…Y la naturaleza recuperó terreno: peces en los canales de Venecia, ciervos en medio de la carretera, coyotes en las calles de San Francisco, plantas silvestres abriéndose paso en el asfalto, aire más puro y menos contaminación acústica en las ciudades… Y también se intentó no dejar a nadie atrás. Pero fue sólo un paréntesis, un recordatorio sin el suficiente calado para revisar de verdad el contrato social-natural, para aprender de la capacidad de adaptación de los animales y adoptar modelos de inteligencia más complejos, para asimilar de una vez que el crecimiento per se no puede ser la finalidad.
No es momento de megaproyectos. En la escala está la clave, en cambiar aquello que podemos tocar, optar por gestos mínimos de incidencia máxima, aplicar la noción de arm’s lenght, la igualdad de condiciones. La inteligencia pasa por la empatía. Por la empatía y la gratitud.
Gratitude es el título de uno de los últimos ensayos de Oliver Sacks, en el que escribía las siguientes palabras: «It is the fate of every human being to be a unique individual, to find his own path, to live his own life, to die his own death (…) My predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved. I have given much and I have given something in return. Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure».
Viendo estos días el documental Oliver Sacks: His own life nos reencontramos con una personalidad compleja, contradictoria, vital, apasionada y tremendamente empática. Neurólogo y escritor, Sacks no quiso ser un teórico, sino que prefirió estar cerca de sus pacientes, muchos de ellos en situaciones extremas y desesperadas, preguntarles «cómo estaban», escuchar sus respuestas y escribir sus historias. No fue hasta después que varios de sus libros alcanzaron un número considerable de lectores que el establishment médico empezó a tomar en serio sus investigaciones, que contribuyeron a un mejor entendimiento del funcionamiento del cerebro y la diversidad de la experiencia humana.
El pensamiento creativo (no sólo el de los y las artistas – à propos, ¡qué necesario es recuperar ahora también a Joseph Beuys!-) se articula en esas mismas premisas, sigue procesos individuales, idiosincráticos, se pone «en el lugar del otro», es transversal, permite ver las cosas desde perspectivas renovadas… Este es el tipo de pensamiento que hay que practicar y reivindicar, el que nos reconciliará con nosotros y con nuestro entorno.
…And nature recovered its lost ground: fish in Venice’s canals, deer in the middle of the roads, coyotes on the streets of San Francisco, wild plants pushing their way up through concrete, cleaner air and less noise pollution in cities… The idea was not to leave anyone behind… But it was only a parenthesis, a reminder not deep enough to really revisit the social-natural contract, to learn the animal’s ability to adapt and adopt more complex intelligence models to once and for all assimilate that growth per se cannot be the aim.
Right now it is not the time for megaprojects. The key is the scale, it is changing what we may really touch, to choose minimal gestures for a maximum effect, to apply the notion of arm’s length, equal terms. Intelligence hangs on empathy. Empathy and gratitude.
Gratitude is the title of one of the last essays by Oliver Sacks, in which he wrote the following words: «It is the fate of every human being to be a unique individual, to find his own path, to live his own life, to die his own death (…) My predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved. I have given much and I have given something in return. Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.»
When viewing these days the documentary Oliver Sacks: His own life, we may rediscover a complex, contradictory, vital, passionate and highly empathic personality. Neurologist and writer, Sacks did not want to be a theoretician, but rather stay close to his patients, many of them in very serious and desperate conditions, to ask them «how they were», to listen to their answers and write their stories. However, it was only after several of his books had reached quite a large audience that the medical establishment started to take his research, which contributed to a better understanding of how the brain works and the diversity of human experience, seriously.
Creative thinking (not only that of male or female artists -by the way, how much we need now to also recover Joseph Beuys!-) is organised along these very same assumptions, it follows individual, idiosyncratic processes, to put oneself «in another’s shoes», it is transversal, it allows us to see things from renewed points of view… This is the type of thinking that we must put into practice and fight for, the one that will reconcile us with ourselves and with our environment.
