An Apology for the Dionysian, by Juan H. Ramírez

So few pleasures remain that dedicating our lives to asceticism is a waste. The American culture of happy living has done enough damage through "the power of habit." That habit that is widely reflected in self-improvement books and that puts as a prototype to follow an orderly, perfect and flawless life, which also comes from the western Apollonian foundations: exercise, meditation, healthy diet, rationality, order, harmony and serenity. Same instructions, same ways of acting and thinking. Isn't such a rigorously structured routine an annihilation of our right to life? A lethal ignorance of our human nature? The deprivation of our most personal rights?

In Greek mythology, Dionysus is the god of wine and ecstasy. Hence, the relationship of this mythological figure with the natural need to live our  pleasure and passions.

We forget that creation arises precisely out of chaos. No intellectual product can be achieved without some mess involved. Desire, excess and passion are the most beautiful ways of affirming life. If we accept the calls of the body we refute the horrendous ideal of the contemporary human being, the one that not only nullifies our essence and human condition, but also injects us with false hopes that will never come. Because with the expression of subjective and particular desires, we manifest our own truth, that which lies at the bottom of who we are.

This is the introduction to a beautiful essay by Juan H. Ramírez published in the Bogotá based newspaper El Espectador.

Read the full article here: https://www.elespectador.com/noticias/cultura/la-vida-no-es-solo-equilibrio-tambien-es-pasion-y-deseo