It’s not easy being from the Mediterranean. People think its all Omar Sharif and Marcello Mastroianni stuff, but it’s not. It’s like staring out at sea, listening to the voices of the wind in the pines behind you and watching the clouds rolling in. Sometimes they’re nice, fluffy clouds, but sometimes they’re not. Too many times they’re dark and shocking.
And that is our event horizon. Our shared culture leaves us at the craggy edge of a great achievement, or an equally great catastrophe; whatever. We have this thing that makes us lust after perfection and drives us like cicadas during mating season. Mediterraneans are movers and shakers.
Mediterranears think it’s beautiful to mount a grand spectacle and kill a bull, for example. They like it. What. There are worse things. We also tend to develop rather volatile relationships. We tend to remember our hatreds across multiple generations, and watch them flare up from time to time, and stir in us a bloody righteous urge to fight for what’s right. We must defend our pride. This is a good thing.
Yet these olive-eating, garlic-spreading cheese freaks share a culture that, when observed from a certain distance, is truly amazing. I’m not going to talk about history. Or even about oregano. Today, all the cultures that touch the sea, even from a distance, go ahead and draw a line, are almost identical. It’s Greece and Persia and Rome and Egypt and all the rest. And the religions (same god(s), different cartels), are a nice, peaceful touch. Welcome to the "holy" land.
Jerusalem must be a paradise... if it wasn´t for “the problems”. We all got problems. Another thing that we share over here is a lack of leaders willing to resolve the problems. Too many times they actually cause them. Too many interests involved. We Mediterranears have a lot of issues, like pride, honor, all that. And our pride, this thing here, want some of this?, is not negotiable.
Sometimes it’s scary to realize that if I found myself in Mesopotamia 13,000 years ago, I could probably adapt and survive no problem. ‘Cause I'm from the Zone. You know: goats, olives, lentils, bread, thyme... you remember, baaaa. Ding dong. Feel the pride? Go on, feel it. It’s good.
But think about it. Here we are, a group of folks that have such a one-on-one relationship with our creator and savior, maker of heaven and earth and lots of other things that you can only see if his priests let you, Marduk, for example, that we gaily offer up our firstborn to the purifying bonfire of the lord our god. Now tell me that the Mayas were nasty. Really, think about it: Our cheese may not even be superior to theirs.
I dream of Roberto Begnini saying: “What a strange and beautiful place”. This is the true Mediterranean dude, surviving in places like America with friends like Tom Waits, in Down by Law. That perplexed, cautious being, is us. We love to suffer, survive, rebel. Strange genes in a strange environment, nice, boiling, evolving. Blessed landscape, and beauty that makes you crazy. Okay, slowly, but we’re evolving.
Probably if Mediterraneans stopped hating everybody around them and started taming some of these tribal urges, we might one day prove that civilization really is part of our culture. Things like getting along, letting our neighbors think differently, and working with them to improve commerce and social wellbeing for all. Oops, starting to sound too northern. Sorry.
Seriously. The related varieties of cultural experience (thanks, Carl Sagan) along the Mediterranean are, if you think about it, the things that should unite us in very real ways. Europe is nice, don’t get me wrong. We invented it. In fact, we kidnapped her (ourselves) from “the” Lebanon. And yet, we keep poking ourselves in the eye with our pride here, and it keeps us down as if by law, darkens our future. Not cool. At all.
I must admit I’ve had a hard time adapting to being in Spain. Let me clarify that: adapting to being Spanish. What’s funny is that you kind of assume you’re one thing and suddenly you realize that this identity thing just doesn´t fit. Noway, nohow. In fact, if you were to ask me what “being Spanish” is, exactly, I wouldn´t know what to say.
“Being Spanish” is more of an enigma to me right now, after several years attempting to “be Spanish”, than it was when I was a kid growing up in Boston. Back then I knew exactly what it was to be Spanish. I’d always known what is was to be Spanish. I’d always been Spanish and proud. Then I came back to Spain to get a first-hand account. And now, several years later, well, what can I say?
A very good friend of mine from Boston named Arthur (actually, the name is Thanasis, but Greeks are very proud Americans), once explained to me his own identity angst. Arthur is one of those Greeks whose skeptical realism and fierce individualism make them awesome conversationalists. Everything they say deserves to be written down.
“After a year in the US I feel trapped. I start to think of Greek music, the tavernas, the islands, the sea, the countryside. I start to get homesick. Then I start to convince myself that America sucks and Greece is the best. So I go to the travel agent and get my tickets. I brag to all my friends. ‘I’m going stin Elada this summer, re malaka, and you’re not’.
“Over the Atlantic I order a scotch, the stewardess has awesome breasts and I’m suddenly in heaven, with dreams of Greece, Golden Greece, the cradle of civilization. I’m so happy that I can’t stand it. Bye bye America.
“I get to Athens and see the old folks, the old friends, the old... oh boy. Things are good for a few days. Everything old has some new dirt on it and you can live off of it for a while. Then, like magic, you find yourself in the old identity. You start to think like a Greek. You get frustrated. You begin to understand once again why you left in the first place, or why your parents left. And the depression sets in.
“After a month I can’t stand it anymore. In America I could be applying for college, I could be looking for a better job, I could be investing cash in real estate, or a restaurant... I go to the travel agent and get my return ticket bumped up one month. I leave two days later...
“Over the Atlantic I order a scotch, the stewardess has awesome breasts and I’m suddenly in heaven, with dreams of America, the land of opportunity, with all my Greek friends, Roslindale, the cradle of civilization. I’m so happy that I can’t stand it. Bye bye Old Continent.
“Finally I’m back stateside. I get up every day for work, the house needs painting, Bush is a disgrace and the Democrats suck. Suddenly I´m talking to you, a Spanish guy, telling you all this and it all makes sense: I’m only happy on the airplane. I’m only happy when I’ve forgotten reality and managed to fool myself one more time”.
Whoa, it hits me. Spain is an awesome place. If only...
Fooling oneself is not the worst thing on earth. Sometimes it’s actually useful in reducing the stress caused by identity angst. This sense of identity sort of fools you into believing that there is a kind of romantic perfection out there called “Spanish”, or “American”, or “Greek”, when in fact these are not identities at all, but rather categories. And the list is large. There is nothing genetic about them, nothing intrinsic. They are pure meme.
We are perhaps the only animals capable of fooling ourselves thanks to this solipsism thing. This is genetic. We seek perfection. It must be an adaptive trait. Am I Spanish? Am I American? Do I feel lucky, punk?
Thanks, Athanasios.
“History repeats the old conceits, the glib replies, the same defeats... “ (Beyond Belief, Elvis Costello).
Much can be said about an attempt at a "citizens’ " movement in a country like Spain, one not precisely accustomed to civility or efficiency, but rather to its polar opposites. Oh well, it was a gallant go.
But that’s Spanish history for ya, a handful of gallant tries in a morass of incivility. And how quixotic to think that each time the chance to achieve something grand, to change the status quo materializes, one (I, for instance) believes it once again, goes for it, takes the chance heroically.
Futile. Once again the same defeats. Do not pass “go”. Do not collect $200. After all is said and done, the best you can say is that at least this time your card didn’t read “go directly to jail” - or worse.
It’s a peculiar situation. Spain is a land of frustrations precisely because there is so much unrealized potential here, so many fine, capable people, so much collective hope, so much worth fighting for. It’s déjà vu all over again, and the same ones are always the losers.
Actually, to be ruthlessly fair, the battle is lost before it begins, like a curse: we are our own worst enemies; we prey on each other mercilessly, we are hell-bent on the road to mediocrity every time. In this, in Spain, we are all equal. Never mind the pursuit of excellence.
How to change this conundrum? How to create the scenario whereby Spain can hope to fulfill its promise? I have a few ideas.
My first big idea (for what it’s worth) starts with thinking outside the box. The box that keeps us trapped like rats in a maze. Breaking down the Spanish Meme. Rending the veil of frustration and doing away with that profound inferiority complex we seem to suffer from, and helping a new generation of Spaniards to believe that they are not necessarily doomed by their history. That they are not prisoners of selective failure.
Spaniards are second to none. I’ll vouch for that. The hard part is getting them to believe it and act accordingly. A citizens’ movement, born in Catalonia, to change the social and political status quo in Spain? Sounds good - on paper. Been there. Tried that. No go. Catalonia is so Spain.
Next: let the Basques have a go. Good Lord: when will we learn? Enough already! (¡Basta Ya!).
“My hands were clammy and cunning, (it) seemed so suitably stunning; now I know there’s not a hope in Hades... “
Time for a paradigm shift, dudes. Enough selective failure. Time to get down with our funky selves. Stay tuned.
