Yesterday, as the baleful sun began its descent across the jagged horizon, I walked with Marisa along the dusty road to Tres Aguas. She’s been preoccupied lately because one of her tenants in the apartment on Madre de Dios has lost his job and thus is expelling himself from Logroño. Worry eats at her. She fixates on worry. It’s a genetic burr in her family, methinks. I doubt it can be removed and in any case, I’m done with trying to alter peoples’ personalities. That was the Bobbus of fifteen or more years ago. Fuck um.
An aside:
Marisa just rose from her pained slumberous morning malaise to introduce me to the phrase que te den morcilla, which is equivalent to vete a la mierda. The phrase toots my muffin.
The soon to be ex-tenant is a lawyer of sorts, or has aspirations to be one, and of the technology variety. I’m unsure if his knowledge of the ways of specific TCP and UDP ports on his laptop is profound, but I’m sure his heart is in the right place - that is, pumping circulatory fluid throughout his living corpse. Apparently, he wants to advise Spanish companies and individuals in EU law regarding various transactions across the internet. Somehow (I’m not completely clear on this point), his employer, another of these lawyers, dismissed him from his position. This jefe specializes in what the youth - I’ll call him Aitor from here on out - aspires to. So he’s fucked, eh?
I’m also not completely clear on the next point. To be placed in a pool of humans who could be selected for a position given his credentials, an authority informed him that he has to have some sort of technology certification to accompany the pretty paper that declares him a lawyer. He applied to a program in the University of La Rioja to take a degree / certificate / whatever of this sort and was rejected. Universities in Spain have a limited number of agujeros open in any given field of study. He was not inserted into one of said agujeros because, I paraphrase, the agujeros are reserved for humans who do not already hold another degree / certificate / whatever.
Aitor has multiple paths from which he can now choose. Unfortunately for Marisa, none coincide with him being anything other than an ex-tenant. The central bulb of our communication yesterday sprang from my insistence that Aitor abandon attempts to find his passion in a small city / region like Logroño / La Rioja and migrate to Madrid or Barcelona, both hubs for tech activity in Spain. I regurgitated my repetitive theme to discard the hunt for university credentials and to forge one’s own path. Learning is a personal, intimate affair, especially in the realm of technologies. My experience certainly tells me so.
Here we almost reached an impasse. I came up against the nearly impenetrable wall of Spanish rootedness. She described to me what seemed like folklore but that she assured me still ran deep in Spanish mentality. The son who stays rooted in place and thus grows family fields into abundance is a success. He is rich. The son who departs onto paths leading him away from the home patch is a failure. Obviously, this mentality doesn’t sit well with me. I have no want or need for roots. I am a spirit of the air, not of the earth. We did not hit an actual impasse because we both agreed that Aitor should strike out if his intention is to explore all possibilities of “success”. Marisa is simply insistant that because of Spanish rootedness, he is unlikely to do so.
Pegado.
The word is used often. A human is stuck to a place. A human is rooted to his past and to his surroundings. A human is likely only to search for possibilities within this bubble. A human is unlikely to stray outside of it. A human who does stray outside of it is regarded odd.
The mentality isn’t unique to Spanish culture. It is a seed within all pueblo culture, worldwide. Bubbles vary in sizes, of course, but they are always there. It touches on a duscussion that Monsieur Bender and I had time and again contrasting those who stay within pueblo culture to see it grow and those who flee from a pueblo culture to take seed in other parts (usually bringing along facets of the origin culture). Even in this simplification, a third option is obvious. Spirits of the air may not take seed anywhere. They drift, finally never taking root in any locale except their tomb.
The question the idea begs is this: Is it really important to take seed anywhere? Is it necessary? Or is it just human nature or, further, animal nature to biologically and psychologically repopulate one’s bubble? I feel no pressure to do so. I posit that it is a freedom that few have. Perhaps that is a lofty or elitist proclamation. Fuck um.
As I mentioned, I’m finished with attempting to change peoples’ fundamental natures, so the case of Aitor is in his own hands. Actually, it’s most likely in the hands of not only Aitor, but of his family and closest friends - that is, the ones what make most of our decisions for us. Aitor’s bubble will make the descision for him. But, like Monsieur Bender and like myself, spirits of the air thrive in reduced, yet highly permeable bubbles. I shall continue to thrive in my own.
