Changing with integrity. Unamuno, Life 1.13
Unamuno
explains how we change ourselves: we must not suppose that we can
make ourselves entirely different overnight with one decision.
Instead, change comes via the gradual, careful introduction of new
things into the stable form of our character, which must retain some
continuity with its past if we are to be whole, sane, healthy. You
can hear this passage <here>.
Más
de una vez se ha dicho que todo hombre desgraciado prefiere ser el
que es, aun con sus desgracias, a ser otro sin ellas. Y es que los
hombres desgraciados, cuando conservan la sanidad en su desgracia, es
decir, cuando se esfuerzan por perseverar en su ser, prefieren la
desgracia a la no existencia. De mí sé decir, que cuando era
un mozo, y aun de niño, no lograron conmoverme las patéticas
pinturas que del infierno se me hacían, pues ya desde entonces nada
se me aparecía tan horrible como la nada misma. Era una furiosa
hambre de ser, un apetito de divinidad como nuestro ascético dijo.
Irle
a uno con la embajada de que se haga otro, es irle con la embajada de
que deje de ser él. Cada cual defiende su personalidad, y sólo
acepta un cambio en su modo de pensar o de sentir en cuanto este
cambio pueda entrar en la unidad de su espíritu y engarzar en la
continuidad de él; en cuanto ese cambio pueda armonizarse e
integrarse con todo el resto de su modo de ser, pensar y sentir, y
pueda a la vez enlazarse a sus recuerdos. Ni a un hombre, ni a
un pueblo—que es, en cierto sentido, un hombre también—se le
puede exigir un cambio que rompa la unidad y la continuidad de su
persona. Se le puede cambiar mucho, hasta por completo casi; pero
dentro de continuidad.
More
than once it has been said that every unlucky wretch prefers to
remain himself, even with his ill fortune, rather than improve his
lot by becoming someone else. The fact is that even wretches, to the
extent that they remain sane in their misfortune—that is, to the
extent that they seek to continue in their being—prefer
wretchedness to nonexistence. For my own part, I know that when I was
young—even when I was a little child—none of the pathetic
pictures they made me of hell had any effect upon me at all, for even
then there was nothing so terrifying to me as the prospect of
nothingness itself. I had a raving hunger for being, a wild longing
for God, as our ascetic says (†).
To
go to someone with the instruction that he make himself into another,
is to tell him that he must cease to be himself. Every person defends
his personality, accepting changes to his manner of thinking or
feeling only insofar as these are capable of entering into the unity
of his spirit, and conforming to the continuity that is himself. The
change must harmonize and integrate with all the rest of his manner
of being, thinking, and feeling, and it must also be able to bind
itself to his memory. You cannot demand from a person, or a
people—who are in some sense also a person—change that breaks the
unity and continuity of their character. They can change a great
deal, almost completely, but only within the bounds of continuity.
---
(†) A reference to John of the Cross (1542-1591), the famous Spanish mystic. Born to a family of Jewish converts to Christianity, Juan de Yepes y Álvarez grew up in Old Castile (Castilla la Vieja) in desperate poverty, losing his father early to death and later his brother Luis. He attended a Jesuit school in Medina del Campo, and upon graduation joined the Carmelites (Ordo Fratrum Beatissimæ Virginis Mariæ de Monte Carmel), among whom he studied at the University of Salamanca and met Teresa de Ávila, who set him upon the path of renewing the order that he would pursue until his death of erypsipelas. He is remembered for his writings, especially his poetry, which included a Spiritual Canticle whose thirteenth song depicts a lover, the human soul, comparing her beloved, God, to a delicious meal (among other things):
Mi
Amado, las montañas,
los
valles solitarios nemorosos,
las
ínsulas extrañas,
los
ríos sonorosos,
el
silbo de los aires amorosos,
la
noche sosegada
en
par de los levantes de la aurora,
la
música callada,
la
soledad sonora,
la
cena que recrea y enamora.
My beloved is the mountains
The vales with woods bedight
And many far-off islands
Resounding
rivers' might.
The
whisper loving wind hath blown
A
quiet, calming night
Peer
of dawns he rises
A
song that lingers slight
Wilderness
that warbles
A
dinner that delights.