the limits of man

Rómulo Gallegos tells us in his master work, Doña Bárbara, to those pawn plains from Apure in Venezuela who, born on farms with almost no boundaries, never left the borders of the farms on which they were born. The first limit of man it was the path of the herd on which he moved in the wilderness and on which his whole life depended.

There were wide borders, but they walked and already opened the same prey they were hunting. Man did not dare to go beyond these limits of his existence. Then, as time passed, came the season of cultivation, in which the earth, good or bad, climate and seasons, became his world, and he shut himself up in it, as if bound by digestion and its interruptions. not venturing beyond hunger and appetite, which dictated their scope limited horizons.

curiosity doesn’t kill the cat, but reveals to him what he had only guessed before; and, in that sense, we have a lot of felines. This innate curiosity was part of the evolutionary progress of the species. The day it ceases, the spirit that awakens us to research will be extinguished forever. Borders are drawn only by the mind. We see this with animal migrations, which do not know about passports or visas; Not They understand customs and races.

They have an innate knowledge of destinations. However, we have to look for it ourselves. Not born with instincts that already mark the paths we should follow, it just remains in ours will stay within the pole of inertia or half of action. Fortunately, we always alternate between one and the other, at least as a species. If it weren’t for the collective enthusiasm, I don’t know what would have happened to us.

I say this because the individual tends to hide, yes to disappear within the limits of oneself; but fortunately we live with those who seem to carry a burning torch within the caves in which we usually lock ourselves.

If the boundaries are only imaginary and product of human socialization, sometimes you have to get over it. In our country, we have what it seems our channel syndrome. As a lapidary work, it seems that it will be the only one larger than we can create in our history. We set our course and decided never to cross it. For Julius Caesar and for the Romans, the river Rhine became the interruption of their advance, a limit which they could not cross in their conquest.

The waters of that river washed the conscience of the Roman population and they mentally set that limit, not wanting to cross it. He accepted his limits; but there were no such boundaries. Collective thought has been abandoned. This is dangerous for a nation. If we consider that The canal is our river RhineThat’s where we’ll get as far as the work of progress without borders is concerned. some distant day our history as people, perhaps those ruins that now cross those great ships will be unearthed, and perhaps they will say “that was their monument; there was no more.” We cannot limit our limits of progress to what was, nor

rest comfortably gathered alone around the fire that others have lit. That would leave us planted like a tree with no clear direction. We are not just a Channel; but all that we can be falls asleep in the womb of that dream and that work.