Luciano Duarte

There are things that can only be learned by giving in, and things that can only be learned by working in the interests of others, things whose value has increased enormously since they are so rare in modern times. Better than learning them, however, is remembering them through practice, overcoming the trap of understanding a poor reality by understanding it only in the part that is around the self.

Ortega y Gasset’s approach to the problem of circumstance is one of the most lucid shots in modern philosophy. That is: the notion that there is no need to rebel against it, but rather to integrate it, or at least make a continuous effort to integrate it into the personality, something that can only be achieved by learning what it has to teach. This problem, in fact, has intensified as the turning of the eyes inwards has become popular, an act that, if radicalized, ends up repudiating external reality. It turns out that this repudiation never achieves the desired effects, resulting only in disturbances and conflicts with no solution other than the acceptance that circumstance is always an inalienable element of being.

To live is to be in a position to do something, but it is also the need to do it, which is rationally confirmed and admitted by the choice to continue living. One only lives because one has to act, and without this primary notion nothing truly great can be done.

He who suffers the most tends to become the strongest, he who is most disappointed tends to become the most prudent, he who is most deceived tends to become the most forewarned. In all these cases, however, the benefit does not materialize without a personal effort to transform the unpleasant experience, which begins with accepting and understanding it, accepting oneself as vulnerable and understanding what happened as a starting point. Man never evolves passively.