"Last night when I was sleeping
I dreamed, blessed illusion!,
that a burning sun shone
inside my heart."
Antonio Machado.
The fact that the word illusion -negative in its Latin origin and in all languages, as deception, unreality, error, "illusory" thing, typical of "naive" people -has experienced in Spanish something like a "graft" and has given positive results -I have hope, I am or live with hope-, is enormous. I believe that Spaniards, by putting that wonderful word in its positive sense, have a greater possibility than others of having the reality it means, that is, of having hope and living with hope.
Illusion is inextricably intertwined with the deepest part of human life: imagination; its character of orientation towards the future, made of anticipation and temporality; its connection to desire, thanks to which our life flows like a fountain; its condition as an ingredient to every true vocation; its root in the loving condition of man; its vicissitudes in presence and absence, even in the irrevocable one of death; its aptitude to turn to God...
But there is a question that we sometimes ask ourselves: what is the state of illusion in this year of 2006? In other words, what is the current balance of this subtle reality, which does not easily tolerate being "made up" with statistical figures?
If you take a quick look at history, you will notice that illusion shows enormous differences in it. A little more than five hundred years ago, barely after the national unity was achieved, the Spain lost since the Arab invasion was recovered, illusion overflowed everywhere. It is not only that Spain did great things, barely believable; it is that it did them because it was possessed by a formidable illusion that dragged it to high enterprises, and that is reflected in the word of all the representative men of the time. It would be exciting to follow the curve of the illusion of the Spanish people from then until today.
And today? If we stick to what is publicly said, with very few exceptions, it will be thought that illusion is at one of its lowest points. But is it true? Almost twenty-four years ago, in the autumn of 1982, I wrote an article with a similar title, to further increase the illusion that existed at that time. And it is that when a people is disillusioned, disenchanted, discouraged, they become passive and allow themselves to be manipulated: the opposite of an illusioned people.
I believe that many Spaniards have been persuaded that they cannot feel illusion; perhaps that they should not have it. My impression is that, when they forget what they have read or heard, they have it, and very alive, perhaps more than almost all the other countries around us. When they return to private life, when they are in themselves, they retain a considerable degree of illusion; when they regain their spontaneity and dare to project, they feel it, referring to their city, their region, the entire nation, the future.
It is enough to think that freedom allows us to try, project, imagine and start to carry out companies that can be attractive and exciting; that when there is freedom there is no right to disillusionment and pessimism, because our future is in our hands ("you yourself have forged your fortune", Cervantes repeated); and that even when freedom is lacking, there is always the one that one takes. And as the poet said: "Illusion is the way. / Light is our destiny".
Francisco Arias Solis
