Hieronymus Bosch, The Ship of Fools

He that is besy euery day and houre

Without mesure, maner, or moderacion

To gather riches and great store of treasoure

Therof no ioy takinge, confort nor consolacion.

He is a Fole: and of blynde and mad opynyon

For that which he getteth and kepeth wrongfully

His heyre often wasteth moche more vnthryftely.

The Ship of Fools, Sebastian Brandt

I've been thinking about something I read the other day, on how Mexicans are bound to keep suffering out of pleasure. On how we rejoice around tragedy like a pack of wolves covered in blood, frantically howling our disgrace.

It is a fact, when analysing such a complex patient, there are no easy answers. At first glance, it seems comfortable in the couch. It knows there's a terrible thing happening in it's country. The intellectual side is enraged but rationalising about the recent events happening all around. But even further... It seems it's tired of the eternal repetition that hasn't been able to break the patterns it has been subjected itself unto.

It thinks back, about the Zapatista Army, on how, then and there it thought real freedom from the opressing powers was viable. It died down. Sometimes it thinks the real issue started when the Spanish conquered it's land. For hundreds of years, it has loved to become a victim of that event but with subsequent therapies has come to understand that to really understand anything, it has to go deeper, to it's ancient roots, way before the abusive relationship with the Spaniards began.

It finally recalled the ferocious and barbaric roots of the Ancient ways. Of how many were sacrificed, sudden images of fellow friends and family rolling down the steps of a pyramid. This is where all began, it said. When our beating heart was separated from our body, when the blood harvested the land, thus creating a separation of mind and events, of sheer mistrust.

For now, the patient has fallen in a passive period. It believes things can't change, it really hates the idea of becoming a martyr, it doesn't want to die either. The perspective of leaving behind it's iPods and jobs and warm water and chai lattes for a gun doesn't seem like a plausible one.

On the other hand, socialising has never been easy for the patient. Used to being such a vast set of diverse voices, it gets dizzy with all the individualist people trying to achieve their personal goals with no consciousness of the others. Honk! honk! Move your car asshole! What the fuck is wrong with you, asked the neighbour two days ago when it asked about some issue on the building... Someone pinched one of it's tires because someone couldn't download some fresh vegetables where they always do, but of course, being such a large country, it didn't know about it. Solidarity in practice is such a titanic task to ask of Mexicans.

Today, it showed me this image:

Hieronymus Bosch, The Ship of Fools

"You know this?" it asked. "Yes, I've seen it before", I answered. Mexico continued. "Sometimes we as a nation, feel like this. Adrift, hitting each other with a jug, believing we're moving towards Narrenschiff but stranded on an island. Only we're not 10 people on the boat, but 122 million of them, and in that sense if 24.000 of them are disappeared, tortured or killed it doesn't seem like that much impunity, does it?" I keep quiet, hoping that Mexico, understands minimising single events won't lead to any action.