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This is the speech I gave at the launch event for my book “Once” on Friday the 13th of November, 2009. It was a moving moment, and I hope the ones who couldn’t be there that day do partake in such a feeling through this post.
“I have always thought that there are too many words in the world. If we could get rid of some of them, or at least make them lose their meanings – make the word “love” do not refer to this, make the word “penitence” do not refer to that, make the word “causality” do not imply the other…if we could do that, life would be far more eventful and far more easier.
The fact remains that words have an incredible weight, and an offensive power that we can’t even imagine most of the time. A single word is enough to make us or break us. A single word. Now, think about the effect that a phrase can have. “Out of sight, out of mind”. That is not truth, but we take it at face value. Phrases root within our collective being until we end up accepting them without ever thinking twice.
That happens because in life it is always easier to accept a truth that another person hands out to us, instead of seeking out a truth ourselves. I believe that is so because the process of seeking a truth is always an internal one, and people are reluctant to look inside. We never say so, of course. But the fact remains that we are too afraid to look inside since we might come across negative things. And our inner vision ends up being nothing but an external vision that we strengthen in our bosoms. That is, we only think we are any good when others tell us we are any good.
The truth is that if we looked inside there would be as many positive things to be found as there would be negative ones. They are exactly even. What happens is that people tend to emphasize what is bad – it is basic human nature. If we exaggerated our joys as we do exaggerate our sorrows, our every problem would lose transcendence.
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