This truly is where it all began. Here in La Mancha, where the adventures first started to take place lived an old man named Don Quixote. After too many books and too little sleep, Don Quixote started to lose his mind and decided that he wanted to become a knight and he set off on knightly adventures with his newly recruited sidekick Sancho Panza.

Like Don Quixote, I have pondered the idea in the past of changing my entire identity. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to have a fresh start and do all of the things that I had wish I had done growing up. I have never even thought about taking it to this extent however. Don Quixote has gone above and beyond what anyone would even think of doing. This is why people think he is crazy, because he does the unimaginable. I respect Don Quixote for this though. Not many people can just commit to dropping everything in their lives and setting off for adventures like this. If Donn Quixote is anything, the man is dedicated.

I think that Cervantes wrote this book differently than a lot of people today interpret it. I think that a lot of people, (like me) find the actions of Don Quixote to be heroic and inspirational, but I do not think that Don Quixote had any intention of making this character to be heroic at all. I really do find it interesting that this is the case. I also wonder  if people of Cervantes’ generation saw Quixote as a hero or if they just saw him as a crazy fool with no clear intentions. It’s funny how different generations tend to have much different perspectives on things.