Patricio Ortiz

Superiority? Inferiority? Why not the quite simple attempt to touch the other, to feel the other, to explain the other to myself?

Was my freedom not given to me then in order to build the world of the You?

At the conclusion of this study, I want the world to recognize, with me, the open door of every consciousness.

My final prayer: O my body, make of me always a man who questions!

When I look back on my past and think how much time I wasted on nothing, how much time has been lost in futilities, errors, laziness, incapacity to live; how little I appreciated it, how many times I sinned against my heart and soul — then my heart bleeds. Life is a gift, life is happiness, every minute can be an eternity of happiness! Si jeunesse savait!

This book might need more than one preface; and in the end there would still be room for doubting whether someone who has not experienced something similar could, by means of prefaces, be brought closer to the experiences of this book. It seems to be written in the language of the wind that brings a thaw: it contains high spirits, unrest, contradiction, and April weather, so that one is constantly reminded of winter’s nearness as well as of the triumph over winter that is coming, must come, perhaps has already come. . .Gratitude flows forth incessantly, as if that which was most unexpected had just happened – the gratitude of a convalescent – for recovery was what was most unexpected. ‘Gay Science’: this signifies the saturnalia of a mind that has patiently resisted a terrible, long pressure – patiently, severely, coldly, without yielding, but also without hope – and is now all of a sudden attacked by hope, by hope for health, by the intoxication of recovery. Is it any wonder that in the process much that is unreasonable and foolish comes to light, much wanton tenderness, lavished even on problems that have a prickly hide, not made to be fondled and lured? This entire book is really nothing but an amusement after long privation and powerlessness, the jubilation of returning strength, of a reawakened faith in a tomorrow and a day after tomorrow, of a sudden sense and anticipation of a future, of impending adventures, of reopened seas, of goals that are permitted and believed in again.

Deus est mortali juvare mortalem, et haec ad aeternam gloriam via.

To assist man is to be a god; this is the path to eternal glory.

On another occasion, remembering at dinner that he had done nothing for anybody all that day, he gave utterance to that memorable and praiseworthy remark: Amici, diem perdidi — “Friends, I have lost a day.”

A light sea wind ruffled his thinning hair. “I am about to do a very un-ambassadorial thing,” he declared. “I am about to tell you what I really feel.” Perhaps Minton had inhaled too much acetone, or perhaps he had an inkling of what was about to happen to everybody but me. At any rate, it was a strikingly Bokononist speech he gave.

“We are gathered here, friends,” he said, “to honor lo Hoon-yera Mora-toorz tut Zamoo-cratz-ya, children dead, all dead, all murdered in war. It is customary on days like this to call such lost children men. I am unable to call them men for this simple reason: that in the same war in which lo Hoon-yera Mora-toorz tut Zamoo-cratz-ya died, my own son died.

“My soul insists that I mourn not a man but a child.

“I do not say that children at war do not die like men, if they have to die. To their everlasting honor and our everlasting shame they do die like men, thus making possible the manly jubilation of patriotic holidays.

“But they are murdered children all the same.

“And I propose to you that if we are to pay our sincere respects to the hundred lost children of San Lorenzo, that we might best spend the day despising what killed them; which is to say, the stupidity and viciousness of all mankind.

“Perhaps, when we remember wars, we should take off our clothes and paint ourselves blue and go on all fours all day long and grunt like pigs. That would surely be more appropriate than noble oratory and shows of flags and well-oiled guns.

“I do not mean to be ungrateful for the fine, martial show we are about to see—and a thrilling show it really will be . . .” He looked each of us in the eye, and then he commented very softly, throwing it away, “And hooray say I for thrilling shows.” We had to strain our ears to hear what Minton said next.

“But if today is really in honor of a hundred children murdered in war,” he said, “is today a day for a thrilling show?

“The answer is yes, on one condition: that we, the celebrants, are working consciously and tirelessly to reduce the stupidity and viciousness of ourselves and of all mankind.” He unsnapped the catches on his wreath case. “See what I have brought?” he asked us. He opened the case and showed us the scarlet lining and the golden wreath. The wreath was made of wire and artificial laurel leaves, and the whole was sprayed with radiator paint. The wreath was spanned by a cream-colored silk ribbon on which was printed, “PRO PATRIA.” Minton now recited a poem from Edgar Lee Masters’ the Spoon River Anthology, a poem that must have been incomprehensible to the San Lorenzans in the audience—and to H. Lowe Crosby and his Hazel, too, for that matter, and to Angela and Frank.

I was the first fruits of the battle of Missionary Ridge.

When I felt the bullet enter my heart I wished I had staid at home and gone to jail

For stealing the hogs of Curl Trenary, Instead of running away and joining the army.

Rather a thousand times the county jail

Than to lie under this marble figure with wings,

And this granite pedestal

Bearing the words, “Pro Patria.”

What do they mean, anyway?

“What do they mean, anyway?” echoed Ambassador Horlick Minton. “They mean, ‘For one’s country.’” And he threw away another line. “Any country at all,” he murmured. “This wreath I bring is a gift from the people of one country to the people of another. Never mind which countries. Think of people . . .

“And children murdered in war.

“And any country at all.

“Think of peace.

“Think of brotherly love.

“Think of plenty.

“Think of what paradise, this world would be if men were kind and wise.

“As stupid and vicious as men are, this is a lovely day,” said Ambassador Horlick Minton. “I, in my own heart and as a representative of the peace-loving people of the United States of America, pity lo Hoon-yera Mora-toorz tut Za-moo-cratz-ya for being dead on this fine day.” And he sailed the wreath off the parapet.

The world is names and signs, in truth it’s He

Whose being is its sole reality.

This world, the world to come, and all besides, Are Him;

know this, that nothing else abides.

There is one essence, but diffused, deflected,

There is one word, but variously inflected;

A man must know the King, and recognize Him,

Although a hundred different clothes disguise Him;

It’s not an error, in this way to see Him,

Since He is all, and everything must be Him –

The error’s when a man presumes to state

That what he sees and God are separate.

A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth — that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way—an honourable way— in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfilment. For the first time in my life I was able to understand the meaning of the words, "The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory."

The ale-wife spoke to him, to Gilgameš:

‘O Gilgameš, where are you wandering?

You cannot find the life that you seek:

when the gods created mankind,

for mankind they established death,

life they kept for themselves.

You, Gilgameš, let your belly be full,

keep enjoying yourself, day and night!

Every day make merry,

dance and play day and night!

Let your clothes be clean!

Let your head be washed, may you be bathed in water!

Gaze on the little one who holds your hand!

Let a wife enjoy your repeated embrace!

Such is the destiny [of mortal men,]