturally flowed through me and they ended in failure and my repeated financial bankruptcies.

I have moved to different countries and have always been haunted by the ghosts of my failed professions.

And it was almost by accident that one day I found myself sailing with El Cubano in the beautiful Bebeco, which although it was not under sail, it was worthy of a true sailor.

Those days, when El Cubano started the engines and I jumped from the gunwale to the dock and from the dock to the gunwale to drop moorings. Sailing and meeting Chirstophe and his girlfriend Maitrelly on his own boat. Bow out to sea, to some lost island. Wait for the night and dive into the reefs to hunt lobsters. Roast them on deck to devour them accompanied by good white wine. Talk and drink until we fall asleep. Those days … without a doubt … were the happiest of my life.

Diving is a wonderful experience, but doing it at night and without oxygen tanks is superb.

I knew that you do not die because the current of the sea dragged you. That the sharks do not attack you, That under the surface of the ocean there is a world of strange beauty, subtle and at the same time wild.

I also learned that a brunette hits harder than the best boxer’s fist, that blondes are curious, that there are “mosquitoes” under the sea (and also cockroaches).

I remember Carla confronting the sharks who wanted to take her fishing away. Maitrelly cooking French toast for breakfast. To Christophe with the French accent of him sinking into darkness, always emerging with some prey.

Christophe is an executive, but at the same time he is a born hunter, he only hunts what he is going to eat and he taught us to discard the advantages so that the prey has a chance to beat us. Like, for example, not using oxygen tanks to hunt lobster or other fish, so you had to visualize, chase and kill them before running out of air.

The Cuban, determined and wild, effective in hunting … especially women.

That life lasted a short time, predictably. Soon the master plan that the world is in, devoured our benefits and together with them, our dreams fell apart.

I was not born to be a worker. And I realized this when I was very old, unfortunately. I am an explorer, I am a warrior. But no one told me that these professions existed.

Life gives you the clear vision of things when it is too late to recover anything.

And so your existence is populated with ghosts. Of those who are no longer with you, friends, couples, boats … Of what you lived, experiences, adventures …

No… we are not workers… We are explorers.