Years go by and the difference between my tastes and those of a good part of the rest of the world does not stop calling my attention. Random examples: when I read PROFILE, I find that the columns that interest me the most never or almost never receive an opinion that proves the interest of the readers. That surprises me, but I console myself with the thought that perhaps the kind of readers who share my interest in those columnists aren’t fond of posting comments. The same thing usually happens to me, and there the concern is deeper, when I see what books are sold. Local and universal jewels, books that stimulate the mind and move the heart, go unnoticed, have increasingly low print runs, gasp, agonize before the absorbed gaze of buyers who later pick up the next copy in the bookstores, any famous crap – I am not going to give names – and they rush to throw their morlacos at the dealer, that is, paying in cash, debit or credit.
Of course, in my argument there may be a fallacy: who told me that my opinions and tastes should be shared by the rest of the world? Nobody, in general, can stand the music that I listen to –Gregorian chant, with stops at the angelic compositions of Saint Hildegarde von Bingen–, just as, as I mentioned in previous columns, almost a century ago almost nobody read Henry James , an extraordinary author. What is left to do? On the one hand, resign yourself: that’s the way things are. On the other hand, to rage against what one perceives as the opacity of the world and to continue insisting. In the fight for beauty there is no triumph, only path, failure, new attempt.