Tag: philosophy

Life is always more interesting when one takes risks and lives in the knowledge that to act is to risk. But sometimes it happens that there is so much bad luck that the successive setbacks accumulate in an unbearably disappointing way, and soon one loses that minimum of hope without which one cannot take a risk. Such discouragement is the death of the spirit, and it is undoubtedly much more profitable to spend one’s life as a deluded madman than to succumb to it; for the madman at least acts, and from his action something good can be drawn.

There seems to be a series of necessary decisions in each individual life, which take place in the biography either for good or ill. In the first case, everything seems to flow so naturally that the decision sometimes goes unnoticed, as if it were an inevitable outcome and not really a decision. However, if neglected, life goes on carrying a pending issue, which gets progressively worse, gradually concentrating more and more tensions, until there comes a moment when it is impossible to hide it, impossible to bear it, and the whole of life seems to converge and press for that previous decision to be made, which now takes effect with a delay, and brings with it, along with great relief, the feeling that a lot of time has been lost.

There is a positive change when one learns to value past experiences without simultaneously feeling the desire to relive them. It could be said that doing so is something like stimulating and appreciating memory, while at the same time blocking out nostalgia. The resulting feeling has no name, but it gives thanks for the experience by putting it in its place. And from this come valuable lessons, the main one perhaps being the notion that there is time for everything to happen. One learns by living, and learning is the recognition that what has been lived has had its place.