Magallanes

            Spain is a place of contrasts, for me at least. My life as an American teacher here is a strange concoction of wildly different situations. There are alternating waves of intensity, ranging from the very active and high energy, such as my work at the school, to vapid expanses of bleak llanura – flatness – where I feel understimulated and, frankly, a little bit bored. The periods of high activity are some of the more frenetic I have ever experienced: I have to think on my feet almost all day long, and mainly in another language. Likewise, the flat periods are often devoid of stimulation, with a paucity of motivation to change the current situation at hand. It is certainly a strange life. It’s a good one, even if at times it can be very difficult. Honestly, without the difficult times, there is no why I would know just how sweet the good times really are. That’s the way it always is, isn’t it?

            This kind of oceanic existence – being raised and lowered by a metaphysical tide – is nothing new for me. My life has always been up and down, just like everyone else’s I guess, but maybe a little bit more extreme. We all have light and dark periods, but most of us never reach celestial exuberance nor infernal depths. Truthfully, I would try and avoid describing my own world so melodramatically, but like I mentioned before, I recognize the radiance during the times of contentment because of its stark contrast to those times where everything has a more subdued, matte finish. Either way, I try to keep the sine wave – la onda – from peaking too high in the Himalayas, but at the same time stop it from scraping the bottom of the deep-sea trench, this oceanic life I have somehow found myself circumnavigating.

            I’m going to expand on this more in a second, but I’m going to put this up now as a preliminary to my foray into some more philosophical themes here. And don’t worry – it is all related to this viaje – this journey. Being here, in and of itself, is a foray into the philosophical, so it is only right that I go into it here on this blog. It’s something that directs a lot of my thoughts and thus my worldview.

            Hold on tight.