Tag: behavior

To a certain extent, one does not choose the feelings that will arise in relation to one’s environment, because one does not choose the circumstances into which one is born, nor does one choose most of the defining events that the environment will produce over the course of a lifetime. Thus, affection and aversion, patriotism and anti-patriotism, a sense of belonging and alienation arise naturally. But all these feelings, if not understood, bear poor fruit. A conscious effort is needed to always relate them to the personal transformations one experiences, viewing them as the extremely important catalysts that they are. Such transformations sometimes run counter to the nature of that initial feeling; but they all teach something, and one must cultivate a positive attitude toward them all.

Someone who has spent his entire life in the city may not be able to leave it, except through a traumatic and uncomfortable process. Curiously, it is there that he feels safe; it is there that he experiences the sense of normalcy to which he has grown accustomed. If someone were to tell him, however, he would not believe it: one must experience firsthand the numbness to which his senses have been subjected over the years. And that is only possible in an environment far removed from his beloved city. It brings to mind those old chronicles of Europeans who, walking with indigenous people in the jungle, were amazed by their almost supernatural sense of smell—which, in truth, consisted of a much more refined attention to the senses, and which, through the senses, demonstrated to the European the truth of their intuition. This raises the question of just how far extend the consequences of this evident urban inattention.

It is quite possible that modernity has succeeded in forever ridiculing “skepticism,” the “inquisitive spirit,” and the appreciation for rationalization. At the very least, they no longer command the respect that similar attitudes commanded at the beginning of the last century. The speaker begins a narrative and makes a point of emphasizing, right from the start, the qualities of his Western mindset, which has subjected everything that follows to the most meticulous scrutiny; throughout the narrative, he interjects confessions of difficulty in accepting what is being recounted, due to his rationality, etc., etc. If, at one time, such passages aroused admiration for the speaker, today—how to put it?—they do nothing but elicit a smile identical to the one that appears on the lips of someone confronted with a blatantly childish display.

It is troubling to recognize that one is so mediocre as to have never taken a bold step, as remarkable men have customarily done, trusting entirely either in providence or in their own intuition. For such steps are the truly decisive ones, and those that, once taken, produce the fondest memories. And when they fail, well, when they fail, they do so in the same way that indecision and fear do; when they fail, they still leave open the possibility of correction.