Suppose that being born is optional; In other words, you can choose to be born or not. In this case, and also assuming that we choose that yes, it is good, coming into the world seems interesting, there would remain several decisions. –in fact, several hundred – which could delay the happy episode a little if, instead of depending on luck, they also depended on the candidate. Ultimately, the devil is in the details. Where were you born, what woman you were born to and, after much deliberation, until when, on what day, at what time. But, apart from masochists, no one would choose to be poor and, with the exception of a handful of daring people, it is difficult to believe that there were many cases of birth on the “frightening date” of December 28, with its “more or less bearable jokes or disappointments”, as Pedro de Alarcón put it (Latest writings); among other reasons, because the oldest innocent would have already suffered from the scum of free will applied to her own birth. Imagine a lifetime of repeating, “And what’s more, I chose it.” »
Of course, everything would be easier if you didn’t remember choosing; easier, more entertaining and more enjoyable, since the games break down a bit when you know they’re rigged. In fact, the only way to avoid absurd complications in this ancient literary hypothesis would be to remember nothing at all, and even then we might run into a technical problem like Douglas Quail’s in We can remember everything for you (Philip K. Dick), with the difference that we would not start as an undercover agent on Mars, but in diapers and as a baby. Identity is as delicate as the consequences of decisions. Let them tell Pío Baroja, Inocencio of the second name – and to make matters worse, born on April Fool’s Day – who came to complain in these terms: “I cannot forgive myself for being born on such a day, because it seems to me that there is always a certain analogy between the moment when we are born and the spirit that will be formed” (The enlightened liberalJanuary 30, 1915). And that, to our knowledge, the decision did not belong to him.
Seen from our times, we perhaps do not understand the reluctance of the novelist from San Sebastian. April Fool’s Day has lost its wrapper, and almost the same can be said of April Fool’s Day Anglo-Saxons and April Fools French. In general, it does not go beyond typical media events, rarely as developed as the alleged theft of a lion from Congress in 1907, reported in a Madrid newspaper with details that make the story credible; and there is generally no author who works as hard on April Fools’ Day as George Washington Cable (read Ancient Creole days), which led dozens and dozens of poets, journalists, editors and others to write letters to his friend Mark Twain begging him to send them an autograph. “The first two or three left me perplexed, amazed,” he later admitted to John Horne (June 19, 1895), but he began to sign anyway and, when he realized “what day of the year it is,” he took it as a compliment. “He has done me a great service. It will be a long time before I part with these autographs.”
Unfortunately, not all innocent lies are harmless, and even if they are, even Baroja eventually grew tired of being lied to again and again by the Innocents and Holy Innocents. In principle, the man in the “hyena mask”, as Corpus Barga defined him without any critical spirit, would have exchanged December 28 for, for example, January 20, the feast of the patron saint of Donosti; In principle, I point this out, because his statement about when one is born and what character develops is that of a great writer, and no great writer looks down on changes in context. Furthermore, there are no a priori good or bad dates and, even less, around the winter solstice, which sets one century with the freedom of Saturnalia, another rises with lots of crosses and ends with a prank with a Coca-Cola guy (Santa Claus, of course). Who knows what they will be tomorrow. With the world turning, they could return to the satirical works, racy parties and very truthful Christmas carols of the 17th century (the nuns of the Barefoot Sisters had a disagreement over this in 1663, through the Inquisition).
The context changes, people change, the meaning of things changes. It cannot be denied that there is something ironic in the fact that the last important date of the year – apart from New Year’s Eve – is neither more nor less than April Fool’s Day, but it is precisely that, twenty-four hours which, moreover, are no longer what they used to be; and since you are not, you will forgive me if I turn my back on you, put an end to today’s little pastime and end this column by wishing that next year you will be good to yourself. Enter Janus, the two-faced god, the god of beginnings and endings, the hand that “opens and closes everything” and, according to Fast From Ovid, where this phrase naturally comes from, he cares about the universe and he cares about us. Not bad.
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