every few turns on my travels, i've found a new tragedy fallen across the media. popped out of my bubble of suspended reality into the real world. A world predominately addicted to change. And change is necessary...it is inevitable. it is also the angry, the bitter, becoming utterly intolerant and inventing a new strain of human terror. suicide bombs, planes, biological warfare. yet only for venturing into the first world, is nothing new at all. for centuries humans have declared war on one another. all the while fine tuning the quickest way to access power. the rapid acquisition of higher technology; the art of deception. survival. how to stave off one's attacker. and the best one yet? how to defend. no attack necessary. we have honed our weapons all the way from spears to robust nuclear earth penetrators. after all, it is our primal instinct to protect our clan. Primal. fight or flight. an innate, animalistic reaction. an automatic response. rather, response of the body's autonomic nervous system. (sympathetic nervous system, to be exact.) when faced with danger: stay and fight, or flee? perhaps this is what georgeW was experiencing when he was informed that his nation was under attack, and sat, staring blankly, for what seemed like an eternity. were his little confused blood vessels pumping so much adrenaline that he became completely overwrought with fear? fight, we did. in ye olden times, fight or flight was more an occurrence between man...and lion. but nowadays lions our enemies are not. (well, maybe for some.) for the most part, they are men and women, (men, mostly, but just give it time,) who have nothing to lose. maybe they seek power, maybe they believe in a different god. or perhaps, sometimes, it is about a little something called retribution. it is enough to make me wonder: to stay in a bubble of unreality, would that be wrong? if only the US election process weren't so crooked. if only it didn't take a four tiered pop concert to turn mainstream attention to the most impoverished continent on the planet. if only my father was a doctor who funded all my travels, like the girl i met in amsterdam. if only i could always remember that struggling from paycheck to paycheck since 19 is actually golden, because it is all relative...if only humanity could develop a little faster at heart, instead of everywhere else.
diamonds. oil. bloodshed. animals, children, the elderly, the innocent. the pure of heart. ya basta, hmm?
leaving barcelona was very hard...mostly because it meant returning home...but also because there is something special about it. maybe it is the old, beautiful buildings that hold things from the past. maybe because the kind of people that are drawn to barcelona are special. it was by far my favorite place on the trip. on my last day i found myself at the ocean, staring into an uncertain horizon. for the moment i am home, who knows where the next waves will take me. until then! ciao for now.
