HNRS 120 - Journal 3

We Live Dramatically

We are going to die. I am going to die. But what will we do about it? But what will I do about it?

In the ancient story of Barlaam and Iosaph (one of the best-known versions of it being attributed to St. John Damascene), Barlaam tells his disciple the story of the Man and the Unicorn. In this parable, a man chased by a unicorn falls in a well, but gets to grasp the branch of a tree and avoids falling completely. However, he soon notices that two mice -one white, one black- are gnawing the root of the tree and that, at the bottom of the well, a fierce dragon waits for him. Nevertheless, he also sees that there is honey running through the branches he is grabbing and its sweet taste is enough for him to forget all the dangers surrounding him.

This image was inspired in this wonderful tale. Most of the symbolism of it has been maintained: the unicorn represents death; the mice, day and night; and the tree, our lives. The man has been depicted sleeping, instead of enjoying the pleasures of mundane life, but the message intends to be similar. For its part, the background of the picture presents superposed text -mainly consisting of the original story in Greek and English- in different languages to represent how the humanity of death extends beyond times and cultures.

The rest of the text, however, expresses, sometimes through quotes, my ideas and feelings on the matter. Is sleeping, until our days are over, our only option? Or, perhaps, we should acknowledge our fate (more properly, our nature), descending from the tree and, instead of running away from the unicorn, walk besides him until one day it pierces us with his horn -not violently, but carefully; not as a surprise, but as an expected end. Would this be possible? Is this compatible with our essence?

The first quote, by George Santayana, reminds us that while we are intrinsically problematic, the world around us is not: the universe does not care. But, actually, this realization makes our lives more dramatic: we are ignored, there is no place for us. And indeed, as Unamuno says, ¿para qué? wherefore all this drama? wherefore all this contradiction and suffering?, ¿para qué vivir?

Whatever the answers for these questions are, the only way to keep the possibility of an answer open is by truly living; that is, being awake and conscious of our situation. And I will open my eyes -because, after all, je ne veux pas mourir.

Maximiliano Isi

Note: the image was developed through Pixlr by combining and altering freely available materials (original individual items: unicorn in white, tree in white, white mouse, sleeping man with background and not rotated, clock with background). Of these, two authors are known: (1) the picture of the sleeping man was obtained by removing the background of Akio Takamori's Sleeping Man and (2) the drawing of the unicorn was taken from a blog called Mystical beings.