Water from the well

There is an old story about a city where someone poisoned the well. Whoever drank from it lost his mind. In the end everyone drank, and the one who did not was declared mad.

In both well-known versions of the story, the wise man drinks in the end. Not from thirst, but from loneliness. The poison does not enter through the throat. It enters through the wish to belong.

Today the well is not in the square. It is in everything we take in every day: in politics that has lost all measure, in business that sees nothing but profit, in the noise that shapes thoughts before a person has thought them. No one asks any more whether the water is poisoned, because the poison has become the ordinary taste.

I cannot live outside the city. Loneliness makes no sense. So I play the game that has been set: I speak the language that is spoken, I do the work that is done, I sit at the table with those who have drunk. I play the role. I do not drink the water.

I keep my consciousness clear, like a spring. This is not contempt for others, but discipline: to return every day to the place from which one watches, and to check that the mask has not begun to grow into the face.

I play the role. I do not drink the water.

And loneliness? Whoever keeps clean water is not the only one. Such people are not recognised by their loudness, but by their silence. That is why I write this register: to have a place to keep my water, and so that it may be found by someone who has kept his own.

N. Ž.