We tend to associate change or measuring the state of society with big events, with the voices that shout on television or on social networks and we forget the immense power of small acts. In classrooms, in women’s associations, in reading clubs
If there is a book that more clearly expresses the feeling of disenchantment, demotivation and disaffection that has invaded me in the last year, it is “The Report” by my beloved Remedios Zafra. So much so that many times I have told my loved ones: “If you want to know what’s wrong with me, read this book.”
“I thought that others were like this, like me, living without knowing that they have life” The author writes in this report in which she questions the inhuman and hyperproductive way in which we work, and with a deep love for life, she invites us to rethink these ways of working, which, far from leading us to doing things with value, provoke us detachment and apathy.
We live in difficult times and it is almost impossible to escape unscathed. In recent months, in the WhatsApp messages that I see with friends and colleagues, the words “disappointment”, “sadness”, “fear”, “tiredness” timidly appear.
I thought about how damaging it is to the world that people with overflowing talent, with passion for what they do and with great things to contribute to society, feel this disaffection with their jobs and with what surrounds them. If this continues”Who will disturb people to remind them that they are people? Who will write the poems, the books, the works capable of breaking the shell of a spirit hardened by dehumanizing forces that are normalized? Who will educate with passion?writes Zafra.
While I read and reread the pages of “The Report,” I copy a paragraph onto my cell phone and send it to a dear journalist. I read this and I remembered you, I say: “… I like to think that when someone does their job well, the world is saved. (…) This happens, for example, when a journalist rigorously researches herself to reveal the lies of a politician at a time when society is ceasing to trust what it hears, and with that “doing her job well” causes effect and helps to recover the value of truth. Or when a politician responds to citizens as expected of a worker with public responsibility (…) Or when a cook makes a healthy or exquisite stew. Or when a group of researchers advances in treatments that help patients. Or when the actors immerse themselves in the magic of the stage and make us fly…”
I believe that you save the world, I tell him, and I really believe it, because doing a job well, with ethics, with rigor, with passion, is not only an act of professional excellence, but also and above all, a gesture of resistance. in the face of apathy, an act of love for the community, a small form of rebellion against this current that seeks to turn us into apathetic, resigned, lonely, inert beings.
And then, something magical happens a few days before writing these lines. A small women’s association in Villacarrillo, a town in the province of Jaén, invites me to come and screen my documentary “To the Women of Spain. María Lejárraga” to the town, to have a talk with the students of the institute and in the afternoon, with the neighbors who go to the theater. They have been trying for two years and they have not given up their efforts. I’m exhausted from the last few weeks, it’s a four hour drive but I decide to go. And there it is, hope.
At the IES Sierra de las Villas, an authentic museum with reproductions of works from the Prado Museum fills the hallways. And this? Asked. “It was an idea of the Art History teacher, the students study the works in this way and take guided tours with their classmates, that other wing of the building is dedicated to the students’ own creations, which we also exhibit, and in this way we create our museum”. Another of the teachers explains to me with a huge smile.
In the classroom we talk about feminism, about cinema, creation, rights, equality, memory… The teachers have worked hard and it shows, they share reflections, thoughts, we all get excited. When I say goodbye, they give me a plant from their own garden. “We grow them here, with the students.”
The afternoon screening is packed. Rosario, representative of the Ágora Women’s Association, tells me: “In the association we don’t have a budget, but we want to contribute to others; “We are not satisfied with meeting among ourselves, we seek to offer activities like this to the people.” The movie ends and emotion overcomes us all. A lady came to the screening with her walker. She hugs me excitedly and thanks me. The lump in my throat is getting stronger.
They say goodbye with flowers and oil. We take photos. “We will not forget this day,” they tell me. I assure you that neither do I, and that I will keep it in mind every time hopelessness invades me.
We tend to associate change or measuring the state of society with big events, with the voices that shout on television or on social networks and we forget the immense power of small acts. In classrooms, in women’s associations, in reading clubs, in film clubs, in collective gardens, in small museums created by teachers full of vocation, moments of culture, of thought, of life are sown. And it really excites me. This good work, this work with passion, saves the world.
Thank you passionate women, as our María Lejárraga would say, thank you for rebelling against discouragement, thank you for inspiring us and infecting us, for restoring our desire. Thank you.
#bet #hope
