2666

by Roberto Bolaño

it wasn’t long before I realized my mistake. You think that from the inside you might change some things for the better. First you work from the outside, then you think that if you were inside the real possibilities for change would be greater. You think that inside, at least, you’ll have more freedom to act. Not true. There are things that can’t be changed from outside or inside. But here comes the funniest part. The really unbelievable part of the story (the sad story of Mexico or Latin America, it makes no difference). The part you can’t believe. When you make mistakes from inside, the mistakes stop mattering. Mistakes stop being mistakes. Making a mistake, butting your head against the wall, becomes a political virtue, a political tactic, gives you political presence, gets you media attention. At the moment of truth—which is every moment, or at least every moment from eight a.m. to five p.m.—it makes just as much sense to be present and to err as to hunker down and wait. You can do nothing, you can fuck things up—it doesn’t matter, so long as you’re there.