Approximate reading time: 3 minutes, 59 seconds
“We are for death,” says the philosopher Heidegger. Therefore we are mortal and we have a very short time to develop our Being, from the moment we are born until we breathe our last breath.
Nietzsche said that each man carries the backpack of his time, that is, his culture, his family, his social environment and his historical chance, in addition to his genius or lack thereof; no matter how much he wants to, he cannot be an actor from another time. , except if he has been an original creator of a transcendental doctrine or feat. He then he can be remembered beyond his death.
However, he will not be able to avoid historical judgment, which can be restricted to his small living space or can be universal.
The notable men are usually buried after great ceremonies, many honors and eloquent speeches. These prominent men are those who, after the official formalities have passed, are victims of their formalization, their trial and their historical sentence.
There will be prosecutors of his personal conduct, theorists who will address his doctrinal positions, politicians who will disagree with his social ideas or his achievements and others who will support them positively.
This controversial time will reach its conclusion long after the man left his performance. There you will see his true legacy. The majority fade in space and time until they disappear without repercussion. A few others will remain influencing the times and thoughts of the future with more or less force.
Every great man seeks to transcend, to be recognized, to be loved, not to be forgotten. However, there are some who are not interested in human judgment, they are those who believe they are anointed by the gods or destiny. They are usually the most dangerous or the most enlightened.
By not having human references for a trial, they can go to extremes in their actions against men. They are the great monsters of history or they can also be great founders of religious or mystical movements that only answer to their gods or their inspiration.
It is common for politicians to aspire to the statue, as do the military; the diplomats to their decorations and the ideologues to their textual references; the religious to their canonization and the merchant to their testamentary inheritance. But some, after a period of feverish activity, stop to rethink their lives and decide to write their autobiography, as long as they have the writing skills and the time to write down their adventures. Others entrust them to their personal scribes and manage to leave their mark on the printing press. But there are also those who remain so absorbed in their activism that they do not even have the concern to leave their legacy in memoir format. If they have been relevant, there will be no shortage of those who will praise their example in writing, of course with the risk of being deformed part of their factual and psychological reality, which as they are already deceased they will have few opportunities to rectify.
Of course, “many are called and few are chosen”, so those who are frustrated will be the most, as happens in all of nature. Life is a miracle where millions of possibilities are frustrated for each one that succeeds, and most of the time it is the effect of a chance fortune, rather than a meritorious consequence.
There are “hyperthymics”, who have extreme faith in their abilities and launch themselves into great life goals with such impetus that they can overwhelm many human, ethical or legal barriers. Nothing stops them in their megalomaniacal drive. They are the most complex and contradictory personalities, in the judgment of history. The truth is that every personality that strives to influence the heights of power carries the burden of that drive, some more and others less, but looked closely, no one is saved, as the Brazilian, Chico Buarque, said.
As is known, the majority – fortunately – lack the extreme illness of “hyperthymia”, therefore their historical legacy will be equally modest, minimalist or negligible. History erases these guys from its memory quickly, little or nothing remains of their legacy. Ergo, to go down in history, you have to make it big. And there are those who, carried away by that frenzy, have made it complete.
But those who are followers of Aristotle must also be considered, in the sense of seeking the right medium in their actions, the scarce “sofrosine”, that virtue of balance, consideration, good judgment and even common sense. These people may not be named much in historical trials, since their actions have not been scandalous at all, but their contemporaries are grateful to them, since they almost always cultivated peace, friendship and good human treatment, followed by equitable prosperity. , as long as it has managed to keep at bay the unlimited appetites of the plutocrats, those who have existed at all times and who care for the rest without scruples or remorse.
Before these “hyperthymics” and the “sophrosinic”, there is ordinary humanity, those people without public history, those who are recognized only by a few close people, but who do not transcend into history. For we are all like desert sand that is trodden by a slow and carefree walker: history. That walker, who is THE STORY, only fixes his gaze when something shines through the sand, or when something makes him trip and stop walking. This is how visible history is built. The rest only serves to move the “story” along.
Walter Benjamin writes a story about the meaning of history, inspired by a painting by Paul Klee, called “The Angel of History.” He describes the story as an Angel with large wings who is suspended in a forward take-off position, but with his head turned back and his gaze horrified by the spectacle he sees in the past, piles of corpses; but, from the bottom, on the horizon of the future, a blizzard comes to him that makes him take flight and pushes him forward.
This transition forward is the path we must follow despite the horrors of our action. Biographies, speeches, ideologies and other human desires are nothing more than efforts to mitigate the horrors that remain buried, but smelly, in our past, it is like wanting to give explanations, like wanting to be absolved or exonerated; others want to be blessed. Goethe ends his “Faust” in an Autosacramental of vindication and absolution, after having made a pact with the devil to better enjoy the goods, powers and pleasures of life.
The greatnesses, which are also present in human history, are those that allow us to levitate with great wings, which end up dragging us forward, towards a future that everyone aspires to be better, a kind of “Oasis”, but not that oasis that is proclaims in the midst of exclusivity seven stars, for the “chosen”, but that which allows everyone to enjoy the coolness of the waters and the shade of the trees, after passing through the burning sands of the desert, where so many lives have been burned.
Hugo Latorre Fuenzalida.