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Caspar David Friedrich, Wanderer above the Sea of Fog (c. 1818). An image of German Romanticism evoking solitude and contemplation (public domain).
Caspar David Friedrich, Wanderer above the Sea of Fog (c. 1818). An image of German Romanticism evoking solitude and contemplation (public domain).

Literary

Longing for a truer feeling

On the simplest things gone unseen and presence gone unvalued: a brief piece on authentic feeling, against the culture of the algorithm and appearance.

By Juan Tomás Jara MassonJanuary 17, 20261 min read

Approximate literary translation. This version was produced automatically and preserves the original rhythm and imagery only in part. For the definitive version, read the original language.

Sad, solitary relations without kindness, a world dimmed by the vague surface of this lineage. Appearances of beauty that lead into the emptiness of a humanity without a soul.

Networks that do not see, algorithms that do not feel. The melancholy of those who fail to look beyond the square kilometre of their own street.

Antiquity despised and so little valued, hand and pen that betray the unappreciated wonders of those who, today, trapped, do not respect the past.

As though we no longer felt, we go on dimming. The simplest things go unseen, the daily greeting no longer offered, the very act of presence gone unvalued, in a circle that no longer understands vulnerability and reflects, instead, indifference to the essence of truth.

To belong while feeling uneasy, to be like a foreigner only for being of another generation. A vulnerability feared, a shell built to protect oneself from a world without meaning.

In this loneliness, to be of another time is part of a social condemnation. The isolation of one who, trapped in the cave, cannot grasp the personality of the different one who seeks an identity that reaches beyond nationality.

The ostracism of a youth once rebellious, innovative and free, now trapped in mere appearance.

To be free becomes almost impossible, to speak the truth of the heart which, faced with marginality, takes shelter as a defence against pain and cruelty.

Can the chains of loneliness ever be broken this way?

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