Salt and Sugar | Philosophy of an Everyman

If we have heard and repeated all our lives that wisdom is in books, what is so strange about saying that it is now on the Internet? Although it is gradually becoming clear that the information that the network can offer is not the same as "wisdom", it is not the same thing, many continue to believe that it at least precedes it.

People are surprised to learn that sugar is a recent invention (from the 18th century), while salt, now reviled, has become legal tender. Without salt we could not live, but it would be very convenient to get rid of sugar, which, in fact, we do not need. Well, words - the good and beautiful ones - are indispensable, but books are not.

For millennia, wisdom - NOT information - was transmitted orally, and the system worked very well, which does not surprise me. I was familiar with the music recitals. A friend and I, some Sundays, as if it was a mass we had to attend, would go to the theater to enjoy what was offered there, usually concerts, recitals, dances and so on.

• ''...A book does not allow such things''

But a little more than 4 years ago, I attended a word recital for the first time: a group of poets declaiming their verses. The experience is not comparable to reading, not even to reading aloud. I do not forget that paper trembling in the hand of the young artist, her broken voice, her trepidation as she exposed her soul... I don't remember the poem, but I remember the emotion, yours and mine. This and other experiences have made me addicted to the emotion of art, always new and fragrant.

Every week I tried to go to a play or an open-air concert in the best squares of the city, to a gallery, to a talk with a storyteller or to a poetry reading. That, like almost everything else in this small city, is difficult but possible. A poet talking about how he got started in the craft, reading his own work or the work of others, talking to me from the panel, answering questions, laughing, singing... A book does not allow such things. that I cannot attend a recital of a poet who is dead or living abroad? That only the book puts me in contact with his work? Very well, but the mark that the poet left in my soul is indelible, and I will never forget Joel's gestures, nor Raul's reading aloud, excited and exciting, the works that he meticulously selected for our weekly rejoicing.

For example, an instant of love or anger that became eternal. In the same way, there are those who have read hundreds of books but, in reality, they have only read one. I recently heard of a writer who, when he went into exile and was forced to abandon his huge library of more than 10,000 volumes, lamented that most of them were irreplaceable: were signed for him by their authors. I wonder if The Iliad would be there even if Homer hadn't dedicated the book to it?. Why so much eagerness for new releases? And what's worse, you might not even get anything new on those shelves, since these friends of the writer won't have all written the same thing...

A protean book that, in order to mislead, changes title, setting, genre -sometimes it is poetry, novel, short story or essay- or even tone -exalts, laughs, decrees or curses-, but in the end the same copy? In other words, some texts that we like do not please us precisely because they reinforce our convictions, so firm and immovable.

Fortunately, this is not always the case. The reader of novels also looks for myths, characters that serve as models, that teach him to live a complicated life. The bad thing is that you can read hundreds of novels in which the same imbecile, representing different characters, does the same imbecilities.

The reader of essays looks for fresh ideas, but may read many essays without a single idea appearing, much less a freshness. The reader of a poem looks for revelations, but may read thousands of lines without a single revelation appearing. Such is the adventure of living, it will be said. Or so is the size of the lie we hear and repeat, I say. Myths, fresh ideas and revelations are where they have been for centuries: in the theater, in art, in the mystery that is not read, but rather experienced.

I have learned that with patience and tenacity it is possible to get to the best information, both in books and on the web. And I have also discovered that beauty -even good beauty- is present in all literary genres. Of course, you have to be a detective to track it down, or rather to wait for it, because finding it is a miracle. That is why, when it catches me, I celebrate it, I suffer it, I enjoy it, I read it and reread it endlessly. Nor does beauty repeat itself, always new and fragrant.

Thank you very much for reading me, I hope you have a great weekend full of good energies. Blessings!