Neither life nor happiness can be achieved by the pursuit of irrational whims. Just as man is free to attempt to survive by any random means, as a parasite, a moocher or a looter, but not free to succeed at it beyond the range of the moment - so he is free to seek his happiness in any irrational fraud, any whim, any delusion, any mindless escape from reality, but not free to succeed at it beyond the range of the moment nor to escape the consequences.

Ayn Rand – The Virtue of Selfishness

I have always been repulsed by the philosophy of Ayn Rand.

Then some years ago on December 25 I read in my NY Times a review of a book by evolutionary biologist Robert title The Folly of Fools –the Logic of Deceit and Self Discipline in Human Life. There was a paragraph that led me to think of a girlfriend , Judy Brown that I met in 1964. 

As a Harvard graduate student in the 1970s, Trivers wrote a handful of papers showing how our genes’ relentless drive to self-replicate underpins even our most apparently magnanimous impulses. According to his theory of reciprocal altruism, we occasionally act kindly towards strangers because our ancestors – over time and in the aggregate – received a quid pro quo benefit from acts of generosity. In other papers, Trivers proposed that families roil with conflict because parents share no genes with each other and only half of their genes with children, who unless they are identical twins also have divergent genetic interests.

Today Christmas Day I am again thinking about my past and those “what ifs”.

In 1964 I was madly in love with a 5ft tall reddish blonde girl from California called Judy Brown. Her ancillary claim to fame was that her father often played tennis with Charles M. Schulz. In other matters she told me that her life was perfectly ordinary. I argued with her while I knew her about altruism. She rejected it all and said everything we ever did was for a selfish reason.

I had met Judy Brown at the University of the Americas by way of my friend Robert Hijar who was studying fine arts while I was attempting to figure out the difference between resistance, capacitance and induction. Hijar was in the art department and girls (as we called them then without any guilt) gravitated to him perhaps because of the exotic smell of Liquitex.

Robert, Judy and I would go to Jazz Mondays at the Benjamin Franklin Library (it was run by the USIS). The three of us would listen to Gerry Mulligan and Lenny Tristano. Robert would sketch cars that resembled (how did he know then?) shoes while I sipped on my strong Nescafé and stared at Judy who I thought was as lovely as a woman could possibly be. She might have been reading Salinger, but I am not that sure.

Behind us were (they were there almost every Monday) a couple of Mexican gentlemen who always seemed to wear pastel colour shirts. They looked queer and I suspect that by being so obvious they could practice their trade of spies for the US Government unimpeded. Reason compels me to believe they may have simply been Mexicans who like us liked jazz.

Mondays at the Benjamin Franklin Library were followed by frequent visits to our Filipino Doctora friend who worked for the United Nations. We would go to her apartment on Tamaulipas Street and played mah-jong while eating Filipino food.

The first time I showed up at the Doctora's with Judy Brown in tow everybody who knew me was astounded. Up until that time I had never ever shown any outward desire for women. Not knowing to much about homosexuality in those days as I was not a precocious 22-year-old I now see that many in my family and my friends suspected I had a hidden sexual persuasion of the exotic kind.

Word quickly spread and when my mother who was teaching at an American school in Veracruz found out she invited me immediately to visit with the new girlfriend. In one of the pictures here I photographed Brown wearing one of the Doctora'a Filipino dresses.

I did visit my mother in Veracruz with Judy Brown.  I remember the pleasant night trip (there were others) on an ADO (Autobuses de Oriente) bus to Veracruz. I would lay my head on Judy Brown’s lap. She was reluctant. She kept telling me she had a boyfriend in California called Allan. She did not speak much of him, but just enough to unsettle me

It was on that first bus ride that she unleashed on me her belief that we humans were inherently selfish. Even dying for someone else, the supreme sacrifice (I thought) was instigated by the sacrificer/hero’s desire for personal pleasure and happiness. No matter how hard I tried Judy Brown was adamant. She kept quoting a woman called Ayn Rand I had never heard of.

This “relationship” dragged on and one day Judy Brown told me that she did not have the capacity to love anybody because she rejected it as just another manifestation of her selfishness. How Judy Brown disappeared from my life I cannot remember to this day. I sometimes wonder if she allowed herself to be latched on to me so that she could go to beach in Veracruz or to practice her Spanish.

Addendum: For those who might be curious about the photograph with the candle, I used a Pentacon-F with a 85mm Komura f:1.8 lens. The film was Agfa Isopan Record pushed to 1250 ASA and processed in Agfa Atomal New. The light was the single candle.

I believe I might test my iPhone3G with this kind of lighting.