Imagination, It Comes Free With Every Brain 

Pun­ta Tuna Light­house | Maun­abo, Puer­to Rico
(click on image to see it larger)

This morn­ing I pub­lished the pho­to that you see at the top of this post. It’s the Pun­ta Tuna Light­house in Maun­abo, Puer­to Rico. Togeth­er with that pho­to I includ­ed the fol­low­ing com­men­tary: “Light­hous­es can be an excel­lent source of tourism income if town­ships only had a lit­tle imag­i­na­tion and determination”.

Of course, this blog is all about tourism in Puer­to Rico. But not just any tourism. My kind’a tourism. The kind of tourism where you make a two-day hotel reser­va­tion, arrive at a loca­tion, rent a car, hit the road and stay as long as you like. How? Well, that’s just it. You make up the rest as you go.

My wife and I have been doing it since 1984. We hate excur­sions and we’d be bored out of our skulls on a cruise ship. We just love the free­dom of doing what we please, when we please and where we please. So what’s with the light­house thing and imagination?

Well, for some rea­son there’s some­thing about light­hous­es that cap­tures people’s imag­i­na­tion. We’re just attract­ed to them like moths (par­don the “illu­mi­na­tion” pun). Anoth­er thing about light­hous­es is that many of them have fall­en into dis­use. It seems like the U.S. Coast Guard prefers mod­ern tech­no­log­i­cal solu­tions, and so they have replaced many light­hous­es with fed­er­al buoys, bea­cons, and elec­tron­ic aids (includ­ing the com­mer­cial ver­sion of GPS, which adds addi­tion­al fea­tures that the civil­ian ver­sion lacks).

Most towns, for­tu­nate enough to have a light­house, have con­vert­ed them into tourist attrac­tions, with parks, muse­ums, play­grounds and even reenactments.

Back in 2017 my wife and I were in New Eng­land to shoot the fall col­or, cov­ered bridges, light­hous­es and —of course— vis­it Aca­dia Nation­al Park.

It doesn’t cease to amaze me how small towns across the Unit­ed States prop up what­ev­er they have at their dis­pos­al to attract tourists to their “lit­tle slice of heav­en”.

We drove hun­dreds of miles just to buy a jug of fresh maple syrup, eat ripe apples right off the tree, see a cov­ered bridge, vis­it a cer­tain light­house or sim­ply enjoy fall’s nature at its fullest.

Any lit­tle thing can be a tourist attrac­tion as long as you pro­mote it to the right crowd and present it with dig­ni­ty and elegance.

West Quod­dy Light­house, Maine
(click on image to see it

Just to give you an exam­ple, we drove all the way to the West Quod­dy Head Light­house (44.815133, ‑66.950436) at the very north­east­ern tip of Maine. It’s the north­east­ern­most light­house in the Unit­ed States. You can see Nova Sco­tia, Cana­da on the oth­er shore. Hell, your cell­phone even roams to the Cana­di­an network.

And why? Well, because it’s there (the light­house, that is). There’s a state park around it, a play­ground for the lit­tle ones and an over­all stun­ning view. Peo­ple come because it’s inter­est­ing and well kept. And the num­ber of vis­i­tors keeps grow­ing. Peo­ple are attract­ed by the unusu­al, the pure, the pris­tine, the “road less traveled”.

So What About Here?

Puer­to Rico has a trea­sure trove of tourist attrac­tions just wait­ing to be enjoyed. Please notice that I’m choos­ing my words care­ful­ly. I didn’t say “exploit­ed”. I said “enjoyed”. Nowa­days it seems like any­one on the Island can appro­pri­ate what­ev­er area he pleas­es, build a fence around it and turn it into an instant cash cow. That’s wrong!

Most tourist attrac­tions in oth­er juris­dic­tions are either free or at a very low cost. In turn oth­er activ­i­ties like restau­rants, hotels, sou­venir shops and camp­grounds start to pop up around them like mush­rooms. Pret­ty soon you have an entire eco­nom­ic clus­ter radi­at­ing from a sin­gle tourist attrac­tion. All it takes is a lit­tle imagination.

So what is imag­i­na­tion any­way? What is this sin­gu­lar char­ac­ter­is­tic that sep­a­rates us humans from oth­er pri­mates. What is this sin­gu­lar char­ac­ter­is­tic that not even the most sophis­ti­cat­ed arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence soft­ware has been able to repli­cate? Well, accord­ing to the Oxford Dic­tio­nary its: “the fac­ul­ty or action of form­ing new ideas, or images or con­cepts of exter­nal objects not present to the sens­es”.

In oth­er words, it’s the abil­i­ty to make some­thing out of noth­ing. Right? Well, not quite. It’s more like imag­in­ing pos­si­bil­i­ties (remem­ber Dr. Schuller?). It’s the abil­i­ty to iden­ti­fy, orga­nize, rearrange, reuse and yes “reimag­ine” what we already have in new ways that will ren­der new circumstances!

Port­land Head Light
(click on image to see it

So what does all this have to do with Puer­to Rico? And what does it have to do with the Pun­ta Tuna light­house? Well, if my wife and I drove all the way to the north­east­ern tip of Maine, just to see the West Quod­dy Head Light­house, and then we drove to the oppo­site end of the state to see Port­land Head Light (43.623312, ‑70.207738), don’t you think that there are peo­ple that would be inter­est­ed in enjoy­ing the Pun­ta Tuna Light­house, if it were only in prime con­di­tion and there were oth­er attrac­tions in the area?

Hell, Puer­to Rico has a whole net­work of Span­ish-built light­hous­es, many of which are still in good con­di­tions, that could be the premise for a “Puer­to Rico Light­house Adven­ture”. It’s just an idea my friends. Just imag­ine the num­ber of tourism relat­ed busi­ness­es that could pop up around those areas.

My 2015 image of Pun­ta Tuna Light­house
(click on image to see it larger)

What can’t con­tin­ue is what’s hap­pen­ing now. I was at Pun­ta Tuna back in 2015. About that time the light­house had been trans­ferred to the munic­i­pal gov­ern­ment. The atten­dant back then told us that there were plans to revamp the build­ing and con­vert it into a muse­um. That would have been a start.

Well, last week my wife and I returned to the light­house and its like if it were frozen in time. Noth­ing has been done. The poor atten­dant was so bored that she kept prop­ping up her head with her arm just so that her fore­head wouldn’t slam into the table. Poor soul!

I could keep rag­ging on the munic­i­pal gov­ern­ment, but that’s not why I’m writ­ing this. There’s a larg­er —much larg­er— ulte­ri­or motive.

Most Puer­to Ricans are a “shell shocked” bunch. We’ve been hit so hard, so fre­quent­ly and for so long by out­er and inner forces, that we’ve come to expect too lit­tle from life. We expect too lit­tle of oth­ers and we expect too lit­tle of ourselves.

Puer­to Rico has every­thing going for it, and either we are inca­pable of see­ing it or it’s sim­ply slip­ping between our fin­gers. But believe me, while it’s slip­ping through “some of our fin­gers” there are those that are quite hap­py with the present state of disarray.

And let’s not go into pol­i­tics, eco­nom­ics, edu­ca­tion, health or crime, because my post would turn into a the­sis. Let’s just stick to tourism and how our atti­tudes weigh on it.

Sev­er­al years ago my son, who lives on the main­land, came to spend some days on the Island with his wife and daugh­ter. His lit­tle boy had­n’t been born yet. They spent around a week on the Island vis­it­ing what most tourists vis­it: Old San Juan, the rain­for­est, the beaches…

When they were about to leave I asked his wife to sum­ma­rize her Puer­to Rican expe­ri­ence in a sin­gle word. Boy was that a mis­take. Her answer was: “chaos”.

There were so many words that I would’ve expect­ed, but nev­er “chaos”.

But, in hind­sight I get it. What’s more, it got me think­ing about what it is that we Puer­to Ricans real­ly like the most when we vis­it the Unit­ed States, or even Europe, for that matter.

You could argue that it’s the attrac­tions. After all, there aren’t muse­ums like “El Pra­do” or cities like “Venice” in Puer­to Rico. Nei­ther are there parks like Walt Dis­ney World or Yellowstone.

But I argue that it’s none of that. It’s the order. It’s the clean­li­ness. It’s the roads with­out the pot­holes. It’s the land­scap­ing. It’s flow­ers every­where. It’s the depend­able ener­gy. It’s the way peo­ple behave on the road. It’s the “absence of chaos”.

Don’t believe me? I spent a month in Spain and you’d nev­er guess what I con­sid­er my best pho­to­graph? It’s not of the Segovia Alcazar or the sun­flower fields out­side Cor­do­ba. It’s of a young man, with a rag and buck­et, wash­ing a street sign. I’ve nev­er seen that back home. Then again, over here we have food stamps.

Dr. Robert H. Schuller

I was raised in the protes­tant faith by my moth­er. But she tried so hard to drill it into me that she achieved the oppo­site. Or maybe not the oppo­site, just dis­in­ter­est. How­ev­er, there was one protes­tant min­is­ter that caught my ear. His name was Robert Schuller. Not because of his reli­gious mes­sage but because of his “pos­si­bil­i­ty thinking”.

Pos­si­bil­i­ties are all around us. All we have to do is con­sid­er them. And that’s some­thing lack­ing in Puer­to Rico. Puer­to Ricans are hard work­ing indus­tri­ous peo­ple, but as a soci­ety we are not pos­si­bil­i­ty thinkers.

Last Jan­u­ary I start­ed a series of blog posts and videos titled “5 Must-See Places in the Town Of XXX” in which my wife and I vis­it a dif­fer­ent town every two weeks, explore it like reg­u­lar tourists and pro­duce a blog post and a video. The goal is to vis­it al 78 munic­i­pal­i­ties with­in a 39-month period.

At first I con­sid­ered ask­ing for help from each munic­i­pal­i­ty, but after being ignored by most of them we recant­ed on the idea.

After all, when a tourist vis­its Puer­to Rico, and then turns around and writes about it on social media, local author­i­ties get no chance to influ­ence his con­tent. So why should I give them a priv­i­lege that they don’t seem to appre­ci­ate anyway.

At this point we have vis­it­ed over 20 towns and, if there’s one thing that we’ve found every­where, it’s the great amount of wast­ed oppor­tu­ni­ties that are just star­ing at them in the face and the lack of “pos­si­bil­i­ty think­ing”. It’s like many of these town­ships are just wait­ing for “mana to fall fro the sky”.

So where does “imag­i­na­tion” fit in with all of this? Did I for­get where I start­ed? Did I get lost in my own words? Not for a sec­ond. In order for “pos­si­bil­i­ty think­ing” to exist you have to have “imag­i­na­tion” first. And guess what? It’s the one thing that comes free with every brain!

All you have to do to har­vest the fruit of “imag­i­na­tion” and “pos­si­bil­i­ty think­ing” is ask your­self ques­tions. And the fun­ny think is that it works for mega cor­po­ra­tions and for indi­vid­u­als like you and I. They just have to be THE RIGHT questions.

Instead of ask­ing your­self “why” you can’t do a cer­tain thing ask your­self “how” would it be pos­si­ble. “What” would need to hap­pen in order to accom­plish some­thing else? And if that “what” is still too over­whelm­ing, break it into small­er pieces. “What” series of events would need to take place in order to accom­plish some­thing else?

It’s all in the ques­tions that you ask yourself.

The human brain is a mar­velous tool. It’s made to answer ques­tions. How­ev­er, the qual­i­ty of your ques­tions deter­mines the qual­i­ty of your answers. If you ask your­self: “Why can’t I nev­er achieve this?” your brain might answer: “because you’re a dumb bum that’s always mop­ing around the house”. And of course, it could be right! But that’s hard­ly an empow­er­ing answer.

Wouldn’t a bet­ter ques­tion be: “what would I need to do to accom­plish X”? Of course, the answer might not be attain­able, but that’s an eas­i­er prob­lem to deal with.

Even Congress Knows!

Some time dur­ing this year our local politi­cians went to Con­gress —as they often do— ask­ing for mon­ey for this or that. The date isn’t impor­tant. Nei­ther was the need or the amount. Not even the con­gress­man that uttered those hurt­ful words matters.

What real­ly stung was the mes­sage. At least it stung me, and I wasn’t even there.

Basi­cal­ly the mes­sage was that every time that the Island’s rep­re­sen­ta­tives go to Con­gress they go with their arms extend­ed ask­ing for more money.

My God, if it were me I would have found a rock to crawl under. But the sad part is that it’s true. I’ve nev­er heard a politi­cian —local or oth­er­wise— talk about how we’re going to do any­thing with less resources.

There was even a local come­di­an who used to joke about: “mil­lones y mil­lones y mil­lones” as if ridi­cul­ing our obses­sion as a soci­ety with wast­ing money.

And do you know why that is? Because doing more with less takes “imag­i­na­tion”, it takes think­ing (pos­si­bil­i­ty think­ing, that is) and it takes work. You actu­al­ly have to exer­cise your “men­tal mus­cle” to think (yeah, some peo­ple seem to have mus­cle up there).

Accord­ing to Dr. Mar­cus Raich­le, a dis­tin­guished pro­fes­sor of med­i­cine at Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty School of Med­i­cine in St. Louis: “while the brain rep­re­sents just 2% of a person’s total body weight, it accounts for 20% of the body’s ener­gy use”. That’s accord­ing to a recent arti­cle in Time magazine.

And my sar­cas­tic side tells me that in some cas­es that 2% might actu­al­ly be a stretch.

It’s An Attitude

Imag­i­na­tion
It Comes Free With Every Brain

Pos­si­bil­i­ty Think­ing, and exer­cis­ing your imag­i­na­tion, are actu­al­ly part of an atti­tude; a “can do” atti­tude. Hen­ry Ford said it best: “you can think you can or think you can’t and in both cas­es you’ll be right”!

I think Puer­to Rico is a gold mine for attract­ing tourists from all over the world. After all, it’s the third old­est cap­i­tal in the New World (after San­to Domin­go de Guzmán and Havana). It’s also a gar­den par­adise where it’s always sum­mer. We just have to “think it true”. If tourists can go all the way to Spain to pick up grapes and par­tic­i­pate in “la vendimia”, why can’t they come to Puer­to Rico and par­tic­i­pate in “el acabe del café”?

Why can’t they go on a “church tour”? After all Puer­to Rico also has some of the nicest and old­est church­es in the New World.

Why can’t we have a “water­fall tour”? God knows that land­scape pho­tog­ra­phers love them and there are dozens around the Island.

And how about sun­sets? We have one every day, you know. We also have sun­ris­es and dozens of enchant­i­ng vis­tas to serve as back­drops. In fact, my next arti­cle in the “5 Must-See Places In The Town Of X” series takes place in the town of Maun­abo. Imag­ine why?

The pos­si­bil­i­ties are end­less and ripe for the pick­ing. All you need is a lit­tle imagination.

©2023,Orlando Mer­gal, MA
____________________

Bilin­gual Con­tent Cre­ator, Blog­ger, Pod­cast­er,
Author, Pho­tog­ra­ph­er and New Media Expert
Tel. 787–750-0000, Mobile 787–306-1590