JUAN MUNOZ

Be yourself

A traveler who has seen many countries, nations, and parts of the world, and who is asked what characteristic he finds common in people everywhere, might reply that they have a tendency to be lazy. Some would feel that he would have been more correct and true if he had said that they were all cowardly. They hide behind custom and public opinion. Basically, everyone knows in his heart that he, as a unique thing, will only exist once in the world, and that there will be no second coincidence, that so many elements of so much complexity can be put together into a single entity as he is now. He knew it, but he hid it like a guilty conscience -- why? Because he is afraid of his neighbor, he must preserve the custom and wrap himself in it. But what compels a man to fear his neighbour, to think and act as others do, rather than to be happy with himself? In a few people may be ashamed. In most people it is the desire for ease, inertia, in a word, the traveller's tendency to be lazy.