Sunday, April 20, 2008

Buenos Aires, you like me. You really, really do.

People kept asking me before I moved to Argentina, "Are you nervous?" I was never sure what to say. Sometimes I allowed that I was nervous. Sometimes I tried to be nervous.

But that's just not the way I live my life. I make decisions, and then I do.* Nervous? I often have this intellectual sense that I should be nervous, but viscerally? Not really, no. Sorry, doesn't make for interesting conversations, but what can I do?

I've been here 3 days. And as I just emailed a friend, "argentina is awesome. seriously awesome. oh my wow gosh awesome."

Was this the best decision I could've made? Who knows (eg, why try to calculate long-term utility given risk-utility curves when I'm splendid in the short-term?) ? I am trying to move away from utility-maximizing towards utilitity-satisficing**, and I'm pretty bloody happy with my decision to move. So far, life is awesome. I'll try to delineate why in later posts.

Right now, Argentina is the place for me to be.


* I may try to explain this philosophy of life in a later post. Let's call it a commitment threshold: I either commit inexorably or I am tossed about by every wave in the proverbial sea.

** Research shows that people who try to absolutely maximize their happiness are not usually happy, whereas folks who aim for satisfaction (not maximizing) are usually quite happy.

(also, you do catch the cultural reference in the title, si?)

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