I am Matt Thomas.

Babel

January 30, 2007

I’m still recovering from my time in Mexico—fortunately I managed to not get sick until after I’d returned home. In lieu of one rambling, bloated week-in-review, I thought I’d offer a few thoughts from my trip when I have a few minutes to do this blogging thing.

I feel like I’m a pretty empathetic person in general. I’m not perfect, but for the most part, I do my best to try to understand others and help ease the burden of my fellow man when I can. But while in Mexico, I had a few occasions that left me considering scenarios I’ve never been faced with myself before—particularly, issues having to do with communication. That seems particuarly relevant to the trip, since facilitating communication is really what Automattic does, in a really corporate-ese way of saying it.

I never had the opportunity to travel outside the United States before our trip to La Paz. It’s something I’d thought about doing for a long time, but had never really had a good enough reason to do it. As such, I’d never had a chance to experience what it’s like to be in place where a majority of people only speak a language that you don’t understand. There’s been so many frustrating experiences when trying to communicate with someone in the US who doesn’t speak english well, but now I can see for myself that it’s ten times more frustrating to be the other person in that scenario.

I thought about how glad I was to get to work with these people, and how privileged I was to get to do what I love, and to get to take a trip like this…

The people of La Paz were gracious and welcoming, but not being to understand even the most perfect of hosts can eventually become intimidating and exhausting. I wouldn’t say I have a whole new respect, but maybe a new level of understanding, and hopefully a renewed sense of consciousness of those who have to overcome obstacles to be able to communicate. It’s something I should keep in mind both in my role as a designer and just as a human being.

Tuesday night, after a long day of work and play, I took a stroll around the grounds of Casabuena, thinking about my experiences so far and enjoying the beauty of my temporary home. I thought about how glad I was to get to work with these people, and how privileged I was to get to do what I love, and to get to take a trip like this, experience new things, and go back to my warm bed and comfortable home at the end of it all. And as I was thinking about the differences between Mexico and my home in the United States, I could barely hear a band playing at a party or something off in the distance. I perked up my ears, and realized that they were playing a popular Radiohead song from a few years ago. It occurred to me then that no matter how far apart we can feel sometimes, we really do live in a very small world.