The goodness of a madman

THE

GOODNESS OF

A MADMAN

by Álvaro Puig ©

La bondad de un loco

© Álvaro Puig – Telephone: 932.035.014

Barcelona (Spain)

E-mail: alvaropuigdemorales@gmail.com

The total or partial reproduction of this work by any

means, including photocopying and electronic

processing, is strictly prohibited without the

permission of the copyright holder and as detailed in

current legal stipulations.

•Charity is the abandonment of the ego.

The author.

Álvaro Puig

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ROLOGUE

‘At my age, I have the feeling that I can start over

again.’

The Goodness of a Madman is a Pandora ’s Box

brimming with ideas, and each one of them is a

‘starting over again’. The ideas in The Goodness of a

Madman appear like the threads which form the

picture on a tapestry. Each of them reveals the path

to a profound framework of thoughts. Through any

one of them, one can ‘cast off’ and begin the journey

through the tapestry’s picture, from the end right

back to the beginning.

Here, in the earliest titles of Álvaro Puig’s literary

output, we find the voice of the ‘self’ experimenting

with the ‘other’. In Broken Fates, the author’s ‘self’

comes in the form of the observation and analysis of

dialogue, and his experience is enriched by the

information which he receives through his endless

interaction with the ‘other’. This ‘other’ is, in his early

works, a whole cast of predefined characters who,

because of this very fact, demarcate with a high

degree of precision the works’ audience. Reader and

characters are both familiar and contained within a

world as complex and precise as the university scene.

The Goodness of a Madman is the result of a process in

which the author’s ‘self’ has ceased to be a ‘self’

defined in time and space, and for this reason, that

process has come to universalise, in turn, the work’s

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audience and the ideas within it. The ode to

individualism contained within The Goodness of a

Madman sketches out a subjective ‘self’ which, with

the turn of every page, gradual y merges into a

universal ‘self’.

The Goodness of a Madman is a journey through the

autobiography of a penseur who nonetheless does not

recognise himself as a learned man, perhaps because

he is conscious that his intel ectuality has been

achieved through contact with others. The Goodness of

a Madman arises at that moment in which the author

manages to raise himself above his life’s work and

cast a bird’s eye over it, extracting himself from his

experiences and, at the same time, paying homage to

his own knowledge.

The Goodness of a Madman is a monologue, based on an

endless col ection of conversations with the ‘other’

which have taken place throughout the course of the

life of the ‘self’ and his literary output. That ‘other’

seems to take on the form of various characters in the

author’s numerous works, be they university students,

his wife, children (born and unborn*), work

col eagues, pupils, godchildren… or even God

himself*. This is an undefined God, one who appears

subtly, between the lines, partnered with knowledge,

and one who nonetheless does not respond to the

most explicit of references. The Goodness of a Madman

is a monologue born of a whole lifetime of dialogue.

The Goodness of a Madman is a book which demands a

new method of reading. It accepts no particular

generic categorisation, and it is therefore down to the

reader to find a means of penetrating it. The Goodness

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of a Madman demands an active reader, for the reader

is responsible for filling the gaps in a Time and Space

which are intentional y made to defy the formal axis

of the work. They are intended neither to serve the

reader as tools nor to hinder him as obstacles.

Because of this, and in spite of it, The Goodness of a

Madman is a study—both meticulous in nature and, at

the same time, independent of al structure—of the

space and time of each one of us.

María Buendía

Oficina cultural embajada española en Berlín.

Author’s note:

* The Girl Who Was Never Born and The Silences of God.

••It is not for the scholars that I am writing; of that I

am surer than ever, as God is my witness. God

Himself has al owed me to see that I have humbly

moved towards that form of knowledge which is

useful without depending on scholarly knowledge…

so much verbosity! What endless knowledge those

scholars have, and no discretion to be seen for miles

around. I think they ignore the very existence of their

own lives, in which they could find complete

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satisfaction. The scholars have multiple definitions for

a single concept, but concepts are for the humble,

among whom I count myself. I have moved towards

truth, even though I have undoubtedly taken a good

while to reach it; but no matter: that is what I wanted,

without realising or expecting it. The heavens are

close to truth, and I have prayed and drawn close to

them. How do the scholars waste so much time, that

time about which they talk so much? I do not speak

of time; I perceive it. Time stopped being time some

time ago.

•Experience has shown me that our feelings can only

ever be our own, that we cannot submit them or

share them freely, for if that were the case, they would

not be accepted by others, however good their

intentions. I have come to the disconcerting

conclusion that our feelings are only ever our own.

Individuality is reasserted. Through the desire to be

close to someone, in the delirium of love, that state

which, through an unaccepted gesture or word, must

also be aware that feelings are only ever our own. I

have come to the conclusion that it is possible to fal

in love, but impossible to communicate to another

the joy of being in love. Life, in an attempt to

compensate this inability to share the joy of loving,

comes upon the process of caring, which is a way of

living the joy of love without being able to abandon

our internal feelings, the feelings which our

personality dictates. I accept the reality of my

individual way of caring, and I aim to find in others

the same level of understanding.

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•At my age, I have the feeling that I can start over

again. It is part of growing old. My sins are covered

by this, my spiritual youth.

•What joy of joys, to imagine that some soul may feel

satisfied fol owing our visit!

•Why do I continue writing if I do not think that I

have anything left to say? What is more, solitude

swathes the entirety of my life.

•I have always tried to make up for the sadness which

I have felt for al those whom I have known. Thus

can I real y say that my knowledge of others is most

profound, and the profundity is painful. I should like

to distance myself from them, and perhaps even from

myself.

•I feel guilty, and perhaps even ridiculous, at listening

to everything he says. I ask myself: is he obliged to say

everything he says, and am I obliged to listen? His

words are present in everything I do. And I thought

that prophecy was in the past.

•How many have been surprised and astonished that

I, as a teacher, have on more than one occasion

telephoned a student. Why? To ask how he was.

Knowing one’s students is part of tutorship, an

exercise which wil only ever be marked by the

student himself.

•This Christmas wil be the poorest Christmas. Mind

you, whilever I can write, I shal continue writing. In

any case, for almost as long as I can remember,

Christmases have been miserable.

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•The devout, sorrowful piety of the virtuous

conforms to the identity of their God. That identity

which is, in fact, themselves. It is something which I

always thought I did not desire, in any way, for

myself.

•I feel sorrow that, if truth be told, I have wasted

many opportunities to draw close to others. A feeling

of repressed guilt rears its head. I had to say that, and

there you have it.

•I am scattering my thoughts as I go. It is better to

live than to have lived. The present is the present, and

once we are of a certain age, we perceive the future.

‘Why remember?’ we come to cry.

•Time brings change, and do I know it! After so many

years, I never believed that I would manage to write

anything, and now, after al , without realising it, my

forces have been sufficient.

•I am tired of being alone in moments of anguish.

What does one expect, if the anguish which one

perceives is a part of one’s spirit, troubled by solitude?

•I have been so busy! Right from the early hours,

thinking, trying to find the reason why I got up. I do

not believe that I was expecting to think about such

matters, but rather that I was taken unawares by a

dormant sensation.

•And so what if I am criticised for things which I

have not said or done? I must calm my spirit. That

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way I can at least find out what I indeed should not

have said or done.

•Yes, I feel lost because I have found nothing; there

was little point in searching, but we must,

nonetheless, derive self-justification from the attempt.

•My notes progress as if on the tracks of a toy train

set: they are written as they go. It is wonderful to

discover the novelty of my thought. There can, if it

should be so, be sadness, sorrow and joy, but above

all there is an enormous sense of wel being.

•I have lost many things along my long path; if

anyone should find them, may he return them to me.

Perhaps they are not al mine, but in that case they are

nobody’s. My path has been long and, what is worse,

slow; that is why I have come to realise that my

greatest loss of al has been time, like an animal

sleeping along the way.

•Whatever wisdom I possess comes not from

knowledge but from the act of thinking. I have

managed to free myself from others’ knowledge.

Think your own logical thoughts and you will realise

that, besides being the best way of thinking, your

thought processes precede knowledge.

•I have lived without the need for great authors. I am

not wel read, but that is less than unimportant to me;

in fact, it seems wel , because I do not make use of

whatever I happen to say or think.

•Man is unaware of his own weariness. I know from

experience, and I have aged in the process.

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•Someone who calmly feels what I feel should be

locked up, as his sentimentality, in al its lifeless

tranquil ity, is excessive. I have lived everyone else’s

lives too much. My ministry is speech, dialogues with

others; my conversations have been, and are yet, my

life’s decree.

•It is early morning, and dawn is breaking. I know

that I am alive because my thoughts continue; I know

that I am alive when I awake, because that is when

the dawn makes me believe that the daylight is the

dawning of the future.

•Today, life has al owed me to go on living. I am

here, in this life. I am here, in my daily routine.

Perhaps this life could be different.

•My first ailments began some days ago. How

unbearable we find them! And how quickly we forget

the suffering of others!

•My settee is yet another character. It is fal ing to

pieces now, I am aware that the springs are going, and

the colour has faded, but stil it is my settee. I have

felt safe upon it; it has allowed me to think, it has

stimulated my desires; I have written some of the

pages of my book whilst sitting upon it; in short, I do

not know whether it belongs to me or I belong to it.

But I can cal it my settee because nobody will sit

upon it when I am gone, and it wil not miss me.

Objects die with life; let us free ourselves from their

necessity, for they certainly do not need us: their

sensibilities are not so great. We are sometimes worth

whatever objects al ow us to be worth, and what we

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ought to consider is that objects are not our own;

they al ow us to use them, and that is al .

•A real Christmas. My son is working in his study, my

wife is lying on the settee, reading some book or

other, and I am writing these lines; everything is real,

apart from a feeling which I have as I say it.

Christmas is only for children. We claim to take

pleasure in Christmas, but in Christmases past. I do,

however, think that my Christmas is a beautiful one,

crystal ising as it does memories of times gone by

because my son is working and my wife is now

sewing and I am lost in thoughts of al those whom I

have come to know and with whom I have spoken,

listening, listening, as to a prayer.

•They tel me about the prayer of a believer. That of a

young boy who believes his prayer to be his life itself.

I, who am tired of battling through my classes,

speaking with one and al , do pray, but only with

quotations and with the effort of daily life. I am

wasting my time. Why is it that I do not gain comfort

from it? Why do the gods not grant me the

satisfaction of my own actions and knowledge? The

young boy replied, ‘You stil need to offer up your

fears’.

•The richness of owning nothing. I remember that

exact feeling, objective and true, of feeling rich on the

way to one of my classes. Everything was mine. The

countryside, the mountains—all those mountains—

belonged to me. The feeling I was feeling left me with

an impression which disarmed my sensations; I had

never felt it until that moment. I gave a thought to the

class, to the students; but what I was feeling in that

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moment made up for any possible cause for worry. I

wish you would think as I thought in those moments.

Nothing real y belonged to me, but it was more mine

than anyone’s. I was feeling a blessed feeling, to be

sure: mine was the richness of owning nothing. My

spirit felt in tune with myself, with my people, and

even with a God who offered down the spirit of

believing in all that nature has to offer. If we are

conscious of that, it belongs to everyone. I had

become so very involved in what I was feeling and

seeing that I was about to run over a rabbit. That

would have been a shame, for it would have shattered

the magical sensation that I stil remember, after so

many years.

•The possibility of what is real. We pedagogs must

develop mental structures as a basis for knowledge,

and therefore for the possibility of what is real.

Intel ectual differentiation depends on structuring of

knowledge; this structuring depends, initial y, on our

knowledge of what is possible. Al this is the basis on

which we can begin to reason.

•I was born to exercise a particular role, and over the

years I have come to believe that, in some way or

other, I have done so. It is the role of talking, of

sharing opinion and, if appropriate, of advising al

those with whom, in a very personal way, I have

come to share conversation. Those conversations are

something which I continue to undertake, for there

are stil people who remember me, and I am perhaps

of some use to them. It matters not to me that these

lines may only ever be a monologue. Am I, or could I

be, by any chance, so audacious as to aspire to be

heard by another? One thing is certain: if my son

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were to read these lines, he would feel the joy of

having been able to know his father a little better, for

all I write is part of my testament. It is marvel ous for

a son or daughter to get to know us better; it is

something which we can write in the book of life,

even if our paternal role may thereby be diluted. Such

a role must not be deserted, however difficult that

may be, until death.

•Logical reasoning must be based on some kind of

principle or other. I confess, though you may not pass

it on to anyone else, that I do not bother with too

many principles. My principle is to work without

principles. My mind is so flexibly open to thought

that I can listen to anything without discomfort. That

is how it is, and I hope that it may continue thus, for

otherwise my thoughts would no longer be my own.

•Why do we try to submit our thought processes to

an unseen feeling? Feelings are for oneself, although

we attempt to make them communicable to others.

But we always condition them to being reciprocated.

Feelings are only possible when thought processes are

asleep.

•I feel my breathing as I write. My mind throws out

an idea, words, facts and memories, a whole mass

which eventual y brings me pain, and that is why I

realise that I am breathing.

•The most wretched of the poor are those who have

no shelter, no roof above their head. I mean, that is

something which everyone knows or imagines to be

true, but what people do not realise is that their

precise trauma is not in the absence of a roof and

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walls but rather in the fact that if they had those

things, they would not be their own, and for that

reason they prefer to sleep on the street, and take

shelter only there. Their roof is that of the stars, and

there is no hiding the fact that they are wretchedly

poor. They have suffered the shameful humiliation of

poverty. I say that not through charitable sentiment,

but because I one day came to the realisation that I

was sheltered by the roof of my house, with my

family, all of us protected from the rain which was

battering the window panes. In that instant, I felt the

despair of the poor in their wretched state: it came

upon me through a lack of charity towards one and

al . In our sorrows, we are al poor, and perhaps even

wretched.

•We want time to pass quickly when we are waiting

for the result of something: a piece of news which is

favourable to some desire or other, to our hopes and

to our projects. The fact is that, without realising it,

we are sel ing off a commodity which is the only thing

we do not have: time, as a measurement. Hope lies in

knowing how to wait, in waiting for time to do its

work. These are the words of an old man.

•Intel ectual suicide is a form of self-love. Mental,

intel ectual or affective suicide consists in not