I cut the branches: I knew it was in vain,
Root, in the darkness, perseveres;
and time—that craftsman of blindness—
turns what is near into cold marble.
I followed paths of human rumor,
while the crowd, turned into wood,
and my reason—light, perhaps a chimera—
sank into the ineffable and the distant.
I was a cipher in a repeated mirror,
I knew nothing of love or destiny;
I found oblivion in the pale marble.
Today I am the shadow of my own fate;
if anything endures, it will be what I have lived,
which returns like a clandestine book.
The Hero
The hero is the lightning rod, the one who grasps the whole mess between that (look up) and this (point down or here), the one who grasps that communication.
There is a decision, there is a lesson, the hero decides... when the hero's destiny is stated, destiny is actually born when the hero says yes, at a certain moment he decides... for example, when Oedipus says "that's it, I must know" (paraphrased), when that veil is lifted, that's it... When Antigone says "I will rise tomorrow with my brother in death," she has already decided something.
There is something in the hero that sacrifices himself precisely by seeing what is forbidden to us. There is an irreversible moment when a character (or a person) stops doubting, embraces their destiny, and chooses their path, even if it is tragic.
You can't enter an academic setting carrying such an obvious ideological burden.
And it's worth clarifying: the problem isn't ideology itself—we are all, inevitably, permeated by it—but rather the way it is imposed, explicitly, almost belligerently, in spaces intended for plural reflection.
What's uncomfortable isn't the political position, but the tone with which it's communicated: the constant irritation, the resentment that seeps into every sentence, the desire for argument that takes precedence over dialogue.
We must understand that the classroom is not the battlefield.
And teaching isn't about imposing, but about enabling questions.
Thoughts on Sleep
I think of sleep as a passing suburb of death, premonitory regions where we learn the great dream, small and clumsy babblings of the final, dark adventure, confused drafts of the enigmatic final text, with the transitory hell of nightmares.
So that the next day we are and are not the same, for the secret and abominable experiences of the night already weigh upon us.
And we possess, and for that reason, a bit of that quality of the resurrected and of ghosts.
