For those who do not know the poem "Voyage to Ithaca" by Cavafy, you can read it in any of the multiple translations circulating on the net. It is a metaphorical journey related to The Odyssey, which narrates the return of Ulysses to his land, Ithaca, to return with his family. Basically, the author advocates that we enjoy all possible pleasant moments of the journey (actually life), without waiting to place all happiness on arrival to the island, in case it disappoints us.
We all have our personal or collective Ithacas. In the latter sense, I thought I lived one between the mid-70s, when Franco was close to death, and what a democratic future would hold for us. I remember with what joy we celebrated each of the small advances in this sense. I thought I arrived on the night of the great illusion, October 28, 1982, when the left came to power. Although it did not disappoint me completely, I gradually fell into disenchantment when I saw that I could not expect anything more.
As I knew that Ithacas always exist, I continued with my personal one. But behold, on May 15, 2011, a lighthouse was lit that could mean a new collective illusion. It seemed to go out, but it didn't. That great light became a multitude of small lights, each of which contributed its grain of sand to unite, with renewed strength, in May 2014. Then appeared all the doom-mongers who announced the dangers of the trip as if it were a medieval "finisterrae": Chavista Laestrygonians, populist Cyclops, siren songs of impossible programs that would lead us to the abyss, furious Poseidon-Iglesias... But, despite everything, the ship seems to have been filling with more and more people excited about this journey, because they know that those dangers do not exist if they are not within us. They are only external dangers that do not fit in a clean mind.
I don't have a crystal ball, but 2015 may mean arrival. Those of us who trust in this trip are not aliens. We are human beings made of the same stuff as everyone else. We have the same virtues and defects, we can only differentiate ourselves in the percentages. We can make the same mistakes and successes. The history of humanity (and the personal history of each one) has a multitude of examples of all the Ithacas. But if this one succeeds or fails, we cannot blame others. It belongs to all the people who want to travel on that ship. Let's enjoy the pleasures of all the voyages and collaborate to make the goal a place that does not disappoint. It will require a lot of effort, and if, despite this, we do not arrive, let us not be saddened, because Ithacas will always exist.
Diego Arrebola Gómez