CURRENT MISSION

Get to India by land. Overcome fear. Learn to be simply in the now, learn to flow and to read the synchronicities of life.

ABOUT ME

Better than tell you that I'm a good person (which I am), I think it is to tell you my story. This way you will understand me better, you will understand why I'm doing now this trip to India by land from my hometown in Spain (Granada).

I could describe me as half entrepreneur and half an artist. As an entrepreneur I've started a graphic design studio and a restaurant. Both are located in my hometown (Granada, Spain) and still running (www.manigua.es / www.botanico.es). I created also a short films production company that didn't last and a project to create an ecovillage that we have to abandon after two years. All these projects I've done them with friends. I'm kind of tribal person, I'm not interested in making money or success. I like people, I like to share, what interests me is the ability (and the difficulties) of human beings to create big things together.

As an artist I haven't been that successful. After four short films in the 90's, I haven't released anything. I suffered a kind of artist blockage that got me into therapy. I did Gestalt and Integrative Corporal Therapy, Enneagram, Non Violent Communication, Therapeutic Theater and many other things. I released my suffering and I learnt a lot, about myself and about the human mind, specially about emotions, which is my main point of interest.

I conceived then what I believe is a great and wonderful project, a 'more-than-a-film' project I call "9 emotions", a film I wanted to be a unique investigative trip on the fascinating complex simplicity of emotions and humans themselves, on the fractal structure of the emotional and the different temperaments that produce on human beings. It absorbed me completely. But even after years of work devoted to it (to the point it got me bankrupt), I haven't been able to finish it. It is maybe too big for my small brain.

So, I decided to let it be for the time being and retake on a old project: a slow trip to India by surface (I mean, by land or sea, without ever catching a plane), a trip without plans, schedules or deadlines. I imagined this trip 16 years ago, when the artist blockage started but I didn't do it because i got too scared when the moment to leave arrived. I'm not afraid anymore, so this is the moment to do it, this is the trip i'm doing now. And I don't know how, but I feel it will give me the key I'm missing with the "9 emotions" project.

I little more about me: born in Granada in a big family (11 children), I've lived most of the time in Granada but also in Madrid, San Francisco, Vancouver and Barcelona. I have two kids (that live with their mothers). I'm single. I'm a kind, honest, quiet and easygoing person. I think I have a good conversation (at least, most of the time). I don't smoke. I love to dance. I love to meet new people.

PHILOSOPHY

Life is a game, a game of which we don't know yet all the rules! That's why, learning is so essential, and why learning to live is endless... Let's then play, enjoy the game, and learn something meanwhile.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I'm doing a long trip right now and it was at the begginig of it, thanks to a friend, that I got to know it. For a long time, I guess I will just surf, but I'm sure that I will happily host when I get back home. I feel so much gratitude towards my hosts and toward the whole CS community that I'm willing to be back home to give back what I received.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I've had at the moment, just two experiences of couchsurfing, but let me tell you they've fantastic both of them. And what I think is better, each of them in a very different way. The opportunity that this CS gives you of meeting new and different people and share with them from another perspective is just great! I've become an enthusiastic follower right away.

Interests

arts, music, architecture, films, dancing, theatre, clown, creativity development; hiking, travelling; groups organization and empowerment, ecovillages and the economy of sharing, ecology, transition town movement; emotions research, human character, mind and brain, self-knowledge, spirituality; yoga, 5 rhythm, qigong, Non Violent Communication, Gestalt, shamanism.

• arts
• theater
• architecture
• design
• graphic design
• dancing
• yoga
• running
• movies
• traveling
• music
• hiking
• ecology
• entrepreneurship
• journalism

Music, Movies, and Books

Movies: i love many many things: from classics auteurs (like Fritz Lang, Lubitsch, Murnau, Bergman, Visconti, C.T. Dreyer, O. Wells, Fellini) and contemporary ones (like Wes Anderson, Sokurov, Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson, Lars Von Trier) to very commercial things.

Music: Adriana Calcanhotto, Beirut, Emiliana Torrini, Belle&Sebastian, Caetano Veloso, Enrique Morente, Gotan Project, Jack Johnson, Jorge Drexler, Kings of Convenience, Manu Chao, Mercury Rev, Moby, Philipp Glass, Los Planetas, Réné Aubry, Calexico, Kid Loco, Jun Miyake, Dhafer Youssef, Metronomy, Yonderboi, Céu, Karina Zeviani, Russian Red, the Waterboys, the Beatles...

Books: I'll write about this another day...

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Attend a traditional marriage in a secluded rural area in Marocco where the old women danced until they got into trance for the couple and guests (I was allowed to be there because I was introduced as the husband of a spanish journalist that came with me, friend of a cousin of the groom). I felt really privileged to be there seeing the old women got into trance.

Teach, Learn, Share

I think I learnt a bit about emotions and how to communicate better. I'm very good organizing things. Emotions and organization are more related than what most people would think. I think I could teach about this.

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