Une Fin Pathétique.

Under seas of mistakes and forgotten motives I lay in the surface of what the call present. It is sort of like my past is all that moves above and around me, and future is still a navigation plan that has not yet been created. Slowly, but with a clear intention of answering all of the questions I’ve been asking myself, this ocean migrates to a region that we call childhood. A memory of distant tears and smiles, of joy and fear, of being human. While facing a new sun that burns my face but still is not able to provide some warmth to my back, I look in my pockets for some facts that can provide a solid base in order to justify my existence.  

In fact, there is no fact. The ultimate truth I have been looking for the last 15 years of my life is still hidden somewhere, in some book, in some library in a place I haven’t visited, in a language I don’t understand. Or maybe, just maybe I already found it, but forgot it. Perhaps it does not exist, and the continuous struggle for finding it was just a parody. Someone out there might be watching my moves, wondering what the hell I’m doing, or what I’m pretending to do. But I have to be honest. I don’t know. And the idea that maybe, just maybe, I will never find what I’m looking for is horrible. However, there is a question that I need to answer first, before I can manifest what my condemnation or my salvation is.

While seated, I contemplate the movement of the world around me, outside my window. I get nauseated. Just as Jean Paul Sartre’s Nausea, I can feel the anguish and the hope inside me. It is like vomiting while eating. I can’t elicit whether the world is moving and my window is static, or the inverse. The uttermost fear of all, solitude, loneliness arises, and then hides in a cabinet in the kitchen when the door hinges make that peculiar sound. What I’m trying to say is basically what we all know. I’m alive, but, at what cost? I am supposed to fulfil ideas and expectations just because I exist. Therefore, existence becomes a monotonous acceptation of what “fate” brings, and yes mom, I will finish my soup.

Under the tree that I sat when I was four I see how things rank, and I have to ask myself whether I’m growing or slowly becoming grosser. To manifest anguish? Or to pretend to know-it-all and be like God? No, honesty is the last weapon I carry in my arsenal. Maybe pretending every day to understand the essence of my own dilemma is not being dishonest, it’s loathing reality. Lying to myself is like morphine, and I’ve become an addict.  But a rupture is necessary to move on, some other drug will pop up, and maybe meditation, loneliness or the blue notes of a guitar.

Here I am, with no cloth to cover my real being, with cold, but with strength. This is what I’ve been covering my entire life. I’m not really sure of whether I’m pure anguish or anguish is me, personalized through teachings and essais et erreurs. And after all, that is what academic life is for; to create some sort of alter-ego, and show us that behind our doubts there are metaphysical diagrams traced in the emptiness of the universe. I will never understand, or will want to understand how the ultimate goal of humanity is to unify everything under one equation, forgetting about sounds, passion and sweat.

I close my eyes in order to see what my next step in the air should be. What purpose, what force, what impulse, what destination? The more I think about it the more I realize that our end is the same one, it does not change; sooner or later we will reach it. However our path is still delineable, and with my finger I can point at a tree, then at a star, then at your face or mine, and then again at the depths of night’s obscurity. The only truth I can defend right now it the “fact” that after I inhale air I will exhale nudity and moisture, Consumerism, Capitalism, Democracy, and I’m so hungry, let’s go and have a sandwich at Subway. We are blindfolded, and our hands are tied together behind our backs. But we still have our feet, and our faith. Jorge Luis Borges once said that being a Colombian is an act of faith, and that is kind of the best and more romantic way of approaching the vacuity of jumping out of bed every day. I would add that being Colombian also implies eating dirt and rottenness and crapping dignity. And that it what holds my body together, the idea that someday I will finally join the ones who “triumphed,” even though the only belongings that will matter will be my dust-covered books and my memories, of course.

Motivation is another name for alteration. One day I’ll dream of a cup of coffee in a Parisian shop, and the next day I’ll dream of a child dying in Africa. Paradox: Motivation wants what the soul desires, and this desire will not change, because the soul does not change. Therefore the mutation of the want is what moves the world, which will never change, because that mutation is just a false illusion. The universe is what it has been, and what it will be. Therefore, changing it seems banal.

But I cannot allow that to be the only self-evident truth. Letting everything to motivation-based plans is giving up on life. My body is owned, my necessity is owned, but my soul is mine. And yes, I´m talking about you, sistema de mierda. The only thing I can promise is to never let go of my mistakes, my anguish, my sadness, because that is what makes up my most precious treasure: my humanity. This century is contamination, condemnation, rents, taxes, Monsanto and garbage everywhere, but I know that resisting is the only way to push forward. Ergo, here I present to you, my dear brothers in anguish my life’s resolution: To let the system do what it wants with our humanness is to perish. My goal? To be a human.

Many may argue that the only acceptable way of becoming successful is to escalate the socio-economical pyramid designed by the system. Well, with all the respect that these people deserve, Me importa un carajo. I want to be free, and happy, I want to draw elephants in the air, with crayons made out of clouds and hopes. Not much to ask, however, it is a lot. Maybe one day I’ll forget everything and become dirt, or the president of a corporation, which is almost the same thing. But as long as I see sadness in the mirror of my bathroom I’ll be alive, and I’ll be a human. Pero esperame Che, I know I’m late, tomá tu pastilla y salí a la calle, Tomorrow will be another day.