Who created this universe?

Without consciousness there would be no noise, no rain, no sky for the birds to fly. That’s why, if a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, it’s as if it didn’t make a sound. During billions of years the universe it worked like that, without anyone thinking about it, without anyone knowing it was there, as if it was nothing.

The idea that the world exists outside appeared in some minds, crossed the nerves and began to take shape between the vocal cords and the tongue until it came out of the lips like a word. This is where space and time finally began. Not the initial creation, but the artistic creation, which is about sharing ideas, in which thoughts become symbols to reach others.

Ideas become more resilient when they are on paper or on the screen in the form of letters, because that way they do not vanish into thin air, nor dissolve in the mouth like a grain of salt. Ideas turned into text are protected, but words must also be protected. One option is to cover them, for example, with corn husks. This way they last longer and don’t lose the heat they carry inside so easily. On cold mornings you can see the words fuming, as if the mouth speaking them was a pot of tamales.

There are sweet words with prunes and pineapple piecesbut its color seems false, artificial, very different from the red readings, those of meat, which come directly from the entrails. However, it is impossible to put our flesh in every sentence we utter. Even if we added very little, about 20 or 30 grams in each word, we would soon be nothing but bones. It is better to look for other options.

Pork is a great alternative, as it has a very human-like consistency, even at the molecular level. That’s why some doctors consider it viable to transplant pig hearts into humans, who hope to receive a donation. It’s legal and relatively cheap. Doing it the other way around, from a human to a pig, is considered a crime, even if it’s about curing a dying pig from a terminal illness.

But let’s say it was possible. It is not illegal to imagine. How long would a pig with the heart of someone like me last, for example, worrying that the keepers wouldn’t forget to bring him food or if they didn’t will contract a disease by drinking water from the common fountain?

But if in addition I had to write articles about cultureFor example, if you had to go to the museum for inspiration, how would you feel, would you want to run? Or maybe you would stay and watch the different works, judging which is better, would you prefer culture or fresh mud? Perhaps he would choose to lie down and rest, to close his eyes while waiting for more realistic paintings; Surely you would like to see images of corn, fruit and water, of these canvases which even seem, even though they are only two-dimensional and have no aroma. For the pig, it would be art, the one that seems to follow you with its eyes when you pass in front of the painting. That’s what he’d like to see, he doesn’t mind being told he’s a pig-centrist and he’s incapable of appreciate the contemporaryWords don’t matter to pigs. for the pigs this universe does not exist.

Mauricio Miranda He is director of the Ibero León Library.