The Echo Of A Virtue Lost In A Metaphor Of Human Destiny
Every great deed has the taste of a distance you would like to reach. And not just to get to a place unseen by anyone, but to make it worthy of being perceived as an act of great faith.
The Magellan Strait has become completely superfluous. Its fate is definitely sealed. It has only a historical significance. It is reduced to a simple geographical notion. The much sought after pass has not become the crossing for thousands and thousands of ships. The shortest and fastest way to India and Spain did not increase its wealth, nor did Europe become stronger as a result of this discovery. Of all the living parts of the world, the coasts between Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego are still among the poorest and most deserted corners of the earth.
But in the light of history, practical utility never determines the moral value of an act. Only he who enhances mankind’s knowledge of itself, who develops his consciousness and his creative powers, is the only one who truly enriches him, for all ages. In this sense, however, Magellan’s deed surpasses all the great deeds of his day. And what is a special glory to us, which adds a new radiance to Magellan’s glory, is that – unlike most leaders – he did not sacrifice thousands and hundreds of thousands of people for his idea, but only his own life. Through this truly heroic self-sacrifice, the splendid audacity of the five ships so small, so weak and lonely in the vastness of the seas, and yet daring to embark on the sacred war of mankind against the Unknown, will forever be forgotten.
Can you grow under the guidance of a “forward coming from afar”, but not from the indefinable space of a distance, but from the unfathomable depths of a fabulous yet real time?
And he will remain unforgettable himself, he who was the first to dare turn this idea into action, the most daring of all: around the world – the final stage of which is accomplished by the last of his ships. For, finally knowing the measure of the circumference of the earth, in vain sought for a millennium, all mankind acquires for the first time a new measure of its powers. Conquering more and more space, penetrating further and further into the infinity of the Universe, it increases its courage and joy in fighting, thus becoming aware of its own greatness.
A man always achieves the maximum possible only when his deed becomes exemplary. And in this respect Magellan’s example — his almost forgotten deed — has proved for all time that an idea, if carried by the wings of genius, if always carried and determined before a passion, is ultimately stronger than all elements of nature. His great deed showed that one man, with his short and fleeting life, could turn into a reality and an immortal truth what had been only a desire, only a dream for hundreds of generations.
Can you convey the image of a distance towards which you will probably go without interruption, looking for an absolute that you thought was hidden in an “invisible reality”?
Like a divine work, Magellan’s great deed revealed another face of secular thought, orienting his valid and enduring endeavor toward the fulfillment of a unique dream, of great spiritual resolution, but seen not as a reason to replace known reality – so as whole generations have regarded it — but as the language of a hermeneutics of the divine message. But for this language to become the target of other great doers, the dream should not be interpreted as a “metaphor” of a path full of obstacles and suffering towards salvation, synonymous with Moses’ journey through the wilderness, but is meant to strike a balance between a committed commitment and the goal pursued, giving back to the world the fullness of a divine plan.
So we must not see the great deed as an implicit metaphor. For this balance between the basis of an assumed commitment and the goal pursued must be deciphered in the deep plane of the great fulfillments of human dreams, in which this language of a hermeneutics of the divine message is an original phenomenon of creative expression and outlining a way of life capable of reflecting the true nature of the leader.
An invisible reality is the de facto representation of a dream that goes on, with small but sure steps, thanks to God. Only in the great deeds of creation or revelation can one read the “praise” of the Lord. Suggestions for supporting the interpretation of this divine "praise" are provided by the symbolic philosophy of moral self-improvement, which, arguing that the relationship between self and divine is the prototype of the symbolic relationship between what you think is important to you and what God thinks is important to take the world to another level. So let’s look at the great deed as a new intellectual and spiritual relationship of man to the space of a new way of thinking about excellence.
And, to paraphrase someone: It does not matter to advance in the world of metaphysics, in a world that is built primarily through, or dominated by, the notion of substantiality and causality. But only the retreat into the original phenomenon of the expression “I have come to be someone” gives us here the key to faith strengthened by deeds.
Leadership is the image of a distance that few will probably ever go to, on the grounds that what binds faith and the very ambitious goal, on both sides, is represented in the form of a promise made by God only to those previously chosen to fulfill a holy work.
The Echo Of A Virtue Lost In A Metaphor Of Human Destiny is a shortening effect to a very long regular delay, especially if that virtue is called “honor”. No doubt we can meet and know God only from the depths of a soul thirsting for success and miracles. From this level of approach to Magellan’s history, we can imagine his deed as a long and endless confirmation of God’s relentless destiny.
* Note: Stefan, Zweig - Magellan, Tineretului Publishing House, 1955.
