In a reflective article, Juan Manuel Nieves urges valuing finite time in public and personal spheres, particularly during this Christmas season. He highlights how governments in their final phase cannot recover lost opportunities, and in individual lives, loneliness intensifies during holidays. He suggests accompanying the lonely as an essential purpose to close the year.
Columnist Juan Manuel Nieves publishes a introspective piece in La República titled 'Before It Becomes the Last Christmas,' exploring the accelerated perception of time with age. He notes that days still have 24 hours, but years feel shorter, and time does not return once lost.
In politics, he critiques that governments in their final stretch cannot amend postponed reforms due to travels, spectacles, or personal disputes. The cost falls on the country, as the institutional clock advances without pauses. Nieves stresses that governing requires efficient time management.
On a personal level, he references Sigmund Freud: everyone knows death exists, but few act as if time is limited. He shares the story of a 33-year-old friend who accepts solitude after believing love arrived too late, illustrating a hyperconnected world where it feels too late to connect.
Loneliness, he describes, disguises itself in daily routines and social media, but emerges raw during holidays like Christmas, turning gatherings into isolation in front of the television. Nieves advocates living intentionally: nurturing relationships, not postponing hugs or calls. An ideal Christmas purpose is to visit or listen to someone alone, preventing figures like Jorge Barón from being the only comfort.
He concludes that the present allows human choices, remembering not the rushes, but the close presences.
