Life’s Pearls

“Todo depende del cristal con que se mire.” - my mother.

“It all depends on the glass through which you look” my mother would say.

For over twenty years, until July, 2020, I did not know I was a targeted individual. I perceived the unfortunate events and illnesses that the government criminals perpetrated upon me as a blessing in disguise, experiences to learn from.

This allowed me to feel grateful in the midst of adversity.

Since I did not know that such stupid things as street theater and gang stalking existed, they did not mortify me one bit. In fact, many a times they became memorable moments that brought joy to my spirit.

Moments that I deem as “life pearls”.

One such event occurred in May, 2019, when I decided on a shared Uber ride to the Miami airport. Standing on the street on a hot Florida day, I called an Uber and the app replied that a shared ride could arrive in a minute, while a private one within six. “What the heck, nothing bad can happen” I said to myself, and accepted the shared ride.

When I climbed in to the car, both driver and passenger immediately started a conversation that in hindsight I recognize was textbook street theater. I did not know I was a targeted individual, let alone the concept of street theater. Thus, their performance did not faze me. Instead, it became one of the ‘pearls’ I hold as precious life moments.

//

Both driver and passenger had very thick Cuban accents, as if they had arrived the day before to the United States. I could barely understand some of their lingo.

With utmost drama, the passenger, an amateur boxer, acted out a story about how he was so afraid to fly. In hindsight, I now realize it was intended to make me anxious about the flight I was about to board.

A few months before, the boxer had flown to Vegas for a fight. Prior to the event, in a matter of two days, he had had to lose fourteen pounds for the weighing. When he got into the plane, he was severely dehydrated. During the flight, the plane went through turbulence and suddenly dipped. The ‘fasten your seat belt’ signs went off. He got up to ask the flight attendant for an orange juice, as he was very dizzy. She commanded him to go back to his seat and fasten his seat belt, to which he replied: “What difference does the seat belt make if we are all going to die?”

His histrionic abilities were admirable. In the back seat, I struggled to contain my laughter as it seemed to me as if I was watching a skit by famous comedian Alvarez Guede.

I was enjoying the exaggerated dramatization of the event by the boxer, oblivious to the fact that it was meant to make me anxious about flying. The driver would cue him in, adding to the drama appearing to be shocked and impressed by his story.

Little did the government criminals that hired the actor know that years before I had read Innumeracy, a book that taught me, among other things, the absurdity of being scared of flying. It explains how no one thinks twice about getting into a car, even though the statistics reflect that roughly one in 450 people that get into a car die, whereas the chances of dying in an airplane crash are less than one in sixteen million.

When the airplane story was over, the passenger then went to talk about how “Cubans are cursed”. For another five minutes he would go on about how their education is not validated in the United States and they have to complete their degrees again in order to practice here. He repeated like a mantra the phrase “we are cursed” at least twenty times before we had almost reached the airport.

Right before we arrived at my terminal, I had to interrupt his performance to express a Truth I deemed he should hear.

Excuse me -- I softly interrupted to tell him something along these lines:

You should know that that which you deem to be a ‘curse’ is a blessing. I grew up among Cubans, my best friends and teachers were Cubans that I deeply admire because their circumstances led them to be more persevering and resilient. It is because of that which you call ‘curse’ that your people never give up until they accomplish what they set themselves to do. Unlike sixty percent of my fellow Puerto Ricans that are complacent living on government assistance, through the perseverance derived from that ‘curse’ it is that Cubans have risen from abject poverty with only the shirts on their backs, to gratifying success. I have never met a Cuban that did not use that which you call ‘curse’ as the fuel to reach their goals.

The young man then turned his body on the seat to face me, and looking at me in the eyes, said:

“...and I have never met a bad Boricua.”

//

From the eyes of a targeted individual, I now know that that ride to the airport was a quintessential example of street theater.

That day I changed the mind of a gangstalker. Before our exchange, he had been told I was a terrorist, a bad person. He did his little skit, and it became a pearl in my treasure chest of memories.

I was able to do so because I saw him through an unadulterated, innocent lens, one that had no notion of what the targeting program was.

This allowed me to treat him with kindness and respect.

It also let me discover, in hindsight, that not all gangstalkers are evil people.

//

It is hard to be continuously hunted down by armies of organized stalkers. I know. They hunt me relentlessly.

It is easy to deem them all as criminals.

However, it is up to us to teach them a lesson: we are not the criminals they are told we are. The criminals are the ones that set them up to harass and stalk us, in violation of our basic human rights.

I know it is easier said than done, but while we shut down this evil Program, try once in a while letting the kindness in your heart shine through.

Perhaps you will get lucky, and find life pearls along the way as I have.