Loose Words

Silence is undervalued.

I could imagine myself dropping a coin into one of those narrow-necked tins with a slot, contributing to the movement of active silence. I would wear a sticker on the left side of my chest so that no interruption could be possible. It is a fact: we need signs, symbols, explanations for everything. Maps to get home, instruction manuals so we don’t burn a slice of toast—and even then, we still pull on doors that say “push.”

One of the most striking images I’ve ever heard about writing goes like this: to write is to want to sit at that table and add something to the conversation. I don’t know if loose words were ever sold before some grand clearance sale, or if they now come as points at the fuel pump, but the truth is, no one falls silent anymore. Tables are no longer places of debate; they have become monologues of processed flesh.

My bank of hours worked in content is bankrupt. The battery has died, and there isn’t a single extra hour left to claim. It is dry, empty, hollow. My back aches, my feet tingle, my knees turn cold, the body staging false workplace injuries just to explain the absence of little words.

There was, perhaps, a more effective solution to all this—the need to explain, to add, to opine, to insult, to delight in everything life offers. The solution is art.

Generalizing the chaos, what is happening to art today is the risk of literalness. It is the news placed directly on stage, along with its answer, all at once. The danger is a social illness that grows out of the tragic phenomena of our time: dehumanization and extremism. If theater, cinema, dance, music, and painting do not work through distance and transposition of material, we become dramatic pleonasms, with no room left for the new. For doubt. For perspective. And, consequently, for empathy.

José Saramago ceases to be required. We speak of maturity and obligation. But when did pedagogy come to mean ‘result instead of path’? When they are ready to read, a number will be called, directing them to counter three. And when Mensagem echoes, perhaps pleasure has indeed vanished—because there is no longer a book to read.

Meanwhile, more and more people are writing, opining about everything. Performances are staged by calendar, and a cycle of repetition feeds on what is heard and echoed. What is assumed, never reflected upon.

The case of the reality show becomes a phenomenon of commentary, regardless of its love triangles or lack thereof. The proof is that humans still need small catharses to work through their emotions. Football is not the enemy of the arts. It is a culture where one can still shout and cry without being labeled aggressive or fragile. In both cases, it nourishes a state that brings us closer to ourselves. Death on the evening news, bombs—no longer capable of fully terrifying us.

My solution to all this? To gather presidents of countries such as the United States, Russia, Israel, and so on, and lock them inside a library where speaking is forbidden. The space would be monitored twenty-four hours a day.

I know they lack the maturity, but this would not be just another spectacle. It would be Blindness.

Translated by Diniz Borges – PBBI, Fresno State.