During a virtual talk these days, some friends discussed something, being South American, you try to explain to Europeans. Living in a civilized world transmits a false sense of security. Planning, guarantees and rights are certainly great achievements, but the great fiction is dry land.
All countries must wish to provide for their citizens well-being and progress, but they can put us in a very vulnerable place to improvise from, and to overcome exceptional situations such as those we are experiencing. To live in first or second world countries can make us forget that nature is the ruling one. In other latitudes, however, it always overwhelms, perhaps too often.
If any lessons are to be taken from this situation it is one of humility. No nationality, profession or individual is exempt from being affected in some way. Both the rich and the poor mourn there dead. We must slow down and go back to our basic human state, simply this. To create a true adjective from the word, or even a verb that already exists: to humanize.
Many things overwhelm us. To accept this reality is putting to work the intangible soul, the spirit, and the force that moves us to pick ourselves up, a force that must help us. But we must to cultivate it, take this force out of its hiding place.
This is no time to blame others. This too must be a lesson learnt. This has happened as many tragedies happen, sown by stupidity, which has proven to be more dangerous than evil.
This is the moment to all vibrate at the same frequency. There would be time for responsibility, but foremost, we must assume responsibility on our own. We all have committed imprudent acts before being forced into confinement. But no one wanted to get infected and that’s the greatest common divisor, the silent number you hand out without a trace.
This sense of immunity, later proven to be false in the face of the misfortune of others, has become the clear proof of our weakness. This is what finally led us to underestimate what was already happening in other latitudes.
Paradoxically, the sooner we realize how vulnerable we are, the sooner we will be able to become stronger. To surrender does not mean to stop the fight; it means to lower one’s head in order further raise it higher, with a greater degree of consciousness.
We are feathers blown by the wind; water drops in the immense ocean. Far from distressing us, this thought must provide us with strength and comfort, so as not to suffer in vain. We are drops, but many drops and we can create tides and waves. We must feel with every fiber of our being that we are all equal, that we feel the same regardless of language or origin.
The battle to be won is that of positive energies, the energies that creates thoughts walking in the same direction, driven us onward thru this planet’s history of which we are merely guests: our ability to adapt and keep fighting until the last breath.
We have to place ourselves in the light. We must sent our souls and cream our bodies, although getting wrinkles at the present time does not seem like an unfortunate prospect. .
Verónica van Kesteren
Illustration: Ignacio Hildebrandt
