When I was a child and until I was no longer a youngster, I thought that maturity and seriousness were a matter of age; I looked at my parents, uncles, aunts, uncles and other relatives, and even at the parents of my friends and neighbours, and I saw them as educated, serious and capable of discerning between seriousness when the occasion demanded or required it, and frivolity, fallacies and lies when the subject was inconsequential or banal.
Unrealisable dreams, illusions and castles in the sand were the stuff of the youngsters who, with few hairs in their beards in some cases, or without having reached the maturity of their sex in others, lived in a happy Arcadia or in a world full of false illusions where any idea, attitude or proposal - however far-fetched it might seem - had a place, not only in their thoughts, but in their projection of the future and the beyond.
When I later entered the General Military Academy as a cadet, I thought I had crossed the threshold to sanity, seriousness and important things. But I soon discovered personally that I was quite or very wrong; not all my classmates, and even some professors, exuded seriousness, fairness and restraint from their pores. A certain nepotism, a fair amount of favouritism and a lot of false or fabricated prestige dragged in beforehand, was more than frequent, apparent and all too frustrating to see in any case or place.
It was a sad reality to which I had to accommodate myself and resign myself to living with it unless, after so much personal and family effort, I gave up my career; because, moreover, I soon came to the conviction that this evil, apparently endemic and quite widespread, was not exclusive and peculiar only to those who were preparing to serve Spain by embracing the career of arms, something almost sacred and difficult to overcome.
The passing of the years and my unstoppable personal and moral growth led me, like most of my generation, to take a closer look at the future of political life. We were being introduced to a brand new phase or way of life, which we call democracy. Something that many of us had little or no idea of because we had suckled and lived another way of real or political life both at home and in society.
The solemnity of the acts and political declarations full of generosity, seriousness and reconciliation, which were embodied in the adoption of a new and, it seemed, definitive Constitution, made us all happy because we understood that this milestone or milestones were going to mark a new way of life in Spain and that most of the abuses and vices encountered and suffered until then were soon to be banished, because democracy and its protection and defence tools were strong enough to unmask forever and definitively those scoundrels who, taking advantage of the circumstances of the moment, would try to fill our heads with fallacies, vain illusions or, what is even worse, make their own private profit at the expense of their ill-executed office and the public treasury that passed through their hands to be "well administered", while they made their own personal fortune.
Afterwards, time has come to remove the blindfold from our eyes, neither one nor the other, the rascals have continued to swarm and even gradually grow a lot, taking advantage of exercising or enjoying high positions, thinking that they were smart enough and immune to the application of justice over them. Electoral programmes soon became a mere piece of paper, and on the left, fundamentally, the search for coalitions and support to stay in power has degenerated so much that it is no longer regarded or despised that in order to obtain them it is necessary to sell one's soul to the devil and ally or align oneself with those who despise, disregard or directly attack Spain, its flag, language or territorial integrity.
The misnamed right wing is not without its big gaps, puddles provoked without further ado, and the ranting and raving of immature people, fleeting popular mirages or inordinate desires for grandeur, when many of those characters know that they will never be graced with the governance of the country and at most will have to play the role of second fiddle, although some do not even know what that role really consists of, How to play it and in what way they can satisfy a large spectrum of "moderate" voters who only want to see their political leaders to be serious, to do well and not spend the day throwing their dirty laundry at each other in an excessive eagerness to seek prominence that does not correspond to them in terms of capacity or serious and honest behaviour.
In recent days we have witnessed a futile and sterile motion of censure, which has served only to strengthen and give more scope, if possible, to the one who "officially" intended to unseat him. A motion that has marked the starting line of a long electoral campaign that, in two different phases, will last until the end of this year and in which I am absolutely certain we will see trickery, hollow promises and even fireworks that are only intended to deceive the voting public, those who are present or who come to watch.
A public, blind and detached from reality, drunk on perks, favouritism, subsidies and even massive and forced legalisations that only aim to increase the breeding ground of an electoral mass that in its unconsciousness does not see or know how to distinguish that simple and at the same time very famous precept that says "bread for today means hunger for tomorrow".
Spain, despite years of harmful and unorthodox European economic permissiveness and the constant irrigation of money issued even in overtime by the European Central Bank, is in debt like never before, its GDP is at rock bottom, the number of SMEs and the self-employed is alarmingly decreasing and the pockets of the citizens and, what is worse, of the businessmen - who are the ones who are the ones who are the ones who are the ones who are the ones who are the ones who are the ones who are the ones who are the ones who are the ones who are the ones who are the ones who are the ones who are the ones who are the most vulnerable, of entrepreneurs -who are the ones who really create jobs- are being slashed and attacked relentlessly with tax hikes, unpayable wage increases and all kinds of economic persecution that are leaving the cow with no milk to milk and with a debt so large that not even our great-grandchildren will be able to finish it.
Meanwhile, the spending of our politicians is growing unceasingly, the number of advisors, who are filthy and generously paid for their little or no training and the little or bad service they provide to society, is reaching incredible heights, while the State Administration, Health and most of the fair services that a society - already very old - can and should expect, are not covered or are blocked "sine die", which is the same as saying "in perpetuity".
We had better not go into detail about the state and functioning of the judiciary, blocked by its officials, by expired appointments or because certain important courts are overrun or taken over by shameful lapdogs who, unworthy of their careers and required vocation of neutrality, play along with an unscrupulous government that does what it wants, is unrepentant and never asks for forgiveness or looks back.
Nowadays, nothing works any more, the waiting lists in the private and official sectors are a scandal despite the much-vaunted implementation based on technological advances, the Internet and other social networks, which only makes things more complicated and gives the impression that it should work like clockwork, when the reality is that it is blocked as soon as you need to move or create any document or official procedure of maximum or minimum necessity.
In spite of all this, it seems that people are happy, living in their own happy world, looking the other way and, soon and, once again, a little further ahead in the electoral calendar, they will go to the polls distanced or distanced from the economic reality and, separated between comrades of the same or similar benches and happy to give up their vote as lost citizens or those recently incorporated into the national arena, who, dizzy with so much perversity or dulled by subsidies or promises, will close their eyes, put a clip on their nose and go to the polling stations in search of a ballot paper with the symbols or the anagram of the party they consider their party, despite the fact that whatever they do and we already know that any electoral promise is worthless.
There are many blind people who are physically blind, but there are, unfortunately, many more who are politically blind and gullible or convinced by the fallacies of the leaders.