Why I Write
by Jorge Vargas
There are some things that I know I will never forget. The vast majority of these memories are, unfortunately, dark ones, but not all of them. Some of them are neither dark nor light, for they merely represent advice, and of these last I shall remember many and amongst these the following: Si bien decides escribir, entonces necesitas saber que la escritura nace de nada más ni nada menos que el amor.
If you do decide to write, then you must know that writing is born from nothing more and nothing less than love.
The words came from the first schoolteacher of mine whose face and whose voice I can remember, though I cannot remember her name or even what she was hired to teach. I do remember what her greatest lesson was: anything - not merely writing - is useless without passion.
What then of love? What of that emotion that romanticism has taught us to glorify and that we are told we cannot live without? Why is it that people lament the death of the young? Simply because they did not live many years,or because they did not live long enough to know love?
What is love?
Science has an answer. Science has demonstrated that there is a chemical reaction that takes place when our minds feel that which is known as 'love,' and a variant of this reaction triggers sexual attraction in both men and women. In women, this attracts the desire to remain with that mate whereas, for men, this reaction is almost entirely sexual. This leads to procreation and the propagation of the species. This is natural selection at its best. In the days when we humans lacked the technology to not be utterly bested by nature - today, admittedly, we are only partially bested by nature - a woman's inability to have this reaction and to cling to a mate could have meant her death during the harsh months of pregnancy. And let's face it, once the act of reproduction is over, the man stops being important in the process of natural selection. More or less like bulls today.
But who really cares about the science behind the emotion?
And besides, what happens if the love is directed at a non-human object? At a religion, a city, a nation?
In those instances, love is called fanaticism, if taken too far, if pushed beyond a certain limit. Fanaticism, of any sort, is considered to be a negative characteristic. Fanaticism, according to the U.S., is what fueled the Japanese kamikaze pilots to dive nose-first into U.S. ships. Fanaticism, according to Japan, is what fueled the U.S. air force pilots to drop nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Fanaticism, in both of the examples, led to horrible and unspeakable things.
But what if one does not know any other way to be? What if one is fanatical by nature, but not a fanatic of any one person or even of any one flag - though those who would like to simplify one would certainly love to think so?
What if that fanaticism is fueled not by love and less still by desire but rather by an ideal? By an ideal that has existed in all men and in all women since before time was measured and before the first borders were drawn, before ugly words such as 'foreign' and 'other' came into existence?
This ideal: the ideal to live in a world where the humble have inherited the Earth, where the poor are kingly, and where the meek hold sway over the great. The ideal to live in a world that Jesus and the Eternal Father through him both promised to humanity. The ideal to live in a world worth living in, not this place that we humans are forced to endure without any escape but death. And death, when self-inflicted, is a coward's retreat and not at all worthy of the dignity and honor that accompany the title of Human, just as much as shame and disgrace.
That, at least, is what could fuel one's fanaticism, though not necessarily the fanaticism of this writer. Although perhaps it is. You will never really know.
Let us return instead to the emotion at hand. Let us return to the emotion that, when turned too much toward politics and society is called fanaticism. Let us return, therefore, to love.
To love between persons. To be precise: to love between a man and a woman.
Most people on this Earth can attest to having been in love at least once. This writer is no exception.
They will speak of a lack of inhibitions, of passion, of wonderful memories, of mystery, of unspeakable joy, of pleasure, and those who have truly been in love will also speak of doubt, of suffering, of anxiety, of anguish, of understanding, of compromise, of an eternal give-and-take. Those who have truly been in love, and actually understand it a bit, will also speak of moments of dullness, of tranquility, of fulfillment, and of similar emotions. Anyone who wishes to argue otherwise is simply trying to prove something. Beware of those with something to prove.
There are many who would say of this writer that he is emotionless. There are many who would say of this writer that he is tireless. On the latter, this writer will make no comment for, if he is capable of tiring, he is as of yet unaware of it. However, emotionless, this writer is not.
This writer has had one great love, one love worth mentioning.
It does not matter if he loves her still - for he does - nor does it matter if he is with her still - for he is not - but what does matter is that this love exists and it is reciprocated. This is a love that has extended itself from New York City to Paris to Madrid to Lima to Portland to Kampala. And though its course remains unknown to all who are involved in the story and to all who have heard it, what is inevitable is that the path will include more cities and more places than those thus far named.
Let us offer this love then, as an example of the point of this piece which shall, in comparison to others, blend into the sea of forgetfulness and die in the darkness of forgetfulness. Let us offer it as an example of that lesson given to this writer by the first teacher that this writer remembers:
If you do decide to write, then you must know that writing is born from nothing more and nothing less than love.
There are two great loves in my life thus far and I write such without hesitation or shame, and without fear of reproach or humiliation. When speaking of love, there is no room for hesitation nor for shame, and much less for reproach and humiliation.
One is the love for that republic which gave life to this writer and whose doctors gave this writer life when everyone else had cast him off for dead. Love for that republic, which managed to show dignity and compassion even when her streets were filled with blood and her buildings were crumbled by hatred.
And then there is the second love. That aforementioned love for a woman whose every act manages to be filled with a mysterious kindness. Even those that acts that are, in and of themselves hurtful, for they glimmer with a child-like innocence that in most people ceases to exist with the passing of only a handful of years, but which in her seems to never die. That aforementioned love for a person whose actions carry within them a grace not found in most people and scarcely, if ever, appreciated by her peers.
And when combined, the knowledge of that great nation and of that amazing person can feed within this writer the fanaticism that was mentioned before. The fanaticism for that ideal to live in a world that so many experts say will never exist. To live in a world where justice has meaning and where life is something to be valued and not merely protected.
There are many who say that I write with hatred, and to those I ask that they read carefully, for I write with love and with fanaticism.
If it so happens that your fanaticism and your love conflict with mine, then perhaps you will read hatred. But for this writer to accommodate what you read, this writer would have to write about and support that which he feels no love for, and to write, there must always be love.
Therefore, I will never accommodate.
I hope you never do, either.
