Anchored in the face of uncertainty, doubts and scepticism, I search for fantasy.
Immersed in a hustle and bustle from which we cannot escape and of which we are, in a way, voluntary hostages, we live under a succession of true or false information that has gradually transformed us into victims of our need to know. For those of us who have participated in the battle of ideas and, out of a sense of honesty, are confronted with doubt, lies and the traps of the system, leaving the stage seems to be the best response. The backstage becomes more and more attractive every day and, somehow, even if it is an inelegant way to escape, there comes a moment when we seriously consider withdrawal.
In my case, and although I am not going to give up yet, it is already more than three long decades of emptying my mind every week in a dialogue with my consciousness. This history of my passage through the pages of the media has been, perhaps, the most stable part of my career and I have enjoyed this catharsis every time I put an end to a page. However, not everything has been gratuitous: the effort to compose, in a short text, a whole chapter capable of expressing my thoughts, has been an exercise whose mixture of frustration, pain and hope bears an imprint of enormous responsibility, as well as a great deal of personal dedication.
Never before have we faced such a bewildering world. With a global environment that shows us every day its capacity to shake us to the ground and leave us with a lot of doubts. We know, because there is no other option, that we have to react and find a response, but without the slightest idea of how to start looking for it. That is our scenario today, coinciding with a new digit in the calendar – pure coincidence, because these false starts are as false as good resolutions – and we are forced to accept it because they are the parameters of a new form of existence.
The events that have an impact on us today have, however, been the subject of literature for centuries. The wars for economic power, the deception of leaders, the manipulation of the truth and the sacrifice of the weakest for the benefit of the most powerful have never been more in evidence than in this new magical realism, which has left us dazzled and unable to find a way out. Thanks to a neo-colonial system disguised as development, the few tools we had to confront the abuses of power have been taken away from us. Among them, education and health.
Perhaps for this reason I have turned to reading books – a treasure I appreciate with increasing gratitude – and I am gradually moving away from sources of information, from those I no longer believe in and also from those I doubt. Scepticism or evasion? Anything is possible, but at this stage of my adventure it is no longer important to spill out into these irresponsibilities, but to find a corner of peace in the treasures of the human mind, which, as Borges said, are infinite.
My advice, if it is of any use to you, is to find that intimate and isolated space to escape from a reality that we neither understand nor allow us to exercise the right to change it. Perhaps in absorbing the thoughts of others we will come to apprehend the immensity of the damage done to our little world because we have been unable to live together in harmony. For having thought ourselves superior. For having abandoned all ideals.
Find that intimate space to enjoy a reading that connects you with yourself.
