The former President of the Republic, José Mujica, was the interviewee of the Postscript cycle conducted by Oscar González Oro. In this first part, Mujica reflected on the “world to come”, the metaverse, his exercise of misanthropy and whether he is prepared to death.
Here is a summary of the first part of the interview.
He told me before beginning this conversation that he exercises misanthropy, he talks a lot to himself, to you, what are they talking about? Do you review the past? The day?
Not so much backwards, I imagine the challenges ahead of the society that is coming upon us, of the world in which I am not going to be, but that is coming. And I spin it. I realize that on the one hand it can be wonderful but it hides a sample of tremendous tragedy, what is the role of the individual, of the human being, with the technological explosion in our time. And well, in that framework I worry about the fate of my country that is too unitary, Montevidean. For every 100 pesos that the State collects in the interior, 30 returns. It means that the capital keeps 70. It is not that the capital takes them away. It is that the sociological construction of Uruguay determines it and for many years the family that wanted a daughter or son to study had to send them to Montevideo and it was difficult for them to return. With which you always had as passing the skimmer to the interior but it is a country of agro-export nature. So this is something that doesn’t pay attention to and well, that’s the reality we have.
All current philosophers and psychologists say that you have to live today and in the present I kept thinking that it is almost impossible. I live today I enjoy this, what we are doing now I was thinking about an interview, I am going to go thinking about the interview but at some point the past always appears, my past, your past me before I sleep, I choose a time of my life high school life and begins to remember names and it is not a past that hurts me because I am that past too.
It is that without past there is no present. I believe that it is not an antinomy and living for today is also a need to cultivate hope for the future. And today is not so hateful. Objectively what happens is that we are immersed inside. from a subliminal culture that tends to tacitly sow that image that succeeding in life is to be rich and the faster the better and that apostasy makes us move away from the only few things that have to do with human happiness, what is human relationship, which is the time “to lose”. When you are young, love is a very serious thing, it needs time and you have to cultivate it, it cannot be rude and even in old age, it is a sweet habit, it is a way to avoid loneliness but if you take away affection I don’t know what we live for in life. But you have to have time for that. Time that is not currency, that does not pay interest, is time that is spent. Frequently one feels “I don’t want my son to lack anything” but he is missing. He doesn’t have time to waste two hours with the gurí, which is what he needs the most. And what the guru needs most is affection. So out there they begin to apply some contradictions, it’s never pure sleeping pill, psychologist, crazy in the street, young boys who commit suicide. Something’s wrong.
Something is wrong for sure, because of my age I am 72, younger than you, but I don’t like the world that is coming. I don’t understand the metaverse, that you can be sitting in Belgium and I can be here, and we can talk and touch each other. I don’t understand that world nor do I want to see it.
The metaverse sounds like a verse to me. It has no return. It will be meta, but a kind of entelechy. But they give it to me from outside. And they don’t let me create, they don’t let me imagine, they don’t let me dream with my bearing what I can think of. The expression of freedom and if they take that away from us, it’s hard to conceive.
There is a poet, Homero Manzi, who wrote Prayer to wait for my death and at one point he says, “I know that my name will resonate in dear ears with the perfection of an image and I also know that sometimes it will stop being a name and will be just a couple of meaningless words” Are you ready for Pepe Mujica to be a couple of nonsense words in a century?
Yes, surely. Humans are very vain. More than 4,000 plus million years had to pass for us to exist for a minute above the earth and we often say “this is historic.” What historic? Cartoon may be something. Because in the magnitude of things in the universe our life is a second, that’s why the greatest miracle that exists for each one of us is to be born. There was a 40 million chance that another would be born and it touched us, but since it’s something everyday, we don’t value it. The big question, what do we do with our life? What do we do with a biological phenomenon? And the only truly democratic thing that exists is death. Inevitable, right? Well, when that lady who takes us arrives, if I’m conscious, she could tell her, please, she will serve another round.
