Sometimes it seems that the world is so complex, so global, so sophisticated, that introducing the slightest change is in the hands of a few: politicians with position, managers, stars and celebrities, the odd influencer with thousands of followers... But they don't seem to be very keen. What sense can there be in what we do?

You don't have to be a lynx to realise that many of the people who should be a point of reference for everyone are not up to the task. This could be the lamentation of someone who is getting old, and in that case it would surely be an exaggeration, but I was reaffirmed to see it in the pen of a visceral optimist like Enrique García Máiquez, who in a recent article gave several examples known to all. Of course, this was not a complaint - to which he confesses to being allergic - but an observation from which a proposal would emerge. It is true, the conversations on cafeteria are full of discouraging comments, of things that are not going well, of situations that seem hopeless... and there are no leaders to face the moment. And then? Then we can devote hours to the jeremiad lament, where each voice adds new examples, new cases, new scandals. And in the meantime, since it's not about getting bitter, we have a few beers, keep passing pictures with our thumbs or keep our latest Minecraft game open. It's no drama. Worse times in history have come and gone. And yet, perhaps without realising it, we are giving up some of what makes us most human.

Máiquez proposed something very different. He recalled some verses by Antonio Machado: "How difficult it is/ when everything leave/ not to go down as well", and then commented: "Note that the copla has an implicit message of combat, which Jünger made explicit either because he heard it from a friend, as he says, or because it happened to him and he invented the friend so as not to put on airs. He said that when leave the tide comes in on the beach, the invisible rock under the water, holding firm to its place and height, juts out and juts out more and more until it becomes a promontory". That protruding rock is you and me. We are not the Ifach rock, nor the Montgó (the two boulders that anyone who has passed through Calpe or Javea remembers... or has seen a photo), but precisely how low the general level is makes us visible to the whole world. Thinking that there is nothing to do ("it's impossible!"), or that you personally can't do anything ("what influence do I have?") is nothing more than a convenient excuse, or a way of avoiding a change of pace that could be uncomfortable. In reality, when someone falls into this subject of thinking, they are simply giving up being a person. They may aspire to become beach sand, a mascot or a bighorn thistle, but they are giving up being a person.

In his book on St Joseph, which he describes as "Brief guide of the adventurer of post-modern times", Fabrice Hadjadj tells the story of a tiny little bird that was mocked by all the other birds. Apart from its small size, on stormy days it had the strange habit of lying on the ground, upside down. One day a bear passed by and asked him why he did this. He replied that this was how he protected the earth: "There are so many living things on earth! And so much rustling up there [sound of thunder and lightning, rain falling furiously, wind blowing]. If the sky falls on them, it would be an immense misfortune, don't you think? So I put my paws up to hold it, just in case". The bear laughs in his face (logically), and the little bird answers him very seriously: "Get out of here, stupid... You haven't understood anything". What is it that he didn't understand, because after all, many of us would have had the same reaction as the bear: "Down here, everyone has a heaven of his own size" (p. 152). Yes, it is what we usually call a zasca. Later, Hadjadj comments briefly: the bird is tiny, but it has a huge heart. However little it does, it is doing more than the bear, the eagle or the nightingale, who limit themselves to sheltering and watching it rain. The life of the little bird has a content - a meaning, a motive - that others cannot even dream of. This possibility is one of the most characteristic features of human life.

Having said that, we can return to what we pointed out earlier: the " look-at-how-bad-the-world-is" attitude and the attitude of those who think that, in reality, "it-isn't-with-me" and "do you think it matters that I...". It is no exaggeration to say that the attitude behind all this is a subtle but no less terrible enemy of our humanity. And it is no exaggeration, because every time we say (or think) something like that in the face of a small decision, we are perhaps deserting our humanity, because we are despising the mission statement that could shape it. A small mission statement , yes, a few insignificant gestures, perhaps, that could nevertheless infect many, making our smallness a true pandemic of change. Like the contagious smile Jesús Montiel talks about in Sucederá la flor, which starts in the supermarket queue and goes out into the street, and enters a bus... and reaches the city limits. In final, a mission statement so small that, in times of mediocrity, it could become a reference and a driving force for many others.

I insist, what is at stake in all this is something that makes us properly human. Some people are content to live well: to dress well, to eat well, to have a good time... to be well. But to be well, the rocks were enough. To eat and have a good time it would have been enough to create the birds of the sky. To dress well, all that was needed were the lilies of the field. If there are people in the world, it is because each one of them has been called into existence to be loved and to introduce a novelty into history. It does not have to be a great novelty, nor does it have to be printed in textbooks. It is enough that it ends up printed in the lives of many other people, as long as history continues to move towards its fullness.