#037 Fiestas & Solitude With Octavio Paz and Daniel Campos
“There is nothing so joyous as a Mexican fiesta, but there is also nothing so sorrowful. Life and death, joy and sorrow, music and mere noise are united.”
Are fiestas an answer to combating loneliness? In this episode you’ll learn what the poet and diplomat Octavio Paz can teach us about belonging and why philosophy professor Daniel Campos believes partaking in revelry is especially important for immigrant communities. #thehappierhour
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
By Octavio Paz:
The Collected Poems of Octavio Paz
Brooklyn-based band Yotoco “Cumbia brooklynense,” based on Daniel Campos’ book, Loving Immigrants in America.
In the first four verses, Sebastián sings:
Saliendo del laberinto
con una cumbia brooklynense.
Todo el mundo motivado
para bailarla de frente.
Certainty
by Octavio Paz
If it is real the white
light from this lamp, real
the writing hand, are they
real, the eyes looking at what I write?
From one word to the other
what I say vanishes.
I know that I am alive
between two parentheses.
“What is something you want to commit doing more of, simply because you enjoy it, even if you are bad at it?”
ABOUT DANIEL COMPOS
Dr. Daniel Campos teaches and writes philosophy as a middle path to explore his interests in mathematics, literature, and sport. These passions, along with his zest for traveling, listening to live music, swimming, snorkeling, and dancing, form the core of what he does in philosophy. An immigrant from Central America, he is a professor at Brooklyn College - CUNY and the author of Loving Immigrants in America (Lexington Books, 2017). You can read more of his writings on his philosophical blog: https://saunteringinamerica.blogspot.com/ and say hello on Twitter at @Daniel_G_Campos.