28
PARTISAN REVIEW
the development of a deep spiritual life.
In
our tradition religion seems
to be the most likely vehicle for reining in the instinct for death and de–
struction, teaching solidarity, respecting certain ethical codes that
guarantee coexistence and order in the city, in a word, for calming and
domesticating the terrible savage, avid for excess, that all humanity, even
those who appear most civilized, carries within.
As a young man and a conscientious reader of the French existen–
tialists, I could convince myself that a man decides his own destiny com–
pletely on the basis of continuous choices, situating himself in ever–
changing reality. This belief helped, I think, to turn me into a writer,
which I dreamed of being from the time I was very small. But today, in
the strange situation I find myself, participating in an election campaign
as an aspirant for the presidency of my country, I tell myself with some
sadness that when it comes to individual destiny, circumstances and acci–
dent influence it perhaps as much as the will of those who embody it.
Like the "history" of societies, that of individuals is never "written" be–
forehand. One must record it each day, without abdicating the right to
choose, while knowing that often our choosing does nothing more than
validate - lucidly and ethically, if possible - what circumstances and oth–
ers have already chosen for us. I neither lament nor celebrate it: life is
that way, and we have to live with it, respecting it in all its terrible and
exciting contingency.
Translated from the Spanish
by
Don Share, with Diego Jaramillo
Lucy Dawidowicz
1915 - 1990
