The tree of wisdom

I walked into my house, in the middle of the dining room I found a big Christmas tree, I went closer, I saw that in the place of the star there was a little sign that said «Much Ado About Nothing», I would have changed it for a line by Jorge Luis Borges «I am not proud of what I wrote, but of what I read». The great writer, thinker, director of the National Library, proposed many times for the Nobel, without ever being given it. Admired by many and read by few. I began going over the branches of the pine and on each one, to my surprise, there was a book or a film as a gift, some very well known, others not so much.

I took out a book, Little Women, I remembered that a film had been made from this book's story, in it they try to get inside the souls of women, their different personalities; I took down another book that reminded me of Antonio Machado's poem «It was 5 in the afternoon, it was exactly 5 in the afternoon, and it was in Granada, in his Granada». That was the hour they shot Federico García Lorca, who is the author of the well-known play «The House of Bernarda Alba», a dark work with a very dense mood. A family run by a mother of strong character who ruined her daughters' lives. I kept taking down books, I found a marvelous author, García Márquez, and I thought how hard it must be to live 100 years of solitude, in solitude one can think with good sense and put one's feelings in order.

Many psychology books have been written about feelings, but what is a feeling? Some believe it's born in the heart, but it isn't so, it's born in the brain, which runs everything and orders the heart to beat faster in the presence of a loved one, or makes us blush in an awkward situation. Good sense doesn't always go along with feeling, but it's what marks the limits we're allowed to show and what we have to keep to ourselves.

Another title on my little tree was PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, I don't know this book but the title got me thinking, what is pride? A very hard feeling to describe and where we should apply the theory of the golden mean. Having no pride is bad, it's selling yourself short, but having too much pushes others away, people move away from the swollen-headed, as they call someone who believes themselves better than everyone else, who looks down on others because one of their flaws is having prejudices and they look down on others for their looks, their education, their economic level. An intelligent person doesn't waste time on prejudices that demean other people. I hugged the Christmas tree, which I named the tree of wisdom, and settled into an armchair to read the other books I don't know, that's a pleasure I recommend so as not to spend 100 years of solitude.