Sometimes sudden, sometimes creeping in with the years, there comes a moment when mortality ceases to be an abstraction. It is no longer a distant eventuality, an idea tucked away in the folds of daily existence, softened by distractions and routine. Instead, it steps forward, undeniable and weighty, as certain as breath and just as fleeting.
Perhaps it arrives with the quiet betrayal of the body—a stiffness upon waking that does not pass, the faltering of memory, the slight hesitation before a step once taken with ease. Or maybe it comes with loss: a friend, a sibling, a parent, a spouse, whose absence feels like a rehearsal for one’s own. The awareness sharpens and turns time into something both more precious and more fragile. We begin to measure life in what remains rather than what has passed.
And yet, even with this awareness, there is resistance. The mind flits away and grasps at plans, distractions, the comfortable illusion of continuity. We fear death, but we also refuse to fully look at it, as if acknowledgment alone might hasten its approach. We craft rituals around it, philosophies to explain it, but we rarely sit with it, silent and unadorned. It is not death itself that terrifies—it is the knowing, the certainty that it will come, whether with warning or in a moment unguarded.
But what if, instead of turning away, we let the awareness settle? Not as a burden, but as a quiet companion. If we could bear to see loss not as a theft but as an inevitable passage, one that has always been woven into the fabric of living, then death itself might lose its urgency. To know we are mortal is not to despair, but to understand the shape of what we are given. The question is not whether death will come, but whether we can carry that knowledge without fear—whether we can, at last, learn to live with it.
~
*
II. The Decline: Mind and Body
The body does not falter all at once. Its undoing is slow, measured in the smallest betrayals—steps that once felt effortless but now require consideration, a name that lingers just out of reach, the gradual dimming of senses that once shaped the world in sharp relief. At first, these changes seem like passing inconveniences, momentary lapses rather than the steady drift toward an inescapable fate. But the truth settles in with time: this is not a phase, not something to be recovered from, but the quiet unraveling of what once felt permanent.
The mind, too, shows its wear. Thought slows; memories surface in fragments, elusive and unreliable. There is irony in the awareness that remains—sharp enough to perceive the very faculties now fading. It is one thing to lose oneself unknowingly, another to watch the process unfold with lucid understanding. Here lies the deepest struggle: not merely the failing of body or mind, but the tension between resisting the inevitable and surrendering to it.
Some fight against this decline with a desperate energy and will themselves to retain what is slipping away. They train the body, challenge the mind, cling to routines as though discipline alone can hold back time. Others yield more readily and see in each loss a reminder that life is not meant to be held onto with clenched fists. Acceptance, however, does not come easily—it is not passive resignation, nor is it defeat. It is an uneasy balance between effort and surrender, between maintaining what can be kept and releasing what must go.
Suffering wears many faces. For some, it arrives as a single, catastrophic moment—a diagnosis, an accident, an unforeseen unraveling of the body’s delicate order. For others, it creeps in gradually, its presence felt in the weight of each passing year. The pain may be physical, unrelenting in its demands, or it may be the subtler ache of losing one’s sense of self, of becoming unrecognizable to one’s own reflection. Yet suffering, no matter its form, is universal. It does not measure its presence by fairness or logic. It simply is.
Against this backdrop, medicine intervenes—an effort to slow, to repair, to resist the natural course of deterioration. And yet, there is a discord in this. The body is finite, its functions destined to wane, yet we press forward with treatments, procedures, and endless prescriptions, each promising to forestall the inevitable. The line between care and prolongation blurs. To fight for life is instinctive, but at what point does the fight itself become suffering?
In the quiet moments, away from doctors and treatments, the question lingers: is decline something to battle, or is there dignity in allowing nature to take its course? And if the answer is neither absolute resistance nor passive surrender, then where, exactly, does one find the balance?
~
*
III. The Distractions That Delay Acceptance
To accept death fully would require a stillness that few can bear. The mind, restless and cunning, finds ways to avoid such stillness, to weave a life so full of movement and intention that mortality remains a distant, theoretical concern. And so, we fill our days with efforts to prolong them.
Longevity itself becomes a pursuit, an industry built on the promise that decline can be postponed, perhaps even avoided altogether. Diets, regimens, supplements, and treatments—all aimed at fortifying the body against its inevitable unraveling. Science, too, lends its hand, in offering new ways to repair, replace, and sustain. Medicine intervenes not only to heal but to extend, technology whispers of futures in which aging is optional, and ritual grants the comfort of structure to what cannot be controlled. Each of these offers something real—time, ease, a semblance of mastery over the body’s betrayals. But beneath them all is the same unspoken hope: that death, if not conquerable, might at least be postponed long enough to be forgotten.
Yet it is not only the fear of death itself that keeps us tethered to life but the weight of what remains unfinished. The obligations we have not yet fulfilled, the words left unsaid, the people who still need us—all of these create a sense that departure is premature, that to leave now would be to abandon something essential. Even in old age, when life has been long and full, there lingers the feeling that there is more to do, more to settle, more to understand. The past tugs at us with its unresolved questions; the future, though narrowing, still holds the illusion of possibility.
And so, we resist stillness. We resist the quiet where truth is most easily heard. The mind, unoccupied, might begin to accept what the body already knows. And so, we fill the hours, surround ourselves with routine, distraction, movement. Even suffering, in its strange way, can serve as a tether—something to focus on, something to endure, rather than a void to surrender to.
But what if we let the distractions fall away? If we stopped grasping for more time, more purpose, more noise? What would remain? The fear, yes—but also the possibility of peace. For all our striving, death will not be bargained with. It comes when it will, unmoved by the measures taken against it. Perhaps the final act of wisdom is not to resist, but to release—to allow the quiet to settle, to let the mind and body, at last, align in their understanding.
~
*
IV. The Weight of Suffering and Endurance
Suffering is the one certainty all sentient beings share. It is neither rare nor exceptional; it is the undercurrent of existence, woven into the fabric of life from its first breath to its last. And yet, for all its universality, suffering is deeply personal—felt in ways no other can fully understand, borne in ways that cannot be measured.
Pain takes many forms. It may be the slow tightening of the body against itself, the ache of illness, the heaviness of fatigue that never fully lifts. Or it may be the quieter pains—the loss of self as the mind falters, the loneliness of watching the world move on without you, the grief of knowing that, no matter how much one has endured, there is still more to bear. Some suffer in the open, their pain visible and acknowledged. Others carry it in silence, as though to admit its weight would be to surrender to it.
Yet suffering alone does not mark the end. There is something beyond it, something deeper: endurance. The threshold of what one can bear is not fixed; it shifts, expands, contracts. A pain once unthinkable becomes routine; a burden that seemed insurmountable is carried, day after day. And yet, there is always a limit, a moment—often unspoken, often known only in the quiet of one’s own thoughts—when endurance is no longer enough.
This is the reckoning, the moment when staying alive is no longer an act of living but of mere persistence. For some, it comes as a sudden recognition, as clear as a breaking dawn. For others, it arrives gradually, the body whispers before the mind dares to listen. It is not simply about pain, nor is it about age. It is the moment when the will to remain no longer outweighs the cost of doing so.
There is no universal measure for when this moment arrives; it is known only to the one who bears it. To endure is an instinct, a habit built into the core of existence. But to know when endurance has reached its end—that is something else entirely. It is not weakness, nor is it surrender. It is a quiet knowing, a recognition that every life carries within it the right to determine when it has been enough.
And so the question lingers: is suffering the price of life, or is there a point at which one is justified in setting the burden down? The answer is not written in doctrine, nor in medicine, nor in the opinions of those who do not bear the weight themselves. It is written in the individual, in the silent moment when one understands—this is enough.
~
*
V. The Unseen Threshold
Life does not depart all at once. It recedes, quietly at first, almost imperceptible in its withdrawal. The breath grows shallower, not in gasps but in a gradual easing, as though the body has decided to take up less space in the world. Weight diminishes, not only in flesh but in presence—the self becomes lighter, less tethered to the demands of existence. A once-restless mind drifts, thoughts untangle, as if loosening its grip on the past, the future, even the urgency of the present.
These are not signs of failure, nor of defeat. They are the body’s way of whispering that it is time. Time to ease away from effort, from the relentless task of sustaining itself. Time to let go of the struggle to remain. For all the fear that surrounds death, the body itself does not fear it. It knows when to surrender long before the mind is ready to accept.
And so comes the moment of knowing—not a grand realization, not an epiphany, but a quiet certainty. It is not measured in days or dictated by diagnosis. It is something deeper, something felt. Some fight against it and grasp at every last breath as though sheer will alone can anchor it. Others meet it as one meets sleep—reluctant at first, then trust, then finally yield to its pull.
There is dignity in this release. Not the dignity others impose, the kind measured in stoicism or restraint, but the simple dignity of relinquishing control. Of allowing the body to do what it was always meant to do: to reach its end not as a tragedy, but as a completion. To fight against this moment is to resist the natural rhythm of life itself. But to accept it—to welcome the stillness, to let breath slow without fear—that is its own kind of grace.
In the end, death is not something that must be conquered, nor something that must be endured beyond what one can bear. It is simply the last threshold, unseen until it is reached, known only to the one who crosses it. And when the time comes, there is nothing left to do but step forward—light, unburdened, and without regret.
~
*
VI. The Quiet Acceptance
To think of death without fear—to sit with it, unguarded, and allow it to be what it is—this is a rare and difficult peace. For so long, the mind has recoiled from its certainty and wrapped it in distractions, explanations, and resistance. But there comes a point when all of that falls away, when death is no longer something to be argued with or postponed, but simply recognized as the inevitable conclusion to a life that has been lived.
Fear untangles itself when death is no longer treated as an interruption, no longer seen as a theft, but rather as something as natural as breath itself. The body, in its wisdom, has already begun to let go. It is the mind that lingers and clings to meaning, to unfinished things, to the illusion that one more day, one more hour, might change something essential. But in the end, no justification is needed. One does not have to prove that it is the right time. The right time comes, whether welcomed or not, and acceptance is simply the act of ceasing to resist.
Stillness is not the same as resignation. Resignation carries a sense of defeat, of something being taken against one’s will. But true stillness—true acceptance—is something else entirely. It is an arrival, a settling into the inevitable without fear or regret. It is the moment when the mind and body, long at odds, finally move in the same direction. No more effort. No more bargaining. Only the quiet understanding that what was given has been enough.
To embrace the end is not to let go of life’s value, but to affirm it fully—by allowing it to complete itself with grace. There is nothing left to do, no more debts to settle, no more battles to fight. There is only the quiet, and the quiet is enough.
~
*
VII, In Closing
No life is lived in solitude, and no journey—especially the one toward acceptance—is walked alone. Along the way, we are shaped, guided, and held by those who have touched our hearts and left their presence within us even after they are gone. In facing mortality, we recognize not only our own, but also those who have come before us, whose lives continue to echo in memory, in love, in the quiet places where absence becomes something enduring.
Their presence lingers—not as shadows, but as light. They have taught us, challenged us, consoled us, and, in their own ways, prepared us for the path we all must take.
Death, in its harshness, strips us bare and confronts us with what is essential. Yet, it also unites us, for the love we have given and received does not fade with physical absence.
Our loved ones remain until the end; they sustain us through their memory and the love they have left within us.
To them, we offer our deepest gratitude. They are not gone. They remain, in the heart, in the soul, in the quiet acceptance of all that has been and all that will be.
Triangulation 36 22″ x 30″ Body color, sanguine, sepia and Sumi ink on paper 2008
The Power of Myth and Storytelling
Storytelling has long been humanity’s way of making sense of the unknown—an enduring thread that weaves aspirations, fears, and triumphs into allegory. Myths such as those of Jupiter reflect our longing for power, resilience, and the divine; they serve as echoes of the struggles that define us. Whether in the trials of gods and heroes or the quiet ordeals of ordinary lives, these narratives offer a means to navigate the bewildering nature of existence.
Mystery drifts into the folds of nature and provokes the eternal human impulse to explain, to justify, to believe. Superstition thrives where uncertainty prevails; it offers a semblance of control, a means to interpret the ungovernable. But where does it lead? Does superstition whisper in the ears of power, does it shape the visions of those who govern? Even in nations where the media shields leadership from scrutiny, the allure of the esoteric persists, its expressions open yet its workings veiled, obscured by secrecy and the hush of conspiratorial dread.
As mythologies once shaped civilizations, superstition remains deeply woven into modern cultures. It manifests in rites and rituals, in whispered incantations and quiet observances, in the gestures of those who seek certainty where reason falters. And yet, for all its solace, does it propel or impede? A society caught between superstition and rationality is one that stands at a threshold—as superstition lingers between the past and the demands of an evolving world.
Santería and Spiritism in Venezuela
Santería and Spiritism have taken root in Venezuela and their influence surges in times of crisis. Santería, an Afro-Caribbean fusion of Catholic, Indigenous, and African traditions, finds expression in rituals meant to commune with spirits, to bridge the worlds of the living and the dead. Spiritism, too, is tethered to the supernatural, a doctrine of spectral contact and whispered revelations. The two converge and intertwine within the broader landscape of Venezuela’s spiritual consciousness.
The Religious Sect of María Lionza
At the heart of Venezuela’s esoteric traditions stands María Lionza, an enigmatic figure at the crossroads of Indigenous, African, and Catholic beliefs. She is revered as a goddess of nature, love, and harmony, her presence invoked in ceremonies that summon the spirits of those who have passed—figures as varied as the doctor José Gregorio Hernández, pre-Columbian chieftains, military titans like Simón Bolívar, and even the late Hugo Chávez.
Among the sect’s most prominent mediums is Edward Guidice, who channels the spirit of Emeregildo, a figure believed to possess extraordinary healing abilities. As Venezuela’s healthcare system falters, belief in supernatural intervention flourishes. Where medicine is scarce, faith fills the void, and María Lionza’s presence looms ever larger in the search for solace.
Superstition and Modernization
Superstition and modernity exist in uneasy proximity—the former, a refuge from uncertainty; the latter, an unrelenting tide. In Venezuela, these beliefs permeate not only the private sphere but also governance, health, and social order. Esoteric and occult forces whisper through the corridors of power, amble in the choices of those who lead, and take root where institutions crumble.
Beyond superstition lies witchcraft—the deliberate act of bending unseen forces to one’s will. It is a force feared, spoken of in hushed tones, its practitioners both sought and condemned. Unlike passive belief, witchcraft asserts itself upon the world, shapes outcomes, and influences destinies. It exists in the margins, yet its shadow stretches across every echelon of society.
As Venezuela contends with its trials, superstition remains a steadfast companion. It soothes, it explains, it beckons. Yet, between its comforts and constraints lies a question—does it fortify or does it fetter? The answer, as always, remains in the spaces between faith and reason, between what is seen and what is merely believed.
Ricardo F Morin, February 8, 2025, Oakland Park, Fl.
She comes to me in an endless flow of memories quieting her absence.
You return to me in every heartbeat . . .
There is no light nor shadow, nor color nor texture.
There is no pain in the embrace of uncertainty.
~
Our coexistence ceases to exist;
the rancor of fear departs as the idea takes us in.
Pain turns silent, emptied of guilt and regret.
Though your lungs exhale not,
I feel the breath of your longing in search of union.
~
I understand better your inexorable faith,
with no sting of doubt.
Resentment held no place, the frankness of your soul loved everything.
I feel you in my chest, tight with not seeing you
I see you in the resonance of your mind upon mine.
*
Pain shatters my chest,
I am dying as well,
I fear the very meanness of not accepting
your dignified and glorious absence.
~
How can one ponder eternal love
without knowing eternity,
I do not understand and tears choke me.
~
Eternity is a story we tell ourselves
from our first appearance.
Before, we were nothing
and nothingness impregnated us with clumsiness
to create stories that console our finitude.
~
We are nothing,
and to nothing we return.
~
I believe in the goddess of love
for she sustains me,
but immortality and eternity do not depend on her.
Abstraction is a pretense that believes it heals itself.
~
Confuse reality not with abstraction,
if you know nothing;
unconsciousness is soaked in the unjustifiable.
Contradiction is the palpable reality,
Humility and neutrality do not exist:
and are not controllable.
~
Intelligence is a tool of fiction.
We are nothing.
~
Words of comfort ruminate me and my feelings,
they assume compassion for filling the void
Yet compassion, like humility, can
not boast of itself.
They come from nothing
and are nothing.
~
The feelings of death arise in old age,
our fragility is tangible.
“If newly born, what do you know of old age?”
How can we boast … even if for the best of reasons!
~
Words can evoke the void of silence,
yet they remain a pretense.
~
Silence is deeper than declarations.
Listen to silence, filled with nothingness.
Yet, an energy that’s unchangeable, immutable.
Persistence is yet another vanity,
a desire to accumulate the unsustainable.
Parallels are paradoxical, yet real.
*
Ricardo Federico Morín Tortolero,
Oakland Park, Fl. 5:00 am, 3 de Feberero de 2025
Edited by Billy Bussell Thompson
*
(A Poem written by our mother, María Teresa Tortolero Rivero, English translation by this author, and read by Andreina in Spanish)
GREATNESS YOU BESTOWED UPON MY SPIRIT
[July 1979]
*
Greatness you bestowed upon my spirit for the whole world rests upon my bosom though in sadness I stray in vain attempts to redeem my heart.
As pariah in a desert in my migrant existence I feel the prick of painful thorns. and the corrosive doubt of uncertainty.
My home’s encumbered by the punching of loneliness only absence occupies it. Why have you forsaken me? Why so much cruelty? If born to love when for love’s sake I wish to be faithful.
*
In Memoriam Andreina Teresa
~
We, the Morín Tortolero siblings: Alberto José, Ricardo Federico, María Teresa, and José Galdino, deeply regret to announce to our family and friends the heartfelt passing of our beloved sister
ANDREINA TERESA MORÍN TORTOLERO
November 10, 1955 – February 2, 2025
*
The wake was held at Funeraria Tendencia Ecológica, located in the Las Acacias neighborhood in Valencia, next to the CICPC, on Monday, February 3, 2025, at 12:00 PM.
The funeral service took place at the Puertas al Cielo crematorium, located in La Entrada, Naguanagua, on Tuesday, February 4, 2025.The Novena is held at Valencia’s El Viñedo Church starting on February 5th at 4:30 pm.
We are grateful for your support and prayers during this time of deep sorrow.
Here, Andreina was among friends and relatives between Valencia, Venezuela in 2024 and her last visit to Broward and Dade Counties in Florida, January 2024,
In a world where we often demand certainty and control, we find ourselves fragmented, trapped in boxes of our own making, unable to embrace the fullness of our existence. The image before you captures this tension: a body suspended in a delicate scaffold, exposed yet bound, vulnerable yet distant. The crimson red that pulses through this figure’s radiography mirrors the emotional intensity of our internal conflicts—irrational beliefs, loneliness, and the distortion of our own feelings. Here, we find a body that is both present and absent, much like the self we attempt to control through rigid dogmas, unfounded convictions, or the false security of unquestioned assumptions.
Such beliefs, pervasive in religion, politics, and culture, offer a semblance of control in a world we cannot fully comprehend. Yet, they often bind us more tightly than we realize; they lead us away from self-compassion and deeper understanding. We cling to them as anchors as we seek certainty, but in doing so, we only isolate ourselves further and obscure the possibility of transformation and healing. Just as the body remains whole, though fragmented, so too can we find healing by letting go of the illusions that distort our sense of self.
This image invites you to reflect on the tension between our desires for control and the reality of our emotional vulnerability. Our human condition urges a return to the boy, to ourselves, and to the truth of being—free from the distortions that prevent us from embracing the raw authenticity of life.
Section I
Irrationality
*
Ignorance is an essential condition of our existence, despite our hubristic desire to control knowledge. We are like travelers in a dense fog as we glimpse shadows of trees that seem both near and far—each step reveals something new while obscuring what we thought we understood. This fog invites exploration, not eradication, as its presence reminds us that certainty is an illusion.The moment we attempt to dispel it entirely—to demand certainty and mastery—we reject the depth and richness of uncertainty and trade it for the rigidity of shallow, dogmatic beliefs. To embrace this uncertainty is to accept the vastness of what remains unknown:that which liberates us from the paralysis of false clarity.
Section II
The Transformative Power of Love and Self-Compassion
*
Love has the power to heal wounds unseen, but it is first a seed within oneself. When nurtured, this seed grows into an awareness of the shared fragility of existence—the recognition that no one is immune to suffering. Consider the quiet solidarity in a kind word offered to a stranger, the unspoken bond formed in moments of shared grief, or the simple grace of forgiving someone else’s faults, while knowing your own are equally imperfect. These acts remind us that we are not isolated in our suffering but connected through it. In acknowledging this interconnectedness, we cultivate a compassion that transcends individuality. It allows us to honor the humanity in others as we learn to honor it in ourselves.
Section III
Aloneness Versus Loneliness
*
Think of aloneness as your defining character, a realm where your thoughts and feelings can exist unfiltered, untouched by comparison. Loneliness, however, emerges when this solitude becomes an echo chamber of unmet desires, a distortion that amplifies the absence of external validation into a consuming need. To perceive aloneness as loneliness is to conflate a natural state with an unhealthy yearning, much like mistaking silence for emptiness. Aloneness offers clarity, a space to reflect and grow, while loneliness, though painful, can teach us where we most need to nurture ourselves. By reframing loneliness as a symptom rather than a sentence, we can transform it into an opportunity for self-understanding.
PostScript
*
As I reflect on the journey of these ideas, I’m reminded of a time nearly 16 years ago when I found solace in the writings of Jiddu Krishnamurti, a spiritual teacher my mother had studied in my younger years. His ideas, like Buddhism before it, served as a preamble—a glimpse into a deeper understanding that I did not fully grasp until later in life. It was only in my fifties, after embracing writing as a form of creative expression, that I began to unravel the layers of truth hidden within his words.
During this period, my editor, with whom I shared my growing interest in Krishnamurti, referred to him as a “kook”—a label that seemed to reflect the contradictions inherent in Krishnamurti’s philosophy. My admiration for both Krishnamurti and my editor was marked by an internal conflict. I struggled to reconcile the imperfections I saw in both of them with my own sense of integrity and independence. In time, I came to understand that their imperfections were no different from my own—and that the wisdom I sought was not in their perfection, but in the very acceptance of imperfection itself.
This acceptance allowed me to learn from both of them while retaining my own autonomy, a reminder that growth comes not from flawless certainty, but from the ability to navigate contradiction and complexity. Just as we can find truth in our own imperfect understanding, so too can we extend compassion to others: to acknowledge that their contradictions are part of the shared human experience.
In this journey, I’ve learned that the tension between certainty and uncertainty is not something to resolve but something to live with—a space where self-compassion and wisdom can grow, imperfect though they may be.
Ricardo F Morin Tortolero, January 18, 2025, Oakland Park, Florida.
Editor, Billy Bussell Thompson, February 14, 2025, New York City.
Ricardo MorínAscension, CGI, 2005 by Ricardo Morín
Introduction
Power, in its rawest form, bends and distorts. It reflects the body depicted in Ascension as it strains against the scaffolding of control—and embodies the turbulent forces we inhabit.[1] These elements frame a reflection not only on Venezuela’s struggles but on the universal gravity of power that entraps us all. I wonder if blaming these forces oversimplifies a system thriving on collective complicity. Can self-compassion hold us accountable without succumbing to guilt—when despair paralyzes?
Positioned between The Stream of Emery, a fable of renewal, and Unmasking Disappointment, an upcoming essay on historical reckoning, this story continues a journey through entanglement, responsibility, and the enduring search for self-liberation.[2]
~
THE FETTERS OF POWER
I
While my husband drove from Fort Lauderdale to Orlando, I had a conversation with my friend BBT. It was one of those unsettling conversations that reveals how vast forces can overwhelm us. He spoke of power, not as a tool, nor even as a desire, but as the primal force that pushes humanity toward authoritarian oligarchies. Greed, according to him, is secondary, a symptom of something deeper: the irresistible gravity of power itself.
II
I thought of Michel Foucault and his theories on power, and for a moment, I felt a flash of clarity. But the more I tried to articulate his ideas, the more inadequate they seemed. The weight of reality crushes academic musings as the world descends into ruin. We fail to recognize ourselves as creatures trapped by our own errors.
III
Then, I remembered my cousin Ivelisse’s voice, trembling while holding back tears, as she recounted Nicolás Maduro’s inauguration, January 10. For her, it was not just a political event; it was a symbol of our fall, of our dissolution as a people. Her despair was mine, and ours was Venezuela’s—a nation habitually entrusting faith in saviors who never arrive.
IV
Across the world, power and greed—legitimized by crime or not—justify the rise of tyranny. And we, in our confusion, have no answers in the face of these tides of unchecked ambition.
V
BBT, ever pragmatic, said simply: “Just enjoy yourself.” His advice both stung and comforted me. But how could I? How could I enjoy anything when the world feels so fragile?Every thought circles back to the same questions: What can I do to counteract these forces? How can I make sense of this struggle?
VI
Still, I cling to one belief: that one day, a collective awakening will emerge, a rising tide of awareness. If there is to be a better world, it will not come from saviors or struggles for power, but from an alignment of minds and hearts. My role, if I have one, is to contribute to that legacy—not for fame or ambition, but for peace.
VII
Peace is what I seek, not only for myself but for others: a legacy that transcends my own life, one that serves as a quiet resistance to the forces of greed and power. Only then, perhaps, will I find the simplicity BBT spoke of—not as surrender, but as understanding.
Postscript
It is easy to lose sight of the deeper currents that drive us, particularly when we are immersed in the tides of ambition, power, and cynicism. In moments of crisis, these forces surge, often obscuring our judgment and steering us off course. Yet, amidst their overwhelming presence, one truth remains: surrendering to love sustains us.
Ultimately, what really matters is love.It alone sustains us above all else.It can anchor us against the forces that threaten to lead us astray.
Perhaps with that recognition is where peace begins—not in the world outside or its lack of validation, but in the quiet acceptance of what we can change, and what we cannot.
Within the last two decades, I have turned my pictorial interests to the depiction of regular polyhedra, their history since the classical period, and their different motivations. Plato believed that regular polyhedra represented the 5 elements of the universe and in how they were a sacred part of geometry. For modern geometers, the universe fits together into the shape of a dodecahedron, somewhat like a soccer ball.
«Platonic Interactions» began with the beauty I found in Plato’s forms and how their own mathematical formations involved the proportionality of the golden mean. Their geometries stand as a unified and congruent visual harmony. Akin to mandalas for meditation, they evoke the world at large. My vision of the regular polyhedra is set by having them nested within each other in an openly latticed forest of complementary and analogous hues and shapes. Although regular polyhedra are essentially symmetrical, the rotation of their three-dimensional structures allows for a multiplicity of visual angles, with each one filled by wondrous feats of energy. «Platonic Interactions» is an orchestration of life-inspiring images, arranged to the melodic musings of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Prelude – Cello Suite 3 – as interpreted by Jon Sayles.
As early as 2005, I had begun a series of oil paintings and drawings entitled «Infinity,» which were based on the premises previously mentioned. In this context, the painting’s perimeter serves the same function as the golden mean does for proportionality. The superimposition of the triangle’s right angle over the surface of the painting reinforces the golden mean. The very surface of the painting and the forms expressed on it imply infinitude.
*
Since 2018, no longer involved in the medium of oils, I have dedicated my attention to digital paintings. Printed and manipulated on canvas, today these digital paintings count sixty four images. «Platonic Interactions» uses fifty of these images, sequentially arranged. They are further composited into two tessellated tiles (like mosaics), one 5 x 5 squaresand the other 7 x 7 squares – as in Figure 2 above.
The ‘I’ believes in pleasure, laughter, good food, sex. The ‘I’ believes in itself, sometimes it is proud of itself but sometimes ashamed of itself. Who does not carry the stain of shame, a faux pas, a lost opportunity that, just remembering them, cures us of the threatening hubris of believing ourselves, in Mexican terms, the mero mero, the cat’s meow, the king of the forest, the bee’s knees?
Carlos Fuentes, This I Believe: An A-Z of a Writer’s Life; The I. p. 315. Bloomsbury Publishing, London; Translated by Kristina Cordero, Copyright 2004.
*
INTRODUCTION:
Writing for me is the result of reasoning through experience, sifting agenda whether mine or those of others. In shaping my narratives, the process inevitably extends long beyond the scope of a story. I cannot define my emotions unless I have spent time examining them. Unlike a professional journalist, on purpose I avoid writing on commission or for any kind of financial gain. For a few years now, owing to the Covid Pandemic, I have substituted writing for my brushes and painting studio. Spontaneity defines these narratives just as it had my abstract paintings. I struggle for disinterestedness: a universality intrinsic to every work of art.
Thus, a narrative’s introduction is ironically an epilogue. Initially, the conversation taking place between David and me had not been set. It is through the course of this cruise that evocations are gleaned from the past. They are our way of understanding ourselves as spouses.
This exploration of the West Indies and the Caribbean held des énigmes. For us, it was the exploration of an unknown continent. Among these southern lands resided that Little Venice[Venezuela], the source of my current distress: Why did I have to leave there a half century ago for a frigid Western New York? This story illustrates both my father’s culture and my own perspective.
In the mutability of time, confessions seek understanding. Memory comes from/out of habit, opinion, desire, pleasure, pain, and fear. Each manifests a change. Like jetsam in times of distress each one of these resurfaces, though not preserved, but transformed into something new. The succession of worn-out ideas is an act of replacement.
A wanderer’s hope and prayers I add for those left behind. In pondering these memories, I examine my own validity and ambiguities. This reliquary of contradictions stands between intuition and fact. I seek the readers’ empathy as a transition.
Each alliance of loyalty between fact and intuition can place us in a better universe. It is our beliefs that the human spirit can rise above life’s vicissitudes.
Here, I wish to include special thanks to Professor Andrew Irving, Ph.D., head of the Department of Anthropology, University of Manchester, England, for his generous support and guidance. I have known Andrew for the past 26 years, and once I had the opportunity to collaborate on a research project, entitled The Art of Life and Death: Radical Aesthetics and Ethnographic Practice (2017). Since before the publication of my WordPress’s web page Observations on the Nature of Perception (Visual Art, Aesthetic Plasticity, and a Free Human Mind) – a repository for short stories published as of 2008 – I had already shared with him a number of testimonials on aesthetics, which became crystalized in my post Acts of Individual Talent(2009). These had evolved over our conversations in the course of thirteen years, starting in 1997 since we met for the first time:
Ricardo realized that the true measure of a painter is the making of art despitethe obstacles and challenges one has to endure. Ricardo was particularly motivated by the fact that there have been innumerable artists whose accomplishments did not depend on engaging with the marketplace. He was drawn to “all the great works by anonymous artists from Greek and Roman Antiquity, that were plundered, destroyed, and stigmatized during the Dark Ages,” as well as Cézanne, who endured forty years of obscure labor before landing a first one-man-show, and Van Gogh, whose sublimely “outsider” creations were only recognized after his death. For Ricardo, the term “outsider art” often denotes a prejudice toward individuals perceived to be riddled by some sort of physical or psychological health impairment. As such, both academia and the art establishment tend to divide art on the basis of its cultural import or through an underlying bias that Ricardo suggests evolves according to market demands. Another term is folkloric art, deemed to refer to the art of the colonies or the cultural heritage of a nation, which is associated with ideas of shared roots and lived experiences. “Are these terms in some way similar or different from the issues involved in art produced during the struggle over chronic or terminal disease?” Ricardo asked after reading this chapter, “and while the notion of mutuality is essential to understanding the shared human condition, can it also help to expand sensibilities about understanding human expression in an interdisciplinary scientific context, bound by the myriad circumstances that may engulf human pathos besides biology, be it in sociological survival to fit in or as an effort to therapeutically survive a chronic or terminal disease?” Ricardo’s response and analysis continued: “There is great intelligence in the creative efforts made by the human mind to survive any circumstance. Besides, it is undeniable that bodily pain and mental pain are ubiquitous in life, be it one of privilege or alienation. The logical concepts of cognitive science with averages, classifications, and algorithms will serve no other purpose than to provide a mere approximation to understanding the complexity of human expression, its diversity, heterogeneity, and inenarrable nature. Can we really come to understand the ways in which different modes of inner expression – such as people’s ongoing interior dialogues, un-articulated moods, imaginative life-worlds, and emotional reveries – if they remain hidden beneath the surface of public activities, hence hidden from research? Ultimately, that which is mystical about the cycle of life and death may not be elucidated by a tactical approach, but through a profound introspection that is very difficult to articulate.” In 2008, Ricardo was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma, a cancer associated with AIDS that affects white blood cells and can emerge when the immune system is weakened for prolonged periods. Throughout his illness, chemotherapy treatment,and convalescence, Ricardo spent many months sitting in silence in his chair. Beds and chairs are often dynamic sites of thought, expression, and memory for people living with an extended period of illness, whose thinking ranges freely across the past, present, and future. People remain thinking and speaking beings even when lying or seated in silence for long periods and may be negotiating critical issues, dilemmas, and decisions regarding treatment, work, or faith and be engaged in emergent streams of interior dialogue, thought, and emotion. It was during this state, which Ricardo describes as one of “high inertia” that he came to recognize the simplicity, power, and aesthetics of silence, especially “when compared with all the noise and visual cacophony of the tangible world at large.” Of course, a silence is never simply a silence. Different days are mediated by different silences; an uncertain silence, a good silence, a heroic silence, a surreal silence, a painful silence. A silence can contain the faces of the people closest to you, thoughts of suicide, images of the world outside, daydreams, and future-orientated life projects. After months of dwelling in silence, Ricardo wrote a “Manifesto of Silence” to help him think through and articulate his thoughts. It begins as follows: “The verbalization of an aesthetic reality implies its own death; no matter how precise, its very accuracy of words resists the magnitude of that reality. It is found in the open space of silence, in the virtuous stillness of a meditative contemplation, in the freedom itself of the known, free to observe with a heightened attention, where questions are unnecessary and responses trivialize the very observation.” After finishing the chemotherapy, Ricardo came down with severe tendonitis, which meant he no longer had the requisite strength to stretch canvases in order to paint. Consequently, when he started painting again he did so on hanging scrolls. Ricardo came to understand the scroll material and how it behaved in its simplest of terms and in relation to his own physical limitations. Between 2009 and 2010, Ricardo started to work on a scroll series called Metaphors of Silence, in which “it was this incidental simplicity of the medium of scrolls and my empathy for the nature of silence that produced the subject matter.”
When I last revised my post Acts of Individual Talent in 2020, I concluded: What use would creativity or intellect be to us without compassion?, would we not need to assess our system of valuation, perhaps even our own cultural rationality?
More recently, on February 3, 2023, Andrew and I also had a long discussion via Zoom, which was based on my WordPress post Meditations on Ortega y Gasset(2022). At that time, he provided a critical analysis with extensive bibliography, which, he felt, would enhance my perspective about the Enlightenment and its limitations.
Furthermore, I extend my gratitude to my friend and editor for the past 36 years, Billy Bussell Thompson, Ph.D., professor emeritus, Hofstra University, Department of Romance Languages. It is thanks to Billy that I remain hopeful in developing my skills as a writer.
Fort Lauderdale, March 24, 2023
*
Plato’s Symposium: Diotima on the wisdom of love.
–– “So do not be amazed if everything honors by nature its offshoot; for it is for the sake of immortality that this zeal and eros attend everything.”
— “ . . . in as much as in the case of human beings, if you were willing to glance at their love of honor, you would be amazed at their irrationality, unless you understand what I have said and reflect how uncanny their disposition is made by their love of renown, ‘and their setting up immortal fame for eternity’; and for the sake of fame even more than for their children, they are ready to run all risks, to exhaust their money, to toil at every sort of toil, and to die.” [Location p. 37, 207a-208]
Plato’s Symposium: a translation by Seth Bernardete with commentaries by Allen Bloom and Seth Bernardete, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001.
*
I
Clouds loomed, as if mountains, over the horizon. From the balcony of our stateroom, we watched the wake’s effervescent whiteness. Gulls pierced rolling waves and cawed their disputes.
II
Our travels across the Bahamas and along the coasts of Central America had begun five days ago on the Eurodam. On January 4th we had left Fort Lauderdale. Already we have passed by north of Cuba and and south of Hispaniola. Now, we are approaching Aruba, a mere 76 miles from Venezuela. A pilot boat will guide us to moorage. But a fire alarm has gone off, and the stench of diesel permeates the air. A few minutes later the captain announces: Everything has been brought back to normal. The emergency has been aborted.
III
David and I are speaking; emergency lights are still flashing.
It’s been fifty years since I left. I was 17.
IV
We disembark in Oranjestad.
Eighty-five years today my parents were ostracized from Germany. Five years later they married in the United States, where they lived happily until their deaths.
For my parents, leaving the country was never an option and their marriage was unhappy.
Did you ever come with them to Aruba?
Only as a child.
V
How was your relationship with them at that time?
My parents emphasized independence. For me they were a bridge to the country, still. They understood I had to go abroad. There was no other choice. From my love for them, ties to Venezuela have never wavered. Our proximity now, however, elicits no nostalgia, only recollections. I do care, though.
VI
You must have some memorable moments from then?
Camping out with the Boy Scouts on the Andean plateau. That honed my vision.
Anything else?
I remember the ashrams of the Universal Fraternity. There were monks, followers of Serge Raynaud de la Ferrière (in Valencia, Maracay, and Caracas). I frequented all three of them, during the summers. These ashrams schooled its attendees in a mixture of natural sciences and Buddhism: For me this was more stimulating than listening to church sermons, with their evocations of sin and the shadows of shame. That’s when I began yoga and meditation.
What impressed you the most?
I was drawn by the emphasis in self-denial. But I disliked being dependent on other people. I just wanted to expand beyond myself.
VII
In those years, I was attached to nothing in particular. Was I a dilettante?
You were inquisitive; it was a time for discovery.
I went to seminars on musicology; I took German lessons; it was a time for Hesse, Kafka, Gibran, Thoreau’s Walden, and Skinner’s Walden Two.
VIII
I read, but unsystematically. I liked philosophy, history, painting, and writing, but I wasn’t yet dedicated. Only slowly, did it all become part of me.
These things awakened your spirit.
I was free from obligations and they expressed my relationship to the world.
You were learning to be original. You sought your own voice. You didn’t mimic other people.
The more I felt, the greater my involvement. It was just a way to express myself. I wasn’t looking for success, or distraction.
IX
We disembarked and walked over to the shopping malls. From Main Street we veered into the side ones. On both sides, most storefronts were boarded up. The façades showed signs of a better time, perhaps, from when Venezuelans were flamboyant. Now only makeshift stands crowded the sidewalk, manned by folk with a distinctive Venezuelan lilt: In friendly conversation, the word marico floated amongst them.
Papá once watched me sitting on the curb of a street next to an old watchman who worked for us on weekends and was known for having an unpredictable temper. The watchman awaited my family’s departure to the city. I had often befriended him, peppering him with questions. Later, Papá said I was the only person who related to this man.
Your resilience was your best attribute.
X
In the late sixties, our family hosted the daughter of Venezuela’s President Rómulo Betancourt, Virginia. She and her husband stayed in one of our houses in Valencia. At that time, Virginia Pérez was the head of the National Library in Caracas. I was thirteen and Papá asked me to take my paintings from the rooms where the guests were staying. According to him they were out of place. One day, after having finished lunch, I brought a framed watercolor over to Virginia and began to speak. My father objected, but she said, disavowing him: “No, please, leave him alone.” I continued: “It shows the spirit of a young man in search of freedom.” Sweetly she responded: “I like your way of thinking; I want to hear more.” Words now failed me.
(David chuckling), you told me this once before.
XI
Can you tell if you fit into a pattern, or is your life just a series of episodes?
I don’t see the disconnections; I can’t say if there’s a pattern. I was just bold then. My speech, vocabulary, and the way I looked must have seemed provocative, perhaps, even epicene. I threatened expectations. I was different from my older brother, who was athletic and had lots of friends. I was a loner. For my lack of sport, maybe Papá found me not only vulnerable, but also naïve. Was it dissatisfaction or was it nonconformity? I only found solace in my private inventions. Shortly afterwards, I erased, slashed, tore two years of paintings, only to regret this later. Papá said I was rebelling against my own culture.
Your father knew you couldn’t survive a world of machismo and its deeply rooted biases.
That’s the point. I hadn’t understood that yet. Papá saw my creativity as a target for victimization. He told me I couldn’t be a lawyer. I wouldn’t fit in. When I argued I could go into international law, he was equally incredulous.
Perhaps, for that same reason, he never got involved in politics; he knew human imperfections carried their own risks; he recognized the kind of dishonesty that pervaded Venezuela. He wanted you to be safe. That’s why you had to leave.
XII
I’ve come to understand that exceptionalism is a myth. Disappointment is powerful. I had to leave.
XIII
Even if I am surrounded by falsehood, I must not be cynical. What does that serve? Human imperfections can’t be freed from themselves. I feel uncomfortable, however, when people ask where I am from, as if they are diagnosing who I am.
Most people don’t mean anything by it.
It’s my own reaction. I suppose it proves I am not comfortable with English. It feels as if people are placing me in a niche.
Most people can identify with that, I do for one. Few of us ever get the questions right.
Does anyone, really? If they did, answers would be unnecessary.
XIV
That night, it rained. A full moon unveiled itself from behind the clouds. We stepped again onto the balcony and admired the kaleidoscope of twinkling lights across the island.
In the first few years outside of Venezuela, I was enamoured of life in the United States. Long before going there, my Aunt Lina’s place in Buffalo had filled my dreams. She was able to flee the Holocaust. Her rose garden was just what I had imagined. Her graciousness was the same as when I had met her in Venezuela. Her garden left a lasting impression on me.
XV
That morning we anchored in Willemstad, Curaçao, surrounded by a rumpus of pelicans near the pier.
On my first visit back to Venezuela, Papá asked me what I thought about the inflation in the United States. I never knew why he posed that question. Its irony was not lost on me 50 years later, when Venezuela has accrued one of the highest rates in the history of the world.
XVI
We went sightseeing in Willemstad. The city’s old buildings, streets, and bridges were reminiscent of Amsterdam. We took photographs and wandered around slowly. Then thinking of our families, we shopped for table linens.
Do you think your father foresaw the disintegration of Venezuela?
The world where I grew up was always on the brink. Papá used to say he did not know how we were going to manage without him. He feared for every aspect of our lives, and even for every Venezuelans’ families. He even feared a total civil brutality in that landscape of pervasive dishonesty. How could it be prevented?
XVII
Keeping to ourselves, we had a full day at sea. We ate alone. We had little in common with the other passengers: all two thousand of them.
After twenty-four years later, I came back. Without a gallery’s contract, again I have thought about destroying my paintings. This time, I was tempted to burn them, but the flames might have engulfed me and my home. This thwarted me. I could only store them.
Couldn’t somebody have helped?
Papá did the best he could, even inciting jealousy among my brothers and sisters. Perhaps, he felt sorrier for me …. When I was interviewed by a local newspaper concerning my work in the United States, a lot of our neighbors thought the interview self-serving. Then Papá died and I became even more of an outsider.
What happened to him?
By the age of 70, he had become delusional, untethered from his own will. His last five years coincided with Venezuela’s disintegration, and family members sought safety in Europe and elsewhere in America. For me art became secondary.
XVIII
What about your brothers and sisters?
It’s sad to say. Their sense of entitlement has complicated matters. My older brother claimed the right of primogeniture, though he had no legal authority for such. We denied it to him, but lacked the resources to challenge him. He kept the rents mostly for himself. With the passing of years, the properties have lost value and some have been taken over by squatters, and some even expropriated by the government. Out of concern for his safety, I made an offer to help him. He rebuffed me saying he counted on the first Lady of Venezuela. He added that he could not leave Venezuela and lose his identity as a lawyer.
These explanations are puzzling. And what about your two sisters and younger brother? What has happened to them?
My youngest sister moved to Madrid with her husband and two young daughters. My other sister and younger brother have stayed in Venezuela. They protect each other as well as they can. For the last ten years, I have been helping them and my paternal aunts.
I remember meeting your aunts. That was when I traveled to Venezuela with you. We celebrated your mother’s eightieth birthday and your older brother’s remarriage. I also remember his son’s grief. He seemed inconsolable. Didn’t he move to Argentina with his partner?
Yes. We also did our best to console him, such as when he met my former partner, Nelson. He felt reinforced by our presence, and my relationship with Nelson triggered a validation that his father had always feared. All along my nephew sought his father’s acceptance. I told them there was no place for shame.
XIX
Not too far from where we are, in a small fishing village on the Caribbean coast of Venezuela stands a plinth. It pays homage to guerrillas sent by Cuba to Venezuela in the 1960’s. Their campaign collapsed. Five decades later, Hugo Chávez helped achieve Cuba’s fantasy – this time without firing a shot.
I cannot judge Venezuela nor its history, for I no longer am part of it. I have not suffered the lash of Venezuelan repressions. For the past 50 years, I have been in the United States, where measures of rectification constantly challenge authoritarianism and kleptocracy.
Recently, you spoke to my friend Cindy, who is an analyst at the US treasury. She told you quite frankly that the American government’s sanctions on corrupt Venezuelan individuals are not simple issues. The flight of fortunes from countries like Venezuela cannot be easily controlled where there is flagrant corruption.
Indeed, that’s a reality no one can manage.
XX
In your opinion, is there any hope for Venezuelan stability?
It’s complex. It is inexplicable how, for instance, billions of dollars are acquired out of nowhere by the children of local politicians. They care not at all for its constituency or for their country: A nation of laws has ceased to exist.
XXI
Have you ever interacted with Venezuelan officials?
Only indirectly, through second and third cousins (who worked in the executive branch and the Ministry of Foreign Relations) as well as my own brother (who was a legal advisor to a State governor). Aside from them, I have only engaged a would-be reformer, who now lives in Florida. In 1999, he was one of the congressmen involved in writing the last Venezuelan constitution. Currently, among expatriates, he has a large following. In one of his podcasts, he took issue with me over the lack of maturity in Venezuelan politics. He replied furiously to my allegations of self-interest: ¿Y quién coño eres tú?”[And, who tha fuck are you?]. Later, I sent him a text “in general most reformers fail to address what they intend to reform,” and he replied: ¡Ay, por Dios, éste es un gran maricón![Oh, my God, this man is just a faggot]. Then he blocked me.
XXII
We arrived in Cartagena, Colombia, where we toured the old walled city and the Fortress of San Felipe. Long undulating promenades (covered by trellises draped in bougainvillea) were delightfull and hugged the walls of the malecón. The guide spoke of the father of Greater Colombia, Simón Bolívar, who had died at Santa Marta. He pointed out a wine-colored fortress where Gabriel García Márquez had resided.
Even though I did not take part in the protests, with my keyboard I favored dissenters and insurrectionists alike. This was my cri du cœur. Though we have all failed, for me the morality of this call has never gone silent.
It’s your voice.
Time itself is an instrument that balances the absence of truth, the swing of delusion, and the debris of extremism. As time unfurls, it allows us to come to an understanding.
It heals our madness.
Maybe, justice will prevail. Maybe, harmony will be achieved in a new generation.
Also, when we least expect it, despots may usurp our freedoms.
XXIII
We were now in the Panama Canal about to enter the Gatún Locks. Pulled by trains on each side, the ship climbed up through three locks until reaching the waters of Lake Gatún. The architectural feat of the Canal sparked my imagination (suddenly I thought about the Egyptian Pyramids). We reached the shore of the lake on tenders and from there we made a tour by bus. We zigzagged through hundreds of military buildings and army barracks until we arrived at the Locks of Miraflores on the Pacific. From there we drove to the Old City, where we photographed its colonial buildings and plazas. Clustering across the bay, we could see the skyline of present day Panama City. Then we drove to Colón on the Atlantic. Just before boarding back on the Eurodam, we walked through a small zoo leading to the pier. Roaming around, among mammals and tropical birds, we saw a giant anteater and its long tongue, swallowing a thousand morsels. David brings up politics:
No country is exempt from the excesses of partisanship.
But we don’t know the reasons.
Do you think an apolitical consciousness is called for?
I only know that extremism is no remedy for human uncertainty.
The danger is always that polarization can turn into warfare.
XXIV
We arrived in Costa Rica, anchoring in Limón. We disembarked to board a tourist bus. Then we got off to navigate in small boats through the channels that ran along the edges of the jungle. In heavy, intermittent rain, we saw monkeys, sloths, toucans, snakes, alligators, and crocodiles. Once the ride was completed, we got back on the bus, which took us to higher altitudes. When we arrived, we took a cable car into the heart of the rainforest until reaching a research lab, a butterfly garden, and a trail that led to waterfalls. The wooden stairs of the path were slippery from rain. Unable to proceed farther, we heard the thunderous sound of the cataracts.
I was born in a land of wealth, which is what attracted my ancestors. They came to Venezuela as early as 1745, both from Europe and the Canary Islands. Between 1799 and 1804, the German geographer, Alexander von Humboldt, in his writings, lauded the colony as a paradise for the advancement of science. Today this paradise struggles for its own survival.
XXV
On May 13, 2014, I received an answer to one of my queries from the White House’s website for foreign relations, on behalf of President Obama. The email bore the letterhead of the White House, though obviously pro forma. In closing, it read … With our international partners, the United States is continuing to look at what more we can do in support of that effort [i.e. ‘for an honest dialogue between the Venezuelan government and the opposition’]. America has strong and historical ties with the Venezuelan people, and we remain committed to our relationship with them. Their fundamental freedoms and universal human rights must be protected and respected.
To an impartial reader this email may seem either empathetic, or even propagandistic; but the reality is that Venezuela may need the United States, not the other way around, at least not at this time.
XXVI
The last two days at sea, we dined in private restaurants. I took notes of our conversation. David indulged my writing and editing until he complained that I wasn’t paying enough attention to eating. Writing seemed to be the one habit I could not ignore.
It was my solace. That last night, when passing along the southwest coast of Cuba, the rough waters of the sea made walking unstable. Before midnight, we packed our bags and placed them in the hallway outside the cabin door.
Past, present, and future time collided: Chávez’s death in 2013 led me to think about Papá’s in 1997. The year before, I had taken him to urgent care at a private hospital. A neurologist there said he had suffered a brain injury and there was little to be done. He was 74. He could no longer speak. Suddenly, surprisingly, he sat up in anger; something obviously gnawed at him deeply. He threatened.
To the bitter end, your father was tormented. You could neither appease nor redeem him.
XXVII
Next morning was our twelfth and last day, as we arrived in Fort Lauderdale. We went to breakfast on deck two and, again, we ate alone. Then, returning to deck eight, back in our stateroom, we waited to disembark. We were the third group, color red, and, finally at 11 am, were summoned. We went down to deck one and lined up with the other passengers. After our ID’s were scanned, we walked down the ramp to the terminal, collected our luggage, and exited. We called a Uber to take us home, where we arrived 12 minutes later.
Papá’s and Hugo Chávez’s death spared them both from the torment of national crisis.
For Venezuela’s new generation, social inequities are rooted in differences of ideology.
Is the new generation a throwback to the Cold War?
Can the new generation examine itself?
As long as the inquiry is not reactionary: i.e. an inquiry into truth.
This dilemma is not unique to Venezuela. Over this, the whole world struggles.
EPILOGUE
*
Plato’s Symposium: Agathon’s encomium on Eros.
–– “And don’t we know that . . . he whom Eros does not touch remains obscure?”
— “. . . he is the one who makes
‘Peace among human beings, on the sea calm/
And cloudlessness, the resting of winds and sleeping/
Of care”. [Location p. 25, 197 a, c]
Plato’s Symposium: a translation by Seth Bernardete with commentaries by Allen Bloom and Seth Bernardete, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001.
*
Love’s grace suggests a continuation of learning. As David raised the shades (allowing the sun’s rays to stream into our living room), he hummed: “Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.” In response I:“How precious did that grace appear, the hour I first believed.” We continued:
First, I would like to share with my readers my utmost gratitude to Billy Bussell Thompson (b. November 23, 1942), Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at Hofstra University, for his generosity in being a mentor and editor. His scholarly trajectory goes from 1963 to 1993. Among his most salient publications in English, we have: Relic and Literature . . .; Bilingualism in Moorish Spain; The Myth of the Magdalen . . .; etc. . . .
II
Since 1989, our friendship has extended over more than three decades. We have worked in close proximity on at least a dozen articles and short stories (published in WordPress). I have been fortunate to count on his frankness and support. He has never minced words. He has been blunt, when any of my drafts seemed without merit. When that was the case, the articles went into a shredder, and I was satisfied by the integrity of his prose, as well as by my understanding of my own limitations as a writer. Prof. Bussell Thompson (B.B.T.) usually compares the skill of prose writing with that of a narrowing cone of vision. This selective cone of vision is akin to the aesthetic integrity of a visual work of art. With the present endeavor, Prof. B.B.T. believed, from the very beginning, in the possibility of bringing forth this story as a team. Even though we live in different regions – geographically far apart – of the USA, we have had no trouble communicating via phone and email.
III
This narrative seeks to explain the confusion found in society and politics, and even their seeming lack of purpose. For this reason, I dedicate my narrative to the readers.
IV
Initially, I knew not where this would lead. I submitted a five-paragraph draft to professor B.B.T. As he began to read, he paused and asked if I was alluding to Plato’s allegory of the cave. Surprised, I asked him to stop. I replied that his reference to Plato placed me in a different perspective. Gratefully, I added that his question was most welcome; at that point, I wanted to read more before continuing.
V
He encouraged me to reread Plato’s dialogues. To this he added that I take into account any ambiguity associated with Plato’s conception of the ideal authority of the State (politeia) or Nation. He referred to the Platonic ideas controversial in current discussions. He also recommended reading José Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955). He included The Revolt of the Masses[1929]and The Dehumanization of Art[1925]. He suggested that I be aware of Ortega’s meritocratic liberal perspective (though we believed that Ortega had not been known for openly endorsing any political ideology) and to heed the relevance Ortega gives to the man who is aware of his limitations – opposed to the man who is unaware: both the bourgeoisie and the mass man (who exemplify, for him la razón sinrazón [the reason for unreason]) – as explained in The Revolt of the Masses. And finally, I focus on the distinction between “content” and “form,” to explain the break by the avant-garde from the bourgeoisie.
VI
Professor B.B.T. and I also had an exchange of ideas over the parallels between the Platonic and Orteguian thought. He advised me then to read anew Meditations on Quixote[1914] both in Spanish and in English. There, B.B.T. thought that I could find a significant or productive landscape of ideas on which to reflect and, thus, be able to develop my own interpretations about the nature of knowledge, its limits, and how to find the meaning of the ideal of truth.
VII
In writing my last short story, entitled In Darkness, Professor B.B.T. had already urged me to note the meaning for circunstancia1 (“circumstance”) as defined by Ortega in Meditations on Quixote. It was clear to us that both Ortega’s phenomenological approach to “circumstance” and Plato’s thesis on the transformation of the individual (through knowledge) shared commonalities, which nurtured my own narrative.
VIII
But, the narrative journey proved to be just as challenging as Professor B.B.T. had pointed out. His criticism, even then, never ceased being constructive and energetic. His compassion was present as long as I was mindful of the necessity for clarity and precision. Often, he would cite Ernest Hemingway’s authenticity and precision.
IX
Time and time again, I experienced enormous pain in trying to comprehend what I wished to express. Freeing my prose from superficiality was like taking a deep breath to exhale the vagueness of my anxieties. Sometimes I was unable to get away from the obvious. Other times, either I hid behind the complex, or I would cling to abstract and cryptic thinking: the reductive jargon of the social sciences. Professor B.B.T. repeatedly suggested succinctness: I needed to respect the simplicity of language and find a way to its accessibility. Bringing Plato and Ortega to the reader was my responsibility. I was not to imitate them nor to think like them, but to represent them authentically. My first obligation was to the reader. For this I had to avoid euphemisms, randomness, and diversion. The affirmation of effective communication is an objective worth the effort. I would only understand myself, if I were to understand the reader.
X
B.B.T.’s exhortations and criticisms, I welcomed enthusiastically. His challenge became mine. He has been exorcising my limitations for two decades: Every time we have worked together, I have discovered something new in myself. I have become more attuned to both English and Spanish. I have had to be my own translator. In these instances, I have grown more respectful of the two languages. I have had to capture their essence by comparing them: the one informs the other.
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Prologue
In Plato’s dialogue Theaetetus[circa 369 B.C.E.], Socrates proposes that the extraordinary extraction of ideas is like bringing forth a new life and purging what is unnecessary. Likewise, the aim here is to produce and discuss what enlightenment is, and the obstacles to its achievement. Socrates has helped me in my definition of knowledge: Is morality universal, or is objective morality even possible? For these ideas I am indebted both to Plato and to Ortega y Gasset.
Ricardo F Morin, December 19, 2022
Editor Billy Bussell Thompson
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Plato, Roman marble bust copied from Greek original, 4th century B.C.E., Capitoline Museums, Rome.
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Socrates, Roman marble bust copied from Greek original, 2nd half of the 4th century B.C.E., Capitoline Museums, Rome.
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José Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955), detail of photograph of his impersonation of Honoré de Balzac, circa 1900.
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One way to objectivity is to recognize one’s own subjectivity. Metaphors for understanding reality are rare. One sees the world primarily through one’s own experience. It is difficult (though not impossible) to understand what one has not experienced. Truth never rests: It is not singular, but always plural.
Anonymous
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Index
1. Awareness of the Transformation of One’s Self:
The highest principle of inquiry is consciousness of one’s self. In inquiry lie the beginnings of change.
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Index
2. The Absence of Trust:
In our age of disbelief, the stories we tell each other about the past and the present seem to be in a state of collapse. There is a lack of continuity in the social order, increasingly suffocated by misinformation and distrust. We challenge each other over what is real and what is not.
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Index
3. The Unassailable Truth:
For most of us an ultimate truth remains unattainable and the stories we share from the past and the present no longer seem useful. Along with the disappearance of our past stories, both the person who seeks truth and the act of giving a person his due are in crisis. Our society finds itself defined by a decline in trust both in government and its institutions. Despairingly, the challenge is that the creation of new stories has become an act of preservation. Likewise, autocracy is on the ascendance. A lack of faith has sown aimlessness. What can change this course of despair? What will bring enlightenment to us?
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4. Consciousness:
Knowledge is constantly changing and the result of this destabilization carries us into greater disorder. For this reason clarity is more necessary than ever to understand ourselves. Even if clarity is not always possible, to know oneself is imperative. Thus arises the tension between continuity and change. Here lies the quest for survival.
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5. Not Knowing:
Not knowing is the essential condition of existence, despite one’s apparent desire for knowledge or for authority. To know is to inquire. Reality, though fleeting, inspires reflection. Change begins with the recognition that one is not in isolation. Not even the one (who seeks self-sacrifice for his spiritual advancement) by absolute cloister could get rid of his entanglement with the world. It is by relating to other people and his environment that this person comes to know who he is. Not even he (who despises the symbols of fear) is capable of freeing himself from his anguish. The fear of not knowing hangs over all of us. It is possible that striving without measure (in the aspiration for rationality) only leads us to end up being irrational: Here lies the origin of complexity given the absence of innocence.
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6. The Energy of Life:
In his theory of cultural attributes (Meditaciones del Quijote, Meditaciónpreliminar; Índice8, Lapantera o del sensualismo, pág. 21), José Ortega y Gasset gives us his concept of razón vital2, which means reason is expressed through life itself. Ortega parses the European mind into two archetypes: the Germanic and the Mediterranean. The former is meditative and the latter sensuous. Of the sensuous he says: The predominance of the senses usually implies a deficiency in inner powers. What is meditating as compared with seeing? As soon as the retina is hit by the arrow from without, our inner personal energy hastens and stops the intrusion. The impression is registered, subjected to civilized order; it is thought, and in this way it is integrated in the building up of our personality, and cooperates within it – Evelyn Rugg and Diego Martín’s translation – Notes and Introduction by Julián Marías – pp. 85-86. The Orteguian admonition here is to find the balance between extremes: between the excesses and deficiencies of these two archetypes.
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7. Human Agency and Its History:
A second source for my understanding of the mind and the senses is found in Plato’s Republic (politeia) – Socrates’s dialogue of the allegory of the cave at the beginning of Book Seven. There have been many interpretations. Mine differs. My purpose is to rid suffering from the mind of the freed slave. Once freed from shackles, the mind of the freed slave (who ascends to the mouth of the cave) discovers its own vision of the world. Despite the sun’s glare, the uneducated mind is transformed by the newly found ideal of truth. But the awareness by the prisoner (who has remained behind) is inseparable from the condition of the freed man: The slave (remaining in shadows of suffering) is not entirely separable from the memory of the freed man. Because of suffering, the freed man’s mind is aware of its inability to know. At the same time, the freed mind learns how its own transformation may be dependent on the new course of its history. This mind’s actions allow participation in change, and change is possible through self examination. The mind examines itself through meditating. Meditation is not an obligation, but a necessity. Meditation is the result of the mind’s freedom and it is the means to understanding its own choices in its approach to truth: But this effort is only an approximation to the infinity of truth. The freed mind (facing the visible world) is lacking here. Thus, the freed mind recognizes that neither its actions nor the course of its history is predictable. They (i.e. the mind’s actions and the course of its history) come from multiple possibilities about belief.
The freed mind realizes that time is an illusion: Time is fleeting, false, and deceitful. The mind, habitually trapped in its past, remains mired in pain. Anger (which comes from the past in search for justice) has for its sole purpose the manifestation of resentment. But anger only manages to put its existence on hold, awaiting compensation. Just as time is an illusion for the mind, the quest for emotional reparation is also an illusion. For the mind, there is no vindication by being trapped in the labyrinth of illusion. Only the rationality of active love can compensate for anger. If the mind of the lover of truth can project itself lovingly in the direction that it resents, then a liberating sense of bravery arises towards itself. Anger and sentimentality are one and the same. As the force of love sheds sentimentality, one’s desires dissipate and with them anger as well. Thereby, violence ceases to exist. Socrates’s allegory of the mind (freed from suffering) carries all these implications and comparisons towards a goal of Ideal Truth.
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Index
8. Alertness:
In an effort to understand Ortega’s concept of circumstancia (“circumstance”), his Meditación preliminar, Indice 6,Culturamediterránea, explains to us that when he goes through the landscape of ideas he has to meditate with alertnesson the influence of his experiences. Needless to say, this includes all his past and present relations, the geographies he has occupied, and everything he has done in life. Ortega forewarns us of the risks in this act of meditation: We are accompanied by a keen suspicion that, at the slightest hesitation on our part, the whole world could collapse, and we with it. When we meditate, our mind has to be kept at full tension; it is a painful and integral effort – Index 6, Mediterranean Culture, translated by Evelyn Rugg and Diego Marín (Introduction and notes by Julián Marías [a favorite student of Ortega y Gasset]), p. 34. In Plato’s dialogues, the same “effort” is found: Through the act of meditation, Socrates’s freed man draws transformation and redemption from the narrow crevices among ideas. Meditation helps the lover of truth get closer to his existential condition; it offers him the possibility of reacting differently, and sustains him with the very energy that life provides.
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9. Faith:
For the one who fears meditation, having faith in one’s own actions and changes are not sufficient for inquiry. History is not alive for him: It is at a point of no return; it is dead. This person is in a world of despair and surrounded by the proverbial dancing of shadows. This person is bound in his own chains, is overwhelmed by a lack of confidence, and is, without trust, unable to make a leap of faith. Neither the notion of individuality nor the concept of free will seems satisfactory any longer. This person relinquishes personal power and is unaware of the forces influencing his mind and his senses. His refusal to face reality becomes a conscious decision for the suppression of truth. This refusal is antithetical to life itself. For him, life becomes enslavement and stands in opposition to the freed man, who fearlessly ponders the reality of the visible world, and passionately delves into the exploration of the unknown. The mind of the freed man represents Ortega’s concept of razón vital, desirous to be absorbed by it.
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Index
10.Deliverance:
Distractions can be multiple. In Ortega’s playful analysis, he implies that if meditation is extraneous to the fears of the mind, it can succumb to obsession, and even fall despairingly into manias. Ortega values the relevance of every influence. He understands that a human being and his landscape are not separate. The unity of the two means his salvation by circunstancia (“circumstance”): Thus his appreciation of circunstancia: Yo soy yo y mi circunstancia, si no la salvo a ella no me salvo yo – Al Lector, Índice, pág. 41 (which I translate as “I am myself [in a world of perceptions] and also the material world that surrounds me; if I don’t save them, I don’t save myself”). Incidentally, here Ortega preempts his conclusion with what he has read in the Bible: Benefac loco illi quo notus es3 (loosely translated into English as “do good in the place where you are known”). With these remarks, Ortega reinforces the idea that he is unable to disassociate himself from his surroundings. If he is to flourish and to find salvation, it will be necessary for him to understand and protect what he shares with his environment.
Parallel to Ortega’s analysis is Plato’s Socratic allegory, which teaches us the effect that the visible world has on our mind. From these two perspectives, the mind tends to be discouraged by what it does not understand. Awareness of the visible world’s influence is for both thinkers an instinct for survival. To be aware, therefore, means to be silent, away from the deafening sound of fear. As long as there is fear, promoted by the progress of civilization, there will be no movement or separation from distractions. Confronting fear means dispersing it, making it disappear. Dispersal of fear is fundamental to the understanding of self. Releasing oneself from fear is confronting one’s not-knowing. Enslavement (at the depth of the cave) is equivalent to accepting the impositions of fear. Both, for Ortega and Plato, the opposition to indifference is found through meditation; thereby one is able to be alert and know oneself.
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Index
11. Perception and Storytelling:
True confidence is living in uncertainty. An overriding fact is that human beings organize themselves around the making of stories. Every story we create is an act of piety that consoles the mind. Yet new stories and old ones are provisional tools that fill the gap of our faith, filling in the void of our ignorance. Whether the story be true or not, storytelling rescues us from ourselves. Storytelling is our razón vital. It seeks to expose us to the best possible meaning of ourselves: Meaning in storytelling is found by investing oneself with the willpower to exceed adversity. Meaning is found by creating something new within oneself. Meaning is found in one’s vulnerability and in the constant pain to overcome it. The process of finding meaning reveals that one cannot control Truth. Happiness depends on how one accepts the absence of control, and how we can stop disliking our limitations.
Storytelling persuades us to think that one’s actions will spread deeply into one’s consciousness. One may not always be able to defeat the element of preconception, for bias is always with us. As long as suffering, uncertainty, and the effort to overcome them exist, bias will persist. Bias lurks behind our thoughts, quiet and insidious, yet it is there for a reason in spite of its harmful effects. The irony is that if one banished preconceptions, there would be no further progress. In any story, if the hero overcomes the villainy of bias, it is because he is able to change: If one does not overcome bias, one does not grow and there is no transformation. Success is not as important as the struggle to overcome bias. Every time adversity comes to us, it is an opportunity for the recognition of those preconceptions that still reside in ourselves. Success does not provide happiness. Happiness is only possible through self discovery. As such, one becomes symbolically the whole of humanity. This is its highest expression: The creation of something new as we face adversity, and the worse the adversity, the greater the opportunity.
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Index
12. Reasoning (sentience vs sapience):
Awareness of fiction is the appreciation of the paradox between what is and what is not. Knowledge expresses not only the awareness of one’s own intuitions and senses, but also the reasoning about those intuitions, senses, and impressions. That is, every time we examine the perception of our memory, we are editing our understanding. Thus, the way we organize and observe ourselves comes from our desires and senses at that moment, and this comes from our memories. For instance, it is difficult for us to agree on a common origin or a common thread uniting us as a species, even if that may be true. Whether we wish it or not, we define ourselves by the histories we create either in groups or in countries. In doing so, we are actually imagining separate and fragmented believes that we belong to separate locales, cultures, and races. Yet, there is an unavoidable thread that connects us as a species. Such composition is found in our common and preponderant origin, though our perception may resist being part of it. We endow ourselves with differences dictated by the conditioning of our perceptions. InThe Revolt of the Masses, Ortega refers to this condition as la razón de sinrazón (“reason without reason”), which explains our deeply rooted irrationality and fragmentation. Knowledge implies greater content than what is gained through the form of our perceptions. Our minds tend to abbreviate history, even believing that it does not exist. Yet the more expansive the “circumstance” or condition of apprehending truth, the greater the maturity our existence demands from us.
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13. Maturing Emotional Intelligence:
If a human being is the measure of all things, then also one comes to appreciate that knowledge is always inconclusive. Thus, meditation strengthens our mind, our memory, our learning, our attention, and our self awareness. Meditation on the past, the present, or the future depends on emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is based on capturing the import of influences from all areas of a man’s life, from one’s behavior to one’s relationship with others and one’s environment. Ultimate reality depends on the level of maturity of a person, and it is through meditation that one matures. Hence, how a person chooses to act depends on meditation and his level of emotional intelligence. For the fanatic (obsessed with fear) meditation seems impossible. For the fanatic, doubt is not the issue. The fanatic seeks to reiterate cycles. The fanatic fails to understand that fear of change is irrational because it is inevitable that the world is constantly evolving. The fanatic seeks to change what is beyond his control. From the Orteguian point of view, this person,within a closed valuation system, does not find consolation because his mind fears what it does not understand.
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14. Our Connection to the Universe:
From Ortega’s perspective of Cervantes’s Don Quixote[1605-15], we learn that the courage granted by Love – not hate – impels us towards understanding …the useless remains of a shipwreck that life, in its perpetual surge, throws at our feet. – To The Reader, p. 31. Loveis a divine architect who, according to Plato came down to the world – ὥστε τὀ πᾶν αὐτῶ ξυνδέδέσθα – so that every thing in the universe might be linked together: Separation means extinction. Hatred, which separates, isolates, and pulls apart, dismembers the world, and destroys individuality – To the Reader, p. 33.
Hence, Ortega explains that the imperative for the individual is to reflect on one’s circunstancia (in medias res), … to arouse the desire of understanding the universal in its particulars. – To the Reader, p. 31: To ignore the fact that each thing has a character of its own, and not that we wish to demand of it, is, in my opinion, the true capital sin, which I call a sin of the heart because it derives its nature from lack of love. There is nothing so illicit as to dwarf the world by means of our manias and blindness, to minimize reality, to suppress mentally fragments of what exists. This happens when one demands that what is deep should appear in the same way as what is superficial. No, there are things that present only that part of themselves which is strictly necessary to enable us to realize that they lie concealed behind it. – p. 62.
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Index
15. A Heroic Perspective:
Knowledge comes before fanaticism. Fanaticism is, for Ortega, the rejection of the perspectives of others. Ortega points to reasoning as an act of charity, which uncovers differences, and suggests that understanding is akin to the circling of an eagle in flight. To be oneself, for Ortega, is the same as it is for Cervantes. The act of being a hero takes place through a sensitive exploration of the nature of reality. In Ortega’s view, as well as for Cervantes’s, the will of the hero belongs only to the persona of Don Quixote: Because to be a hero means to be one out of many, to be oneself if we refuse to have our actions determined by heredity or environment, it is because we seek to base the origin of our actions on ourselves and only on ourselves. The hero’s will is not that of his ancestors, nor of his society, but his own. This will to be oneself is heroism. – First Meditation, 15, The Hero, p. 149. … I do not think that there is a more profound originality than this practical, active originality of the hero. His life is a perpetual resistance to the habitual and customary. Each movement that he has to make has first had to overcome custom and invent a new kind of gesture. Such a life is a perpetual suffering, a constant tearing oneself away from the part of oneself, which is given over to habit and is a prisoner of matter. – First Meditation, 15, The Hero – p. 149.
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Index
16. The Fear of fate:
A Socratic life is heroic, but if unexamined, of no value. In the pain of living, one has to embrace the fact that the examination of fear is part of life. Alongside this examination, fate is never artificial. Fate does not deceive, even in our misfortunes. Fate is not illusive, though our perception of time may be. Instead, fate challenges us to change. In change, fate protects us from stagnation. What appears to be random is, in fact, an opportunity for learning. Consequently, fate exists not for attacking, but for stimulating our transformation. Fate does not move against us, but challenges us to change by confronting obstacles. Fate attacks fear, because one’s fear takes away one’s ability to make choices. Narratives of fear turn out to be self-fulfilling prophesies. Fear deceives and defines us. It hampers survival. Fear prevents our evolving, it paralices us: We resist giving up habits because of fear. Thus one languishes and fails to overcome disbelief.
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Index
17. Boundlessness and Humility:
The shadow of shame represents one’s flaws. The shadow is what one wishes not to be, though its shadow be part of oneself. Only, when the shadow is accepted with humility, do its flaws dissolve in the act of loving oneself with compassion. Ultimately, the fanatic will recognize his incompleteness and become aware of his own insignificance: The incapacity for completeness looms over all of us. Only through risk does one learn the extent of one’s bounds and how much further one may go. We advance through humility and humility appreciates neither truth nor falsehood. Humility is the acknowledgment of one’s inexorable estrangement from an infinite truth. Only the humble voice recognizes the struggle for understanding and change. Both depend on a flight from despair. For Ortega and for Plato, the mark of the highest values is found in our vulnerability. If we surrender absolutely, then we find redemption.
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18. Epilogue:
My perspective treats Plato and Ortega outside of any theistic justification. I leave aside any application of Plato to theological thought. Likewise, I ignore any attempt to ascribe religious respects to Ortega’s theory of values. For me their notions, when applied to theology, are not credible. I understand Plato and Ortega in their search for the limits of human perception and rationality. Efforts to apply their philosophies as religious foundations are outside of my purpose.
The depth of Plato and Ortega’s thought is not to be found in a method for objective morality. Nor is it ethical relativism, nor even is it found in a claim of universality. Ideologies on morality are derived from norms dictated by theologians, seemingly unwilling to relinquish authority. The role of the lovers of truth is not to dictate virtue nor to define the godhead. Their teachings are centered on rationalism. Their humanism is based on a concept of justice that is antithetical to fixed norms. The paradigm of true knowledge – according to Plato and Ortega – is derived from love based on the originality of heroism. This love does not reside outside of the individual. This love is not found in the promise of a transcendental world. This love finds man’s salvation in the present. This love calls for self examination. And above all, this love is a liberation from the numbness of the mind.
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Endnotes:
1 For Ortega circunstancia, is a representation of the sum total of influences in the consciousness of a man, thus expressing the reason for his existence.
2Razón vital stands as Ortega y Gasset’s philosophy which views that reason is, in of itself, an expression of life.
Ortega y Gasset, José, Meditaciones del Quijote: Meditación Preliminar y Meditación Primera, (Madrid: PUBLICACIONES DE LA RESIDENCIA DE ESTUDIANTES, SERIE II.—VOL. I, Universidad Central de Madrid, 1914)
Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de. The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha[1605–1615] (Cambridge: Harvard Publishing Company, 1893. Translated by John Ormsby. 4 vols. in 8 books. Limited Edition No. 71/320. 1st edition.
Platón. Teeteto. Introducción, traducción y notas de Marcelo Boeri. Buenos Aires: Editorial Losada, 2006.
Ortega y Gasset, José, La rebelión de las masas (Madrid: Editorial Revista de Occidente, 1928). Fue publicado inicialmente en 1927 como una serie de artículos en el diario El Sol, antes de ser recopilado en formato de libro en 1928 por Editorial Revista de Occidente en Madrid.
Observations On Perception 