For days, months, time, nothing is the same. Perhaps it would be appropriate to say since the pandemic became a reality and its consequences, inevitable. Collateral damage, that is, fear, confrontation, disappointment, uncertainty. The consequences of something as unexpected as unwanted. The losses of work, of hugs, of smiles. The distance, the caution, the cooling of relationships, the imperative solitude.
For days, months, time, nothing is the same. And I write these lines without knowing what will be happening when they are published. Even without knowing if they will be published, such is the insecurity of a world at war, prey to excessive ambitions, entrenched nationalism, shady deals and perverse enrichment. From a world that for decades began its gradual but undeniable return to a once again feudal organization.
For days, months, time, nothing is the same and many people I talk to find it harder than before to make sense of things. And it is perhaps for this reason that last week, while reflecting on these issues, I remembered Beckett’s work Waiting for Godot. And I searched for it online and found a theatrical version from 1978, made for and by Radiotelevisión Española, and I realized how different the dreams of this society were then, recently arrived at democracy, which believed in the investment of public money for the good of all through art and culture, that is, through curiosity and effort. And I saw the theatrical version that I am referring to and I thought if Beckett, who wrote it –in a language that was not his by birth; there is also a universal message there – some years after the hopeless barbarism of the Second World War, if Beckett, I say, would not go around calling Godot the meaning of things, which is expected and never arrives, which is expected and escapes, especially when humanity loses the illusion and therefore the north. When humanity distances itself from freedom, equality, fraternity and thus betrays itself.
4
