Effort — Rafael Barrett

Life is a weapon. Where should we injure, upon which obstacle should we exert our muscles, over which summit should we hang our desires? Would it be better to waste ourselves all at once and die the ardent death of the bullet flattened against the wall or to grow old in the path without end and outlive hope? The forces that destiny forgot for an instant in our hands are tempests. To him who has his eyes open and his ears on guard, to him who has once risen above the flesh, reality is anguish. Moans of agony and cries of triumph call us at night. Our passions, like an impatient pack of hounds, scent danger and glory. We divine ourselves masters of the impossible, and our avid spirit tears itself apart.

To set foot in the virgin shore, to stir the marvelous that sleeps, to feel the gust of the strange, the shudder of new form: this is what is necessary. Better the horrible than the old. Better to deform than to repeat, to destroy than to copy. If the monsters are young, let us welcome them. Evil is what we leave behind our backs. Beauty is the mystery that buds. And that sublime fact, the advent of what never existed before, must be verified in the depths of our being. Gods of a minute, what do we care about the martyrdoms of the day, what do we care about the bleak denouement if we can answer nature, "You did not create me in vain!"

It is essential that man look at himself and say, "I am a tool." Let us bring to our soul the familiar feeling of silent work and admire in it the beauty of the world. We are a means, yes, but the end is vast. We are fugitive sparks of a prodigious bonfire. The majesty of the Universe shines upon us and turns sacred our humble effort. Regardless of our insignificance, we will be everything if we devote ourselves completely. We have come from the shadows to burn, to alight; we have appeared in order to distribute our substance and ennoble all things. Our mission is to sow the pieces of our body and of our intelligence, to open our entrails so that our genius and our blood circulate over the earth. We exist insofar as we give ourselves. Self-denial is an ignominious withdrawal. We are a promise, the vehicle of unfathomable intentions. We live for our fruits—the only crime is sterility.

Our effort links to innumerable efforts in space and time, and it identifies with the universal effort. Our cry reverberates through fields without limit. As we move, the celestial bodies tremble. Neither an atom nor an idea is lost in eternity. We are brothers to the stones in our hut, to the sensitive trees, and to the swift insects. We are brothers even to the fools and the criminals, essays without success, failed children of the common mother. We are brothers even to the fatality that crushes us. When we struggle and prevail, we contribute to the common endeavor, and we contribute, too, when we are defeated. Pain and annihilation are also useful. Under the endless and ferocious war, an immense harmony sings. Slowly our nerves lengthen, joining us to the uncharted. Slowly our reason extends its laws to remote regions. Slowly science integrates phenomena in a superior unity, whose intuition is essentially religious, because it is not religion that science destroys—it is only religions. Odd thoughts traverse the minds. A confusing and magnificent dream looms over humanity. The horizon is heavy with darkness, and in our heart daybreak smiles.

We do not understand yet. We can only love. Impelled by supreme wills that in us rise, we fall into the bottomless enigma. We listen to the voice without words that swells in our consciousness and tentatively work and struggle. Our heroism is made from our ignorance. We are marching, we do not know where, and we do not want to stop. The tragic breath of the irreparable caresses our withered temples.