Finding the inspiration and the creativity to continue the journey of our lifetime requires a flexible mindset and the ability to imagine unheard of scenarios able to enable the travel in time. Traveling and exposing one's daily living to a variety of thinking approaches can only enhance the ability and increase the probability of finding inspiration and creativity. It is in Paris where I have decided to spend a couple of weeks hoping to find the inspiration and creativity needed to begin to write Reypública, the second volume of The Monfort Trilogy.
I had considered to relocate a couple of months to a remote, beautiful location where I would find enough tranquility to accomplish the task of writing a 500 page book. I had contemplated the possibility of traveling to Hawaii, Alaska, Southern California, Mauritius, Australia, Vanuatu, Fiji or the Nouvelle Caledonie. I have misinterpreted the sign of the times. Reypública shall be written in a place that embraces the mandatory values necessary to pull ahead and move forward in the aftermath of the worst recession in our lifetime: discipline, rigor, hope, modesty, austerity and a sufficient dose of common sense.
We need discipline because we in Spain thought the boom years would last forever. We need discipline because we were reluctant to wake up from the beautiful bonanza years. We need discipline because the culture of folklore, of sun and tapas, of shortsightedness is undermining our own ability to realize that we are losing competitiveness big time. We need discipline to recuperate the ambition of the Great Men and Women of the Transition from Dictatorship to Democracy, and persevere to consolidate a forward-looking vision for the country.
We need rigor because we in Spain have become accustomed to a culture of delegation and apathy. We need rigor because we have become accustomed to a dynamics of neglect and sloth in which we expect the Government to take care of the tiny, petit, little details of our daily lives... and of the major ones. We need rigor to be and become more European, to be and become a more cohesive society able to adapt to the challenges of a globalized World.
We need hope because we in Spain have reached the conclusion that we are a hopeless country. We need hope because we as a sleeping civil society have externalized the management of our everyday routine to a hopeless political elite whose only abundance is that of mediocracy. We need hope because hope is the prerequisite to begin a realistic path towards a dream come true.
We need modesty because for well over a decade we in Spain thought we were Europe's California. We need modesty because for well over a decade we thought we were the southern Germans. We need modesty because our economic growth was not so much related to productivity and competitiveness growth, but to leverage and to European structural funds. We need modesty because we are only beginning to realize the depth of a crisis likely to sink us as a society in a Lost Decade.
We need austerity because for well over a decade we in Spain thought we could lend and spend it all. We need austerity because the three and sometimes four level Administrations are used to living La Vida Loca of endless public spending. We need austerity because our central Administrators continue to think we can perpetuate a culture of subsidies where it is more important to become World Champions of High Speed Trains and Renewable Energy while the country does earn the World Championship of Unemployment.
Discipline, rigor, hope, modesty and austerity are the prerequisites of launching a wonderful decade. Only if we attain the former shall we incorporate creativity and embrace the ability to dream in order to materialize a regenerationist vision anticipated by our ancestors José Ortega y Gasset and Joaquín Costa, whose vision I praise.
It is clear where I should settle down to write Reypública. A Monastery shall be the place.
Reypública is Jaime Pozuelo-Monfort's Second Book