Mind the gap
Alex told me yesterday that the best thing about living in Argentina is that it keeps you sharp. According to Alex, living in England is too easy, it makes you soft, because you're looked after at every step. Alex lived there for seven years, before coming back to Argentina with a big wad of cash and a thick Irish accent picked up from his boss in the bar trade. His theory is that there are serious disadvantages to living in a society where you don't have to keep your wits about you all the time. If the state minds you, you forget how to mind yourself. And if there's one thing that sums it all up for Alex, it's the phrase "Mind the gap". Here, in a country littered with gaps and slip ups and loopholes and things you really should be minding, you have to keep a watch out yourself or you land on your own arse. Argentina won't tell you where the gap is, or whether you should mind it or not. And that, for Alex, is the best thing about being here. "Keeps you sharp," he told me. "Keeps you thinking."
posted by fiona at 7:33 a.m.
3 Comments:
Hola linda...es un poco cierto no????
pense tanto en vos ayer.
celebraciones a mi regreso no?
Besos
Yeah, you're very right. I lived in the States six years (age 6-12), and now that I've been living here for over 10 years I feel that everything over there was predetermined, life somehow invented for you and laid out in front of you. Here, it is very different.
I have to say that I coincide with your friend Alex. Living in Argentina gives you an independance; an air of confidence because you know it takes courage to live in the capital. You learn to sort out problems of the everyday life. I remember when I was there, in this apartment in buenos aires I had rented. I lived there for a year and I now can say I can handle "the street". It´s practice for life, and it is always a training!
Kim
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