Borges y Yo

  I've talked about Jose Luis Borges a little bit, but now, I'm going to go into a little more detail.  Borges was born in Buenos Aires in 1899, but because of his father's health problems, he grew up in Switzerland (1904-21).  When he returned to Buenos Aires, he fell in love with the city, and he wrote a great deal about it; these writing are among the ones that made him famous.
   Certain things are always present in my mind, simply because of who I am.  I saw that Borges grew up in a country that was not where his parents were from, and immediately, I attributed his success as one of the greatest Latin American authors of all to time to his TCKness (Third Culture Kid)ness.
  When Borges returned to Buenos Aires, he realized that this was indeed where he belonged. He wrote that the time in Europe was non-existent; Argentina was all that mattered.  (Granted, that thought pattern isn't exactly typical for TCKs, but bear with me).  Because he hadn't grown up here, he could describe the city in ways that a native couldn't.  Because it was new for him, his perspective was vastly different.
   In other ways, he shows very strong TCK trends.  He thought that traditions were stupid.  Some Argentines accused him of being anti-patriotic because of this.  But, he didn't see the point of traditions and rituals.  His philosophy was to take the useful part of a tradition and leave the rest alone.  This carried over to his religious views as he saw the emptiness in the traditionalism of the Abrahamic religions.  Apparently, he showed interest in Buddhism because the ability to "pick and choose."  I thought that was really interesting.  "Picking and choosing" seems to be a TCK thing.  Because they have seen a lot of things (cultures, traditions, etc), a mix is the most natural result.
  Needless to say, I have become much more interested in Borges and his life, now that I know that he was a TCK.

Note on the title: Borges wrote a small work called Borges y Yo (Borges and I).  He talks about his seemly split personality. The public figure and the simple man.  I kinda played with that as Borges and I (Will).