When someone says "at this moment", that moment has actually passed.

This measurement of time, which is mechanical, separates humans from reality - which is continuous in the present.

Time is a concept that we use to organize and understand our experiences. However, it can also create a sense of distance between us and the present moment.

We often get caught up in thinking about the past or planning for the future, forgetting to fully engage with what is happening right now.

By being more aware of the present moment and letting go of our fixation on time, we can gain a deeper connection to reality and a greater sense of peace and fulfillment.

So, the next time you find yourself saying "at this moment", try to stop and really experience the here and now.

Octavio Paz's work provides a very good approach to what it means to be Mexican. My favorite chapter, "Todos Santos, Día de muertos," perfectly narrates what the Mexican fiesta is like. When you have experienced it as Octavio Paz describes, you feel completely identified. If you want to understand part of the Mexican way of thinking, I would mark this book with a "you must read it."

This work delves deep into the essence of Mexican identity. It explores the unique cultural aspects and traditions that define what it means to be Mexican. The chapter on "Todos Santos, Día de muertos" is particularly engaging as it vividly描绘s the colorful and vibrant celebrations of this important Mexican holiday. Paz's writing style is captivating, making it easy for readers to immerse themselves in the story and gain a better understanding of the Mexican culture.

Overall, this book is a must-read for anyone interested in learning about Mexico and its people. It offers valuable insights into the Mexican way of life, thoughts, and beliefs. By reading this book, you will not only expand your knowledge but also develop a greater appreciation for the rich and diverse culture of Mexico.

I listened to a voice.

In my opinion, sixty percent of the tone is not down there.

But it is beautiful.

This simple description seems to convey a certain impression or perception. The act of listening to a voice implies an attention and an attempt to understand or evaluate it. The statement about sixty percent of the tone not being in a particular place might suggest that there is something unique or unexpected about the quality of the voice. It could be that the tone has a certain elevation or a different character that sets it apart.

Despite this observation, the description concludes by stating that the voice is beautiful. This indicates that regardless of the specific characteristics of the tone, there is an overall appeal or charm to the voice. It might have a pleasant timbre, a smooth flow, or some other quality that makes it aesthetically pleasing.

Overall, this short passage provides a brief snapshot of the experience of listening to a voice and the complex combination of factors that contribute to its perception as beautiful.

Love is not a natural thing.

Love is a human thing; the most human strand in the personality of a human being. It is something that we have created ourselves and does not exist in nature. Something that we create and destroy every day.

When a native man brings a woman from Kimberly with him, they bring with them a certain amount of the man's native soil. The woman is obliged to eat a certain amount of this soil every day... until she gets used to the change of her place of residence.

This shows that love often involves sacrifices and adjustments. It is not just a feeling but also a set of actions and commitments. We have to work hard to maintain and nurture love in our lives. Sometimes, we have to give up some of our own habits and preferences for the sake of the one we love. Just like the woman in the story, she has to eat the soil from her husband's native land to adapt to her new life.

Love is a complex and multifaceted emotion that requires our attention and care. Only by understanding its true nature can we hope to experience its full beauty and joy.

As Simone de Beauvoir said, woman is a witch, a goddess, a mother, a sorceress, a fairy, but never herself. Therefore, our love relationships have been ruined from the very beginning, poisoned at the root. A simulacrum exists between us, and this simulacrum is her image; an image that we have imposed on her and that she has become accustomed to. When we reach out to touch her, we cannot even touch her thoughtless body and form. Because this illusory body that submits to our will always exists. And the same thing happens to the woman: she only sees herself as an object, as something "other."

She is never her own woman. Her existence is divided between what is real and what she imagines, and this imagined image is something that her family, class, school, friends, religion, and lover have imposed on her. She never reveals her femininity because this femininity is always shown in a way that men have created for her. Love is not a "natural" thing. Love is a human thing, the most human strand in the human personality. It is something that we have created ourselves and does not exist in nature. It is something that we create and destroy every day...!

... Woman is imprisoned in the image that male-dominated society has imposed on her. Therefore, if she embarks on free choice, it is like breaking the walls of a prison. Lovers say, "Her love has been corrupted, her love has been made into another person." And they are right. Love changes a woman's love completely. If she dares to love the bourgeoisie, if she dares to be herself, she must destroy the image in which the world has imprisoned her...!

I think that reading it once didn't help me much to understand the problem.

I have to go back and read it again.

Maybe I missed some important details or didn't fully grasp the concepts.

By reading it a second time, I hope to gain a better understanding and be able to solve the problem more effectively.

It's important to be thorough when dealing with complex issues and not rush through the process.

Taking the time to carefully read and analyze the problem can make a big difference in finding the right solution.

So, I'll go back and give it another try, focusing on every word and trying to make connections between the different parts of the text.

With a bit of patience and perseverance, I相信 I'll be able to figure it out.

I had read "El pachuco y otros extremos" and "Los hijos de la Malinche", I think that's all, but I had never sat down to read this book from beginning to end. I thought I already had the wisdom and seriousness to do it, but the truth is that I didn't. It turned out to be a very heavy reading for me at times, and I had trouble finding the argument of each text. There is a part, of course, that must be attributed to my lack of culture, but another part is due to Paz's distance and coldness and his affectations. In "La 'inteligencia' mexicana", for example, I got completely lost, and I wouldn't be able to say what it's about. On the other hand, the Posdata I think raises interesting points, and "Crítica de la pirámide", the closing text, seemed to me the most interesting of the entire volume.

I found myself struggling to understand some of the more complex ideas presented in the book, especially in those sections where Paz's writing became overly convoluted. However, I also recognized the value in some of his insights and the way he challenged traditional ways of thinking.

Overall, while the reading experience was not always easy, it did make me think and consider different perspectives on Mexican culture and society. I may not have fully grasped everything in the book, but I feel that I have gained a better understanding of Paz's work and his contributions to Mexican literature and thought.

Es casi criminal que a los mexicanos nos pongan a leer este libro ¡en Preparatoria!

At that age, this reading turns out to be not only boring but also hateful. The young person barely reads a few pages and will run out to copy some summary downloaded from the internet to fulfill the task.

The result is that one ends up considering it as boring and unintelligible, when in reality it is a GREAT book!

It is a different thing when you read it as an adult, with a formed criterion and an idea, no matter how vague, of how things work in Mexico.

"The Labyrinth of Solitude" starts from a tragic and irrevocable opinion: in the Mexican being, even after many generations, the fact that it is a people born of a violation is present. Octavio Paz says: "In all its dimensions, front and profile, in its past and in its present, the Mexican turns out to be a being full of tradition who, perhaps without realizing it, acts obeying the voice of the race..."

PAZ makes an analysis of the Mexican's actions, his psyche, his fears, his joys, through the most outstanding historical stages; the Conquest and the Colony, the Reform War, the Revolution and the post-revolutionary era, until reaching the 1970s.

All Mexicans should read this book, and then, perhaps, maybe we can do something to set aside our traumas.

"Surviving means separating from what we were in order to reach what we will be in the mysterious future."

This profound statement emphasizes the essence of survival. It implies that in the journey of life, we need to let go of our past selves, the old habits, beliefs, and identities that may hold us back.

By detaching from the familiar, we open ourselves up to new possibilities and growth. The future is filled with unknowns and mysteries, but it is also a place of potential and hope.

To reach that future, we must be willing to take risks, make changes, and embrace the uncertainty. It is through this process of separation and transformation that we can evolve into the best versions of ourselves and fulfill our true potential.

Love completely transforms a woman.

If she has the courage to embrace love, if she has the courage to be herself, then wonderful things can happen.

Love has the power to bring out the best in a woman, to make her shine with a newfound confidence and beauty.

It can open up a world of possibilities and experiences that she may never have imagined before.

However, love also requires vulnerability and risk.

But it is precisely through taking these risks that a woman can truly discover who she is and what she is capable of.

So, let her be brave and let love lead the way.

For in the journey of love, she will find not only happiness and fulfillment but also a deeper understanding of herself and the world around her.

I'm not going to pretend that I understood all the bullshit this guy wrote. I mean, I understand most of the words, their meanings, and when I didn't know, I looked them up in the dictionary. I'm not going to speak badly about that. It's good to read new words and learn how they are used. But the problem with this guy is his use of vocabulary. Bullshit like the following:

"The reform is above all, a negation and there lies its greatness. But what that negation affirmed - the principles of European liberalism - were ideas of a precise beauty, sterile and, in the end, empty. Geometry does not substitute for myths."

Can someone tell me what the hell he means with the last sentence? And it's all like that. But what did I expect from a fucking poet? Octavio Paz didn't consider the people of Mexico as his reader. He wrote this group of essays for the "educated" people who have the "intellect" to read this shit and say "No, yes, I understood it and I've read all the shitty authors he refers to and I completely agree, great book, I love it, etc etc etc". People who are less than 10% of the entire population. What a joke!

And someone might say to me, "But cousin, this book had a great impact on society." To which I would respond, "Impact my balls in your ass. If it had had an impact, we would have noticed a change, but no, we're still making the same stupid mistakes we made 100 years ago."

The fucking pretension is what pissed me off, and the fact that this guy hides behind the "ambiguity" of the Mexican to describe it, saying things like:

"... the revolution is an excess and a waste, a going to extremes, an outburst of joy and helplessness, a cry of orphanhood and jubilation, of suicide and of life..."

Come on, it's like if someone read my palm and told me, "You're going to fuck a black girl tomorrow night and you're going to like it but at the same time you won't..."

Another thing I didn't like is that he pretends to describe the Mexican from his mansion while writing this book, looking out the window from time to time and saying "No, yes, the Mexicans are fucking it up", while his butler brings him a caviar sandwich with a martini because the little rich boy is tired of writing. This fucking guy surely never had a single callus on his hands from working and he wants to talk to me about the working class.

Then when he explained the history of the country and got to the present (at that time), he fucked up, writing stupid shit like:

"We have had, yes, popular violence, a certain extravagance in the repression, caprice, arbitrariness, brutality, the hard hand of some generals, black humor, but even in its worst moments everything was human."

What a load of bullshit! What good does it do to be human, fuck!, a dead person is a dead person! It's a good thing he had to eat his words in the Post Data he added after Tlatelolco...

Well... I'm looking at my notes and I still have half to comment on and it's all stuff that pissed me off. I better stop here. I think it's safe to say that I didn't like it. It has two or three good paragraphs but that's it. I don't recommend it to anyone. I ended up really pissed off.

Although this book was written in 1962, and some things seem dated,

it is truly the epitome book of the Mexican national identity.

It delves deep into the history, culture, and values that have shaped the Mexican people over the years.

Despite the passage of time, many of the themes and ideas presented in the book still resonate with modern-day Mexicans.

The author's vivid descriptions and engaging storytelling bring to life the unique character and spirit of Mexico.

From the vibrant festivals and traditions to the struggles and triumphs of the people, this book offers a comprehensive and captivating look at what it means to be Mexican.

It serves as a reminder of the rich heritage and proud history that Mexicans can draw upon as they face the challenges of the future.

Overall, this book is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding the essence of the Mexican national identity.