Balance

Every week I find myself having to say something and being astonished by the events that are taking place. Writing weekly brings this difficulty to those who, like me, do not imagine they can master the news. Every week, I am overwhelmed by events. Perhaps other people feel the same way I do: not knowing what to say, not wanting to be sucked into them, struggling with their own insignificance in a world that wants everything fast, and where it hardly matters to stop for a moment, breathe, let time pass. Reading the newspapers perhaps gives us an exact notion of our mortality. Everything is heading towards death, time is passing too quickly for us to catch up and in the end we all die, just as innocent people are dying all over the place right now. So, I feel it almost immoral to give myself the time and space of these lines that do not intend to change anything, to lose myself in thoughts, while one more person dies, what does it matter to stop and pay attention to this enormity of being alive and safe in 2025?

Then I think about it, about the miracle of the free and safe this year, about us, who are seeing the months pass without major suffering, protected and fed, and I think about whether or not it is ugly to talk about it, to celebrate it, to give thanks for it, I balance the discomfort without reaching a conclusion. How can we interpret the responsibility of having a space, however simple it may be? Perhaps by preventing it from becoming infected by violence, perhaps that will count for something in times like these. To run the risk of insignificance, even of redundancy, if that means rescuing three paragraphs from the aggressive vortex of the present.

But is it really worth it? Who is interested, who cares? Is it desirable, an honorable precaution (or presumption) or mere idiocy? In this world of experts and specialists, I will be yet another repeater of the art of saying a lot about nothing, of which this sentence and these questions are an example.

Many writers sacrifice opinion columns for many reasons, the biggest of which is their slow, monotonous lives and the slow, monotonous digestion of that life. No matter how hurried I am, I look at insignificant things and ask questions to the world: the crane operator's balancing act at lunchtime when he leaves the cabin and eats from a lunchbox while sitting up high, the two cups of coffee spilled on the tray, the sign on the cleaning lady's ear, the stitches in the sexagenarian's sock, the time when the crickets start to sing, the smell of the man's robe, the growth of the plants on the stairs at the entrance to the house, the marks of dust on the kitchen windows, the woman's tan, the crumbs on the table.

Having the time and peace to notice trifles is the great privilege of few in the world, myself included. Does it make sense to dwell on nothing side by side with the interpreters (and the astringency) of the world? I don't think so.