The quest of comprehending the world we live in is a fascinating and beautiful adventure. Unearthing our anxieties, our contradictions and exploring what concerns us as humans is something not just necessary for our survival as a species but also crucial to achieve a happier and rewarding existence. I inquire myself sometimes about why humans do the things that we do: What does being human mean and what does that being demand us to do? The answers to many of our questions have certainly a response in the study of History, Philosophy, Political Science, Natural Sciences, Sociology or Linguistics. Solving ethical and moral puzzles that trouble us or interpreting the different realities we live in might lay in Music, Literature and Art, or also in the multiple schools of thought that for centuries have sought to address these problems in the minds of Hinduist India, Taoist China, Mesopotamia or Classic Greece.

I grew up in a quaint town in the Central Mountain Range in Spain. When I was born, Spain, with its splendid historical and cultural legacy, started to wake up from a long period dominated by self-centrism, isolation and repression of diversity in favor of national homogeneity. My grandparents lived the miseries and horrors of the Spanish Civil War and its aftermath during forty years of Franco’s dictatorship. At the end they had the reward to breathe the fresh air of today’s Democratic Spain. Their most valuable ideals were education and integrity. In the wake of the early democracy and reconnection with Europe and the ideas it represents my parents commenced their family embracing the same values as theirs by instilling in my six siblings and me the passion for study, knowledge, self-reliance, honesty, compassion and freedom of ideas.

At twenty I didn’t wanted to be happy and cozy at home, instead I wanted to go to sea and experience raw life and adventure, endure hardship, reflect upon life and learn the ancient art of sailing and navigation looking at the stars to locate myself in the immensity of the ocean like Ulysses did. Now I know that enduring months of solitude at sea require coexisting with oneself. It can be boring at times, others simply very hard, but I have never been bored when I am alone.

Some seamen have an aura of romanticism, adventure seeking, curiosity and free spirit. We cherish living in uncertainty and solitude, inspired by nature and human quest; we are made of a cloth devoid of fear or belonging. This curiosity came to me from the adventure books of Joseph Conrad, Herman Melville and Robert L. Stevenson that I read with my dad. I felt inspired by the XVI Century Explorers who traveled across the Atlantic and Pacific like Columbus, Magellan, Urdaneta or Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca across the Texas shores. My motivation came from the naval officers of the Enlightenment era like Jorge Juan, Malaspina and Churruca, who taught themselves in astronomy, physics, philosophy and engineering and fought naval battles against respected and glorious enemies like Horatio Nelson.

Today the technological revolution we are immersed in represents an invitation to a more thoughtful human existence. How we deal with machines poses some questions about the way we incorporate technology in our lives and what repercussions we will face. While we predict a dominating role of technology in our future, we cannot obviate the purpose of human thought, of artistic creation, literary production, and other forms of human expression. We should not neglect the value of hundreds of thousands of years of human evolution and what it means to us. Accordingly, we should furnish ourselves with a wealth of knowledge to answer the moral puzzles that will arise with the use of machines and instead satisfy our souls with worldly beauties that have enriched human existence for thousands of years.