I've been asked to explain myself, and give some sort of justification for this whole blog-writing business, haphazard as it is. So I've identified three reasons, two of which do me no personal credit whatsoever:
1) Laziness - why write long emails to lots of different people when you can just put a link up on Facebook, or not even notify anyone and just expect people to check back periodically to see what you've been up to. It's this modern ailment of not being bothered to talk to anyone directly, which I'm wholeheartedly embracing. In my defence, the odds are that the internet in its facilitation of this cold, impersonal communication is really often replacing a sharing of information that never would have occurred, rather than better quality contact.
2) A near-pathological aversion to repetition - I hate repeating myself. It annoys me. I remember very clearly a stand-up fight with my mother many years ago over the vacuuming of my bedroom: the hoover hadn't been working very well so although I had done the chore the original goal had not really been fulfilled. Nevertheless I refused to do it again on the basis that I had done what I was asked once already and it was unreasonable to expect me to do it again. Ok, maybe there was an element of the laziness I just referred to, but for the most part I just couldn't stand the idea of doing the same thing again.
The same applies to conversation, and a consequence of this is that I tend to speak as though people know things that I have never bothered to tell them but did describe with thrilling vivacity to someone else. They then appear not to appreciate the development of that same theme. So instead of a) having to tell people all the same things about my time in Madrid or b) remember what interesting and different things I've described to each person it's easier just to write a load of stuff down and go from there.
A similar difficulty applies to forming any kind of routine or developing a proper hobby. It begins to feel boring, repetitive and claustrophobic and I find a new thing to obsess about for a bit. This is the reason I still can't play the guitar and will never succeed at any competitive sport.
3) Writing makes me think better. This is a good one, I think, and should help me get more out of this whole foreign travel and work business.
I did it in previous years, when I was travelling and it was a good way to pass the time, but I don't know if it was (a greater degree of) immaturity or the fact that it was entirely private that made me write this travel diary with even lower editorial standards and an even greater level of self-obsession, along with a lot of the assumptions of familiarity that I mentioned above.
A public forum, albeit one that few strangers will find or ever bother to read, focusses my ramblings to be a) more succinct and b) less about facile chronological diary entries and more about abstract things that I find interesting. Additionally, as I articulate my thoughts about things I find more then occurs to me. It also can act as a impetus to continue doing and seeing interesting things, so that I have something to write about.
In that spirit, it's 3.30pm on a Friday so I'm off out to sketch the city, maybe from a terrace, with a caña in hand. Next blog post is likely to be about Piranesi, engineering and drawing and how they all fit together. Or potentially Herzog and de Meuron's Caixa Forum building. Or mountains or the beach.
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