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               Only when you truly encounter and then embrace what is stronger and what is bigger than you, can you fully appreciate your own limitedness and insignificance. This is one of the many things I have learned in Iceland.

              The land here is vast, but also relatively uninhibited. Some Icelanders would jokingly say that there are more sheep than people on this island. Bad weather conditions combined with severe deforestation, sometimes I, as a visitor, could not endure the coldness and pain from the wind, let alone people who would spend years after years in this kind of place. But if you ask me if I want to stay here for the rest of my life, I would cry out: of course yes! I would in fact choose to live in the countryside and raise some sheep. Then I would go out into the mountain to catch them and do sheep herding with my neighbors from far and far away in the fall. 

             Life here should be simple, just as simple as the colors that the country has. But if you are careful enough, you will be able to discover more in this kind of simplicity than the seemly-unlimited options in the city. Life here is not just herding sheep and sucking wind. People would also gather around with one another that they could talk to people they could only talk with once a year; people would also ride their horses into the heart of the mountain to capture those sanguine sheep; people would also celebrate the captures of the sheep by drinking brandy-filled hot soup in the fierce wind; they would also be happy and by simple. 

            Similarly, simplicity in color, as manifested in the mere black and white, makes this island more exciting. We could see a wide spectrum of man-made colors in the city, but what we cannot see is precisely such simple combination of colors. Such simplicity makes this place pristine, which in turn, cleanses us travellers and wash down the filth of human civilization. The feelings of that moment, when you feel like you have conquered something with your physical strength and mental power, when your sweat dropping from your cheek bones, and when you were about to cry out some random syllables, you may start to realize that it was not you who conquered this majestic place; but rather, it was this place conquered you, overwhelmed your, and transcended you.

            A place that would transcend you. If I were to create a commercial line for Iceland tourism, I would use this one. It does not merely change you; it turns you into a completely different person, the person that you would want more in you, than the person in the past. 

Constantine Michael