The Road is Made by Walking
Antonio Machado was one of the most profound poets writing in the Spanish language. A member of the Spanish literary movement known as the Generation of '98, his work evolved from an early modernism to a very personal form of symbolism.
Tinged with melancholy and pessimism, his writing considered the destiny of man, the history of Spain and the contradictions between our illusions and reality.
Proverbios y Cantares (Proverbs and Songs) comprise a set of fifty-three short poems. Which were added by Machado to his definitive work Campos de Castilla (Plains of Castile) in 1924 (after its original publication in 1912). A powerful collection of poems about Castile that reflected on the power of the landscape and the character of its inhabitants.
The ‘Proverbs’ have a distinctive philosophical quality to them. And invite us to consider who we are and where we might be headed in life.
The message is clear. Life is uncertain. Truth is hard to come by. Illusions and self-deception prevent us understanding the world around us. Verses range from a studied pessimism about the human condition (‘We brought nothing; we will take nothing’) to more reflective expressions of hope about the values of solidarity, creativity and human endeavour.
Making our world, giving meaning to our world
His pessimism about the meaning of life reflected the political stagnation that characterised Spain at the time of writing. But Verse 29 offers us a more thoughtful perspective:
Proverbios y cantares (XXIX)
Caminante, son tus huellas
el camino y nada más;
Caminante, no hay camino,
se hace camino al andar.
Al andar se hace el camino,
y al volver la vista atrás
se ve la senda que nunca
se ha de volver a pisar.
Caminante no hay camino
sino estelas en la mar.
Wanderer, your footsteps are
the road, and nothing more;
wanderer, there is no road,
the road is made by walking.
By walking one makes the road,
and upon glancing behind
one sees the path
that never will be trod again.
Wanderer, there is no road —
Only wakes upon the sea
(Translation by Betty Jean Craige in Selected Poems of Antonio Machado , University of Georgia, 1978)
There’s a hint of an emergent existentialism here. Driven forward by the hunger for something better, we define ourselves by the choices we make and the paths we choose. We make the journey. But the journey also makes us.
And there is no one right path. We start from different places. Nothing is yet written. But as we walk, we come to understand what we have achieved and what we might achieve. The seeds of the future are already present…
Ultimately, there is only the mark we left on the sea. All things change. But we remain united by the sea.
To exist is to change, to change is to mature…
Arguably, the walker is a metaphor for humankind. And the sea a metaphor for the future.
Our dreams sustain us. They allow us to venture beyond quotidian reality. And point a way to that which does not yet exist. And while our trajectory might be uncertain, we should not let this deter us. Our very humanity obliges us to keep moving forward.
There are echoes here of the observation made by the German philosopher Ernst Bloch, in his late work Experiment Mundi, ‘processus cum figures, figurae in processu’ (the process is made by those who are made by the process).
The futures we create are the result of conscious and determined actions. Where we understand that we have both individual and collective agency. And recognise the potential to re-create ourselves endlessly as we fulfil our dreams of change.
In his major work, The Principle of Hope, Bloch had challenged us to think about our visions of a better world. He argued that the desire to move out of necessity and into freedom was the motor of human history and an essential human characteristic. Hope was the driving force behind the human endeavour to reach for something better.
Bloch’s aim was to reimagine and rehabilitate the (often misunderstood) concept of utopia. He sought to distinguish between ‘abstract utopia’ and ‘concrete utopia’. Counterposing something based on wishful thinking with something grounded in real possibilities. Bloch saw reality as containing not simply what exists now (actuality), but also what could be, or is in the process of becoming (potentiality).
All this feels so relevant today. Despite the multiple challenges and uncertainties we face in the world, and the existential threat to humanity posed by the climate and ecological crises, Machado’s verse unfurls a banner of hope. And helps us imagine a better future, arising from the sea of the possible.
Photo by Jessica Wong on Unsplash