Hello, young man. Nice to see you here. You look and sound like Norman way back in 1968. My how time flies. Norman died in 1999.

Me, I’m still a nomad. So far, I’ve moved 41 times, and that’s not counting all the places I stayed a few weeks or months while travelling about. I used to backpack, but horseback was my favorite way to travel. Sometimes, I hiked up mountains just to see the land stretch out before me. Up above the tree line, I could see the freedom that disappeared long before I arrived.

I am so very sorry, but more and more trails are reservation only places now, so you will never know the freedom I have known. Perhaps that is best. For you are struggling with the loss of a community where you entered as a stranger and stayed until other strangers came and pushed you out.

I’ve met you on my travels a thousand times or more. Travelers repay their hosts’ kindness and generosity by leaving. But you are pioneer and missionary, so American in thought of mind and habit, you could not see all that you destroyed when you overstayed your welcome.

You thought you were building a home for yourself only to discover you were just another missionary sent to conquer another people so the rich and powerful could travel in comfort when they came for their land.

You are such a creative little puppet, you sold Costa Rica as a Yoga paradise. Sadly, you have not yet figured out, that the rich and powerful follow creative people - like you. When a city took my home by eminent domain, a realtor told me this: if you want to find the next big real estate market, look for the artists and creatives.

You see, artists, musicians, and other creatives, like you, are famously poor because we live to work. Like all poor people, we tend to gather in cheap, abandoned, downtrodden areas where our creativity transforms our neighborhoods into vibrant, healthy and highly desirable communities. As soon as we leave, these vibrant communities begin sliding backwards, into decline.

If my generation had solved the problems that ail you now, you would not have stayed in Costa Rica. You would have travelled on.

I leave you with this thought…

To import the traditions of the place you fled, the place that failed you, is to condemn the place you sought with the same failures.