Une Fin Pathétique. 

Under seas of mistakes and forgotten motives I lay in the surface of what the call present. It is sort of like my past is all that moves above and around me, and future is still a navigation plan that has not yet been created. Slowly, but with a clear intention of answering all of the questions I’ve been asking myself, this ocean migrates to a region that we call childhood. A memory of distant tears and smiles, of joy and fear, of being human. While facing a new sun that burns my face but still is not able to provide some warmth to my back, I look in my pockets for some facts that can provide a solid base in order to justify my existence.  

In fact, there is no fact. The ultimate truth I have been looking for the last 15 years of my life is still hidden somewhere, in some book, in some library in a place I haven’t visited, in a language I don’t understand. Or maybe, just maybe I already found it, but forgot it. Perhaps it does not exist, and the continuous struggle for finding it was just a parody. Someone out there might be watching my moves, wondering what the hell I’m doing, or what I’m pretending to do. But I have to be honest. I don’t know. And the idea that maybe, just maybe, I will never find what I’m looking for is horrible. However, there is a question that I need to answer first, before I can manifest what my condemnation or my salvation is.

While seated, I contemplate the movement of the world around me, outside my window. I get nauseated. Just as Jean Paul Sartre’s Nausea, I can feel the anguish and the hope inside me. It is like vomiting while eating. I can’t elicit whether the world is moving and my window is static, or the inverse. The uttermost fear of all, solitude, loneliness arises, and then hides in a cabinet in the kitchen when the door hinges make that peculiar sound. What I’m trying to say is basically what we all know. I’m alive, but, at what cost? I am supposed to fulfil ideas and expectations just because I exist. Therefore, existence becomes a monotonous acceptation of what “fate” brings, and yes mom, I will finish my soup.

Under the tree that I sat when I was four I see how things rank, and I have to ask myself whether I’m growing or slowly becoming grosser. To manifest anguish? Or to pretend to know-it-all and be like God? No, honesty is the last weapon I carry in my arsenal. Maybe pretending every day to understand the essence of my own dilemma is not being dishonest, it’s loathing reality. Lying to myself is like morphine, and I’ve become an addict.  But a rupture is necessary to move on, some other drug will pop up, and maybe meditation, loneliness or the blue notes of a guitar.

Here I am, with no cloth to cover my real being, with cold, but with strength. This is what I’ve been covering my entire life. I’m not really sure of whether I’m pure anguish or anguish is me, personalized through teachings and essais et erreurs. And after all, that is what academic life is for; to create some sort of alter-ego, and show us that behind our doubts there are metaphysical diagrams traced in the emptiness of the universe. I will never understand, or will want to understand how the ultimate goal of humanity is to unify everything under one equation, forgetting about sounds, passion and sweat.

I close my eyes in order to see what my next step in the air should be. What purpose, what force, what impulse, what destination? The more I think about it the more I realize that our end is the same one, it does not change; sooner or later we will reach it. However our path is still delineable, and with my finger I can point at a tree, then at a star, then at your face or mine, and then again at the depths of night’s obscurity. The only truth I can defend right now it the “fact” that after I inhale air I will exhale nudity and moisture, Consumerism, Capitalism, Democracy, and I’m so hungry, let’s go and have a sandwich at Subway. We are blindfolded, and our hands are tied together behind our backs. But we still have our feet, and our faith. Jorge Luis Borges once said that being a Colombian is an act of faith, and that is kind of the best and more romantic way of approaching the vacuity of jumping out of bed every day. I would add that being Colombian also implies eating dirt and rottenness and crapping dignity. And that it what holds my body together, the idea that someday I will finally join the ones who “triumphed,” even though the only belongings that will matter will be my dust-covered books and my memories, of course.

Motivation is another name for alteration. One day I’ll dream of a cup of coffee in a Parisian shop, and the next day I’ll dream of a child dying in Africa. Paradox: Motivation wants what the soul desires, and this desire will not change, because the soul does not change. Therefore the mutation of the want is what moves the world, which will never change, because that mutation is just a false illusion. The universe is what it has been, and what it will be. Therefore, changing it seems banal.

But I cannot allow that to be the only self-evident truth. Letting everything to motivation-based plans is giving up on life. My body is owned, my necessity is owned, but my soul is mine. And yes, I´m talking about you, sistema de mierda. The only thing I can promise is to never let go of my mistakes, my anguish, my sadness, because that is what makes up my most precious treasure: my humanity. This century is contamination, condemnation, rents, taxes, Monsanto and garbage everywhere, but I know that resisting is the only way to push forward. Ergo, here I present to you, my dear brothers in anguish my life’s resolution: To let the system do what it wants with our humanness is to perish. My goal? To be a human.

Many may argue that the only acceptable way of becoming successful is to escalate the socio-economical pyramid designed by the system. Well, with all the respect that these people deserve, Me importa un carajo. I want to be free, and happy, I want to draw elephants in the air, with crayons made out of clouds and hopes. Not much to ask, however, it is a lot. Maybe one day I’ll forget everything and become dirt, or the president of a corporation, which is almost the same thing. But as long as I see sadness in the mirror of my bathroom I’ll be alive, and I’ll be a human. Pero esperame Che, I know I’m late, tomá tu pastilla y salí a la calle, Tomorrow will be another day. 

   Before I Forget – Slipknot. 

            Slipknot’s “Before I Forget” can demonstrate the anger Hamlet felt against his uncle when he finally discovered that he was the assassin of his father. After Hamlet asked the actors to perform the Murder of Gonzago in front of king Claudius, he realized by his attitude that the ghost of his father was being honest. Hamlet’s anguish and doubt became anger and hatred after discovering the truth. He needed to avenge the dead of his father. In his mind the only reasonable solution for the problem in which he was immersed was to put an end to the existence and reign of his perverted uncle. After Hamlet discovered that, he found his uncle praying and thought about killing him in that instant. However, killing him in while he was praying would meant that the soul of his uncle was not going to be punished in the afterlife as he desired. The song borrows a very famous quote from Niccolo Machiavelli: “My end, it justifies my means.” This can be connected to Hamlet because the strategies he was using were not very common, however, they were justified. He needed to act before he forgot about his father. He needed revenge; he needed to honour the memory of his father.

Nothing Else Matters – Metallica.  

This song has a direct relationship with the emotional state that Hamlet felt during the beginning of the play. After the death of his father Hamlet felt devastated. He did not felt any sort of happiness. The fact that his mother married his uncle not very long after the death of king Hamlet made Hamlet think that life had no sense. He felt betrayed by his own mother. The song talks about how life acquires the sense we give it, and for Hamlet, whose spirit was corrupted by sadness and anguish, life was nothing more than a chaotic and gloomy existence. For Hamlet nothing else mattered. His father was dead, and nothing could change it. The depravation he observed astonished him. It was revolting to see how his mother could go from one husband onto the next one. The prince of Denmark did not care anymore for what they said, what they did, what they knew. His lack of emotional tranquility shaped everything he did, including the way he talked, acted, and thought. Furthermore, the lack of interest he showed for life reflected what would be the outcome of his tragedy. Deceit and lies are always the leading path for despair and death. And when death comes, in all reality, nothing else matters.

Dead Memories – Slipknot. 

Sadness and melancholy are also universal topics, and finding these two topics in any sort of artistic work is a simple task. However, sadness can take multiple shapes and can be caused by multiple factors. Two of the most important elements that can cause a very profound state of depression and sorrow are deception and mourn. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet there is a character that suffers these two tragic elements, and therefore, is affected and experiences a deep state of dreariness. Ophelia is a character that becomes the victim of fate. Hamlet, affected by his multiple problems and delusions tells Ophelia that his love for her is nothing more that banalities and that she should live life without caring about love. Instead, she should go to a nunnery. Some scenes after, Hamlet murders Ophelia’s father, Polonius. These two events create a lot of negative effect in Ophelia’s soul, so much that she is not able to perceive any type of happiness in her life. Dead Memories, by the American metal band Slipknot, explains this emotional paradigm. The song argues that the only thing left after love is death. There is a very powerful line in the song that explains how after a love deception, the only things that are left are scars and dead memories in the person’s head and heart. After this, there is a rupture between what seems to be two complete different individuals, the blissful past being, and this new miserable and mournful one. That joyful being now seems distant and somehow dead (The other me is dead, I hear his voice inside my head). By drawing this relationship, one can elicit the obvious emotional connection between Hamlet’s fourth act and Slipknot’s tragic song. 

Omega - Stone Sour.

When it comes to comparing two different types of art (in this case music and literature) one can observe obvious similarities that illustrate the emotions that serve as the creative basis of the artistic works that are being compared. Hamlet, by William Shakespeare is a very universal play because of its topics and emotional themes. These characteristics give the play the ability of never becoming anachronistic, and therefore, more recent works that describe the same affective traits that Hamlet describes can be connected to it. This is the case of the Stone Sour's Omega, a song that explains the effect of anguish and revulsion that life creates in some individuals. The song uses extreme metaphors to compare the physical existence of humans (What a skeletal wreck of man this is, translucent flesh and feeble bones...) to banality and ephemeral experiences, just as Shakespeare does in the second scene of the first act in Hamlet (O, that this too too solid flesh would melt Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!). The general idea of both the song and the play is the fact that human life is just a wreck, an accident. Life is depicted as one of the most horrible punishments. Humans are controlled by factors they think they can control, and when individuals discover this, life becomes a constant fight between anguish and fear. The sadness and profound melancholy that Hamlet feels after the death of his father can be compared to the impotence that the author of the song describes when he talks about life as a constant chaos. In conclusion, fatalism and the fear of being controlled by the most obscure emotions are the factors that connect these two art works. 

Sonnet.

From the solitude, the fear, the angst,

The dark coat like an obscure shadow comes 

And the menacing, daunting, silent glimpse

Of th'ghoul, I scream but extort no response.

Specter of the Hades, what is thy aim?

Is it to take my soul, to take my breath?

I beg thee, restless soul, pronounce thy name,

And at last, bring me peace or bring me death.

I hear thy poignant dirge, thy pleased chant,

Tell me, oh ghost, is it joy? Is it grieve?

But in this life, each smile, each tear is scant,

On lord! Oh existence! How short, how brief!

But such a deceit, a broken mirror,

My flesh, no reflection, God! The horror! 

Task 2: Personal Reflection.

What a piece of work a man is! (II,ii) The renaissance brought a new way of thinking, not only in Europe but in the rest of the world. Sciences, Art, and Philosophy changed their focus, and they started to demonstrate all the excellent characteristics that human beings had. Sciences showed all the physical and biological advantages that humans had; humans were described as the most developed animal in the planet. Artistic expression (Painting, Sculpture, Literature) illustrated the complicated ideas and the abilities that humans carried. All of these aspects lead the society to think that they were the center of the universe, God's greatest creation. 

However, we are not living in the renaissance anymore. Humans have shown that they are nothing more than depravity made flesh. For me, humans are the worst plague in the universe. Humans destroy everything around them. They even destroy themselves. Hate is their law, and murder is their job. Just as Hamlet said, Humans are nothing more than dust. I can not understand how humans are able to rejoice in their banality.