Today, the newsletter is back with content from Jesús Terrés*, a writer for magazines such as GQ and Vanity Fair that I particularly enjoy and that has visited this newsletter several times already, with a small text regarding a “revised version” of the notion of carpe diem. I believe it is quite thought-provoking – is there a true “optimal balance” between living only “here and now” and living in some future that might never materialize or that might be halted by the unexpected?

(Original in Spanish below)

<< Life here goes on slowly. Fred and Mick [from Sorrentino’s La Gioviniezza] reflect on old age, how time passes, melancholy, and absences. The background: there is nothing but beauty.

Everything is a vaudeville, and we have no consolation save for pleasure. Only the lived instant of pleasure makes all this theater worth it – its memory will be our treasure.

But there’s more.

“Throughout my life, I have done many things thinking of her, so that she would remember… but with time, she’ll remember nothing.”

Fred’s wife is drowning in Alzheimer’s oblivion (isn’t oblivion the end of everything?), and this certainty -so many instants that no longer matter, that nobody will ever remember- makes me drown as well.

Luis de Villena wrote that this [life] is about “getting drunk in beauty as much as you can, pursue and long for young bodies, marvelous plains”. And this is what those of us that only believe in vertigo actually believe.

What for. We spend our entire lives looking [for castles, memories, and soreness]; we spend our lives collecting longings and promises of some “forever”, when, actually, there’s only this.

Only “nows”. >>

*A bit edited by myself.

[Versión en español:

La vida aquí pasa lenta. Fred y Mick [de La Gioviniezza de Sorrentino] reflexionan sobre la vejez, el paso del tiempo, la melancolía, y las ausencias. El trasfondo: no hay más que la belleza.

Todo es un vodevil, y no nos queda más consuelo que el placer. Sólo el instante del placer vivido hace que todo esto del teatro merezca la pena; y su recuerdo será nuestro tesoro.

Pero hay más.

“A lo largo de mi vida, hice muchas cosas pensando en ella, para que las recordara… pero con el tiempo, no recordará nada.”

La mujer de Fred se ahoga en el olvido del Alzheimer (¿No es el olvido el fin de todo?), y la certeza de este quebranto -tantos instantes que ya no importan, que nunca nadie recordará- me ahoga.

Escribió Luis de Villena que esto [la vida] iba de “embriagarte en belleza cuanto puedas, perseguir y anhelar jóvenes cuerpos, llanuras prodigiosas”. Y en eso creemos los que no creemos en nada más que el vértigo.

Para qué. Nos pasamos la vida buscando [castillos, memorias y calambres]; nos pasamos la vida coleccionando anhelos y promesas de algún “siempre” cuando, en realidad, sólo hay esto.

Sólo ahoras.]