The Little Things That Persist

Unfortunately I’m going to have to make this short as it is getting late and I have class at 9:30 AM tomorrow, but it was something that I was thinking about last night and that has made itself even more apparent today.

Despite my previous post about the personal changes that being immersed in a foreign language force upon a person, I have begun to notice a number of things about me that remain static, that don’t change, that persist.

At the beginning these things were admittedly actions that were solely self-dependent and required little or no interaction with others. Things like my morning routine: wake up, cigarette, shower, coffee, search for the day’s purpose. Things like the desire to create an agenda of things to accomplish (mentally) each day. Given the latter was often thrown out of whack due to the imposition of a foreign language and culture, but the initial, self-contained desire remained.

As time passed I began to notice the similarities between my “American” self and my “Spanish” self were increasing. In short as I became more comfortable with the language I managed to translate my behaviors from home into their (more or less) equivalents here. They were never exactly the same, as the rules of the game are a bit different here, but more or less I attempted to translate them. Example: as I became able to joke I resurrected my oh-so-nice habit of making mom jokes and other way-out-there, nonsensical and often utterly offensive comments. But as I said the rules are different, and I had to adapt to these rules. You can’t make mom jokes as much here, and many of the comments have to be toned down. Nevertheless I continued (and continue) to move closer to a Spanish mold of my American self.

But why? I am in a foreign country, my primary goal has been and still is to immerse myself completely and attempt to live like a Spaniard. Sure there are some things that have changed significantly, such as me now going to clubs, now drinking whiskey and coke instead of just beer, but for some reason the more I get ahold of the language the more I seem to try and move back towards “the way things were.”

I think this may be at least partially explained by the feeling of security and assuredness that I feel when able to “be myself” (my American self). As I was thinking last night many of my habits, my actions, my life seem to be centered arround the goal of a patterned regularity. Thus my morning routine, thus when I work out it is always at the same time, always watching the same tv show afterwards, subsequently always taking a shower and going to eat. Always. At first regularity was nearly impossible here, everyday was a new experience, everyday had to be altered to fit the circumstances it brought. Now it is making its comeback.

Whether this is a good or bad thing I don’t know. For pragmatic purposes, for “getting things done,” being responsible and whatnot, it is good. Such regularity also often provides me with the downtime which in turn leads to me searching for a purpose, searching for a goal. This search in turn leads to things like enhanced workout schedules, heavy reading of philosophy, etc. In fact this blog (where it resides now, not on Xanga) was born out of such a search.

But at the same time I despise such regularity. I search for something more, something not normal. I desire to be improvisational, to react to the day as it comes rather than mold the day around me. I feel that I’m missing out, that there is some part of life that I have yet to (and may to some extent never) experience. But, as they say, thus is life.

At least for now I remain in a much healthier balance between ordered regularity and spontaneity than previously, though regularity is quickly threatening to once again take over. As long as some cultural and linguistic irregularities remain I think I am guaranteed at least some spontaneity. However if I manage to translate all of them to my former self, and to ignore those that don’t mesh with said self, I am sure I will be left with nothing but what I had in America, albeit spoken internally and externally in a different language. In short I will be nothing more than an American in Spain.

Only time will tell.