Whales can die of thirst. It turns out they get water from the food they digest, and it’s getting increasingly difficult for them to find it. Same thing happens to us: We often feel a need for air eventhough we are constantly breathing. Drowned in a society that we mostly don’t understand, we are like those whales who swallow water and never satisfy their thirst.
In the same way we run the risk that, as happened to Captain Ahab, this thirst becomes our aim. As Nietzsche said,”Whoever fights monsters should be careful not to become one of them” and everyday more and more we prefer to escape from this reality and fight it from elsewhere, sheltered to save ourselves not to turn into monsters, but still bound to the back of the great whale. Dive with her. Try it. After a few minutes without breathing, you won’t hear the silent beats due to your harsh claim for oxygen, and as if all the thorns that remained stucked in our souls made us more amphibians, we’ll practice the art of drowning without swallowing water, or which is the same… the whale’s thirst: twelve songs being the twelve weights that help me keep myself dipped and alive at the same time … Like Kafka, who wrote on his diary on the day first world war exploded “Today Germany has declared war on Russia. In the afternoon I went to swim.”
…And from inside the diving suit (so he won’t feel the bombs either) echoes the voice of Grandpa, broken like a wave that melts in the shore and gently rolls all small pebbles and shells: La set de la balena ens omple el cor de cendres/ La set d’homes i dones només s’apaivaga amb joia./ Però estem perdent el temps constantment…
…and Grandma who becomes a bird justbefore crashing against the ground.
To both of them, who have been my inspiration once again.
Text: Xavi Alías
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