En un día lleno de nostalgia por un sin fin de motivos, me consumió un momento de reflexión en las diferencias entre las diversas culturas a la hora de pensar y sentir vs pensar y no sentir.
Pensar, creer, esperar, confiar, charlar, escribir, inspirar – son cosas que tarde o temprano suelen fundirse.
Sentir, tocar, cantar, bailar, aplaudir, caerse, reírse, expresar – están impregnados en cada una de nuestras células.
Muy usualmente permitimos que el efecto sea al revés.
Pocas personas (sobre todo los niños) nos permiten ver que los primeros son solamente transitorios y complementarios – los efectos apenas se notan y sólo cuando son constantes.
Si sólo pudieramos permanecer con el alma que poseíamos cuando eramos niños o si pudiesemos ser ‘Sentipensantes’… quizás viviríamos viendo otra realidad.
Me encanta este hombre, un personaje genuino y ‘Sentipensante’ – siempre sintiendo y pensando simultaneamente – reflejado en la siguiente entrevista y en muchos otros de sus discursos, inclusive en ‘el derecho de soñar’ de un post anterior.
Eduardo Galeano, an inspiring Uruguayan writer, portrays – in one of his many stimulating stories – about the right to dream of a better world.
(An attempt at translating his words to English; based on the original video recited in Spanish. Please do suggest further if you consider that a phrase or a word may be translated more accurately.)
Who knows what the world far beyond the year 2000 will be. We have one certainty, if we are still there, in which case we will be people from the past century and even worse, we will be people of the past millennium…
And, although we cannot guess the world that will exist, we can still imagine the world that we want it to be.
The right to dream is not amongst the thirty human rights that the United Nations proclaimed at the end of 1948. But if it wasn’t for this – for the right to dream, and for the water that it gives to drink – the other rights would die of thirst.
So then, let’s envisage, let us imagine just for a little while.
The world that is upside down, will stand on its feet.
On the streets, the cars will be stepped over by dogs.
The air will be clean from the toxins of the machines and will have no more pollution than the one emanated from human fears and from human passions.
People will not be driven by cars, nor programmed by computers, nor bought by the supermarket, nor trapped by the television.
The television will no longer be the most important member of the family, and will be treated like the iron or the washing machine.
People will work to live, rather than live to work.
In any country, the youngters that refuse to do the military service will not be prisoned, except those who wish to do so.
The economists, will not refer to the level of life as the level of consumption, nor will they refer to the quality of life as the number of things.
The cooks, will not believe that the lobsters love to be boiled alive.
The historians, will not believe that the countries love to be invaded.
The politicians, will not believe that the poor love to eat promises.
The world, will no longer be in war against the poor, but against the poverty.
And the military industry, will have no alternative but to declare itself bankrupt forever.
No one will die of hunger, because no one will die of indigestion.
The children of the streets, will not be treated like rubbish, because there will be no children of the streets.
The rich children, will not be treated like cash, because there will be no rich children.
Education, will not be the privilege of those who can afford it.
And the police, will not be the curse of those who cannot buy them.
Justice and freedom, siamese sisters, condemned to live apart, will rejoin closely, back to back.
A black woman will be president of Brasil, and another black woman will be president of the USA. And an indian woman will rule Guatemala and another Peru.
In Argentina, the women of the Plaza de Mayo, will be an example of mental health, because they refused to forget – in times of mandatory amnesia.
The Holy Mother Church, will correct some typos on the stones of Moses.
The sixth commandment, will read: “you will celebrate the body”. The ninth, which mistrusts desire, will be forbidden.
The church, will also hold a tenth commandment, that the lord had forgotten: “you will love the nature, of which you are part of”.
All the penitents, will be celebrants.
And there will be no night without experiencing it as if it were the last one, or no day without living it as if it were the first.
Savita 