This word has a great cultural tradition, but fewer and fewer believers. Creative outpourings that were attributed to muses, God and unknown forces are less and less expected, so some artists scoffed: “If inspiration comes, surprise me with work.” It is true that creative delivery seems to be born from a disposition, from an impulse that is not necessarily linked to art.

Strictly speaking, no one creates from nothing, so human products emerge from a chain of learning and influence. Objects, ideas, formulas, machines have predecessors to which was applied novelty, twist, aggregate that acted according to useful transformations and new concepts. Artisans, scientists, navigators were as creative as artists, giving us a renewed outlet for natural limitations.

Should we expect so much talent from politicians to guide them in finding solutions to major public problems? It is possible that yes. They seem so confident and wise when they say they know what to do: dispose of funds from national reserves, return to their own currency, seek the patronage of foreign powers? Each of the measures carries the smell of the familiar: it was created in the heat of neoliberal inspiration or was tested on the cherished socialist horizons. And the battle opens, depending on whether they accept one or the other position, depending on whether they declare that they work for the elites and for the suffering people.

Ecuador needs an avalanche of inspiration and exceptional commitment to work. We need new, bold ideas that look back so they don’t repeat the mistakes and draw the appropriate lessons from so much bad governance, from so many false scams that have been offered and not followed through on. Unemployed citizens will be willing to accept the joint effort of great tasks, if they earn their salary and brighten their future.

Each person occupies a position in life for which he had to go through processes of effort…

Whether in the field of theoretical contribution or practical application, one quality is essential: honesty. That quality that we Ecuadorians are crying out for because it has been absent from the public arena for decades – if not centuries – taken as a feast territory, a get-rich-quick opportunity. The circle has been expanded to such an extent that we see corruption in every gesture, in every act, no matter how small. The street thief made a rotten modus vivendi. The official who receives the bribe has determined his obligations in them.

I float towards artistic creation, because I have tied my life to his deliveries. Balzac drank 40 cups of coffee a day, the French symbolists drank absinthe and got the words for their verses from the “green goddess”, Picasso walked on the beach saying “I don’t seek, I find”. And there are their legacies, available to everyone in terms of novels, poems, paintings of supreme brilliance to shed light on the realities we all experience and feel, without the eloquent brilliance of art. Each person occupies a position in life for which they had to go through processes of effort and discovery.

If he does it with conscience and honesty, with doses of joy and pain that life brings, his existence makes sense. (OR)