Another Choice

And, through it, it is like another world map that lights up, as discreet and tranquil and sure as the breath and beat of the stars.

***

And what does it mean, there, to be a man or to be a woman?

To be a child or to be old?

A wealthy baron or a vagabond?

What does it mean, there, to be Kurd or Bantou, fisher folk in the islands or suburban bourgeois, a farmer in the plains, a midwife or a street-gal?

It is the culture of this quality of being that matters and it is the assimilation, offered and conscious, of all experience that generates the pure honey.

We now understand well that our own journey has known numerous other perils, tearings and joys – that we have had to identify with numerous other roles and to absorb many a poisoned chalice and many an elixir: The shame and the defeat and the abjection, the violence and the ignominy, in how many occasions have we not met with them – and the distress of the abandoned and betrayed mother and the awful void in front of the destroyed work. And yet, that which survives and subsists, that which lasts and grows, that which loves and knows, has neither any regret nor any bitterness: that chooses the supreme choice again and again, irreducibly.

That smiles, that illuminates and that leads, that walks on without weakness or pride, walks on towards the unity that awaits.

***

Is one only man, only woman?

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