Mugginess

July 22, 2026 – 0035 – Ocho Rios, Jamaica (Riu Resort) – revised several days later in Colorado

Last night was a muggy night in Ocho Rios, Jamaica. The type of mugginess that slaps you in the face the second you step out of an air-conditioned room. Perspiration immediately follows. Your clothing sticks to your skin like a wetsuit. You can’t fully be present because you’re constantly assessing how muggy it is. Like the buzz of a fly that you can’t spot. It is there. Nagging.

As a tourist, this mugginess is a welcome state of being. It is inherent and necessary for the experience. Being on vacation isn’t just going to a place. It is experiencing it. Or at least I have learned that to be the case for myself. Colorado is dry. The air is dry. Its summer is the blink of an eye and lasts only two months. Maybe three. So being on a hot and humid island for five days is exactly what I needed.

As I was walking back to our room on the fifth floor, I kept looking at the island, quiet yet teeming with life. At night, the bugs come to life and blanket the island with a rhythmic concoction of sounds that seem to be in sync with the wind, the ocean, the island. Looking out past the lights and toward the sparse ones in the hills, I wonder: What is a Jamaican, maybe a forty-year-old with a wife and a kid, living in the hills of St. Ann, doing at this exact moment? Perhaps someone whose light I just captured in this photo.

As a tourist, this mugginess is part of the Jamaican experience. I imagine that, as it was for me when I was in Doha, the mugginess is the fly for Jamaicans.

This mugginess, I fear, is something that afflicts all humans, but not in a physical sense. It’s a mugginess of the mind.

There is something plaguing our consciousness. It is not keeping us from functioning, but, like the buzz of the fly, it is not letting us be inherently present. Mindful. Perpetually seeking an air-conditioned corner in our minds.

This mugginess closes our minds. It narrows our attention and thus narrows our perspective. Because we are constantly seeking refuge in the air-conditioned corners of our minds, we dull our awareness of our surroundings: the people and the environment we live in.

I give in to this mugginess quite often when it comes to homeless people. When I see another human being in the streets with a sign asking for help, the mugginess sends me straight to this air-conditioned corner in my mind where I justify not sparing a dollar, or worse, cast judgement. I think to myself, “they could be looking for a job instead of sitting in a corner. If I was in that situation…” And just like that, I dull my awareness of another human being’s experience.

I believe it is because of this mugginess that some of us can cause pain to others without regard for our souls or theirs. It is also why some of us can walk past that pain in the same manner, convincing ourselves that someone else’s life is not our concern. This mugginess nurtures our egos. It casts a shadow on every aspect of the human condition.

I wonder. Every problem is an opportunity. I’ve made that a mantra for myself for years now.

So where is the opportunity in this realization?

Dre