The Active Side of Infinity (2 page)

"To be a collector is not such a bad idea," he said as if he
really believed it. "The crux of the
matter is not
that you collect, but what you collect. You collect junk, worthless objects
that
imprison you as surely as your pet dog does. You can't
just up and leave if you have your pet to
look after, or
if you have to worry about what would happen to your collections if you were
not
around."

"I'm seriously looking for buyers, don Juan, believe me," I
protested.

"No, no, no, don't feel that I'm accusing you of anything,"
he retorted. "In fact, I like your
collector's
spirit. I just don't like your collections, that's all. I would like, though,
to engage your
collector's eye. I would like to propose to you a
worthwhile collection."

Don Juan paused for a long moment. He seemed to be in search of words;
or perhaps it was
only a dramatic, well-placed hesitation. He looked
at me with a deep, penetrating stare. "Every
warrior, as a
matter of duty, collects a special album," don Juan went on, "an
album that reveals
the warrior's personality, an album that attests to
the circumstances of his life."

"Why
do you call this a collection, don Juan?" I asked in an argumentative
tone. "Or an
album, for that
matter?"

"Because
it is both," he retorted. "But above all, it is like an album of
pictures made out of
memories, pictures made
out of the recollection of memorable events."

"Are those memorable events memorable in some specific way?" I
asked.

"They are memorable because they have a special significance in
one's life," he said. "My
proposal is that you assemble
this album by putting in it the complete account of various events
that
have had profound significance for you."

"Every event in my life has had profound significance for me, don
Juan!" I said forcefully,
and felt instantly the impact of my own
pomposity.

"Not really," he replied, smiling, apparently enjoying my
reactions immensely. "Not every
event in your life has had
profound significance for you. There are a few, however, that I would
consider
likely to have changed things for you, to have illuminated your path.
Ordinarily, events
that change our path are impersonal affairs, and
yet are extremely personal."

"I'm not trying to be difficult, don Juan, but believe me,
everything that has happened to me meets those qualifications," I said,
knowing that I was lying.

Immediately after voicing this statement, I wanted to apologize, but don
Juan didn't pay
attention to me. It was as if I hadn't said a
thing.

"Don't think about this album in terms of banalities, or in terms
of a trivial rehashing of your
life experiences," he said.

I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and tried to quiet my mind. I was
talking to myself
frantically about my insoluble problem: I most
certainly didn't like to visit don Juan at all. In his
presence, I
felt threatened. He verbally accosted me and didn't leave me any room
whatsoever to
show my worth. I detested losing face every time I opened
my mouth; I detested being the fool.

But there was another voice inside me, a voice that came from a greater
depth, more distant, almost faint. In the midst of my barrages of known
dialogue, I heard myself saying that it was too
late for me to
turn back. But it wasn't really my voice or my thoughts that I was
experiencing; it was, rather, like an unknown voice that said I was too far
gone into don Juan's world, and that I
needed him
more than I needed air.

"Say whatever you wish," the voice seemed to say to me,
"but if you were not the egomaniac that you are, you wouldn't be so
chagrined."

"That's the voice of your other mind," don Juan said, just as
if he had been listening to or
reading my thoughts.

My body
jumped involuntarily. My fright was so intense that tears came to my eyes. I
confessed to don Juan the whole nature of my
turmoil.

"Your conflict is a very natural one," he said. "And
believe you me, I don't exacerbate it that
much. I'm not
the type. I have some stories to tell you about what my teacher, the nagual
Julian,
used to do to me. I detested him with my entire being. I
was very young, and I saw how women
adored him, gave themselves to
. him like anything, and when I tried to say hello to them, they
would
turn against me like lionesses, ready to bite my head off. They hated my guts
and loved
him. How do you think I felt?"

"How did you resolve this conflict, don Juan?" I asked with
more than genuine interest.

"I didn't resolve anything," he declared. "It, the
conflict or whatever, was the result of the
battle between
my two minds. Every one of us human beings has two minds. One is totally ours,
and it is like a faint voice that always brings us order, directness, purpose.
The other mind is a
foreign installation.
It brings us conflict,
self-assertion, doubts, hopelessness."

My fixation on my own mental concatenations was so intense that I
completely missed what
don Juan had said. I could clearly remember
every one of his words, but they had no meaning for me. Don Juan very calmly,
and
looking directly into my eyes, repeated what he had just said. 1 was still
incapable of
grasping what he meant. 1 couldn't focus my attention on
his words.

"For some strange reason, don Juan, I can't concentrate on what
you're telling me," I said.

"1 understand perfectly why you can't," he said, smiling
expansively, "and so will you, someday, at the same time that you resolve
the conflict of whether you like me or not, the day you cease to be the
me-me
center of the world.

"In the meantime," he continued, "let's put the topic of
our two minds aside and go back to the
idea of
preparing your album of memorable events. I should add that such an album is an
exercise in discipline and impartiality. Consider this album to be an act of
war."

Don Juan's assertion-that my conflict of both liking and not liking to
see him was going to end
whenever I abandoned my egocentrism-was
no solution for me. In fact, that assertion made me angrier; it frustrated me
all the more. And when 1 heard don Juan speak of the album as an act of war, I
lashed out at him with all my poison.

"The idea that this is a collection of events is already hard to
understand," I said in a tone of
protest. "But that on top
of all this, you call it an album and say that such an album is an act of
war
is too much for me. It's too obscure. Being obscure makes the metaphor lose its
meaning."

"How strange! It's the opposite for me," don Juan replied
calmly. "Such an album being an act
of war has all
the meaning in the world for me. I wouldn't like my album of memorable events
to
be anything but an act of war."

I wanted to argue my point further and explain to him that I did
understand the idea of an
album of memorable events. I objected
to the perplexing way he was describing it. I thought of
myself
in those days as an advocate of clarity and functionalism in the use of
language.

Don Juan didn't comment on my belligerent mood. He only shook his head
as if he were fully
agreeing with me. After a
while, I
either completely ran out of energy, or I got a gigantic surge of it. All of a sudden,
without any effort on my part, I realized the futility of my outbursts.
I felt embarrassed no end.

"What possesses me to act the way I do?" I asked don Juan in
earnest. I was, at that instant,
utterly baffled. I was so shaken by my
realization that without any volition on my part, I began to
weep.

"Don't worry about stupid details," don Juan said
reassuringly. "Every one of us, male and
female, is like
this."

"Do you mean, don Juan, that we are naturally petty and
contradictory?"

"No, we are not naturally petty and contradictory," he
replied. "Our pettiness and
contradictions are, rather, the result
of a transcendental conflict that afflicts every one of us, but
of
which only sorcerers are painfully and hopelessly aware: the conflict of our
two minds."

Don Juan peered at me; his eyes were like two black charcoals.

"You've been telling me on and on about our two minds," I
said, "but my brain can't register
what you are
saying. Why?"

"You'll get to know why in due time," he said. "For the
present, it will be sufficient that I
repeat to you what I have said
before about our two minds. One is our true mind, the product of
all
our life experiences, the one that rarely speaks because it has been defeated
and relegated to
obscurity. The other, the mind we use daily for
everything we do, is a
foreign installation."

"I think that the crux of the matter is that the concept of the
mind being a foreign installation
is so outlandish that my mind
refuses to take it seriously," I said, feeling that I had made a real
discovery.

Don Juan did not comment on what 1 had said. He continued explaining
the issue of the two
minds as if I hadn't said a word.

"To resolve the conflict of the two minds is a matter of
intending
it," he said. "Sorcerers
beckon
intent
by voicing the word
intent
loud and clear.
Intent
is a force
that exists in the
universe. When sorcerers beckon
intent,
it
comes to them and sets up the path for attainment,
which means
that sorcerers always accomplish what they set out to do."

"Do you mean, don Juan, that sorcerers get anything they want, even
if it is something petty
and arbitrary?" I asked.

"No, I
didn't mean that.
Intent
can be called, of course, for anything,"
he replied, "but
sorcerers have found
out, the hard way, that
intent
comes to them only for something that is
abstract. That's the safety valve for sorcerers;
otherwise they would be unbearable. In your case,
beckoning
intent
to resolve the conflict of
your two minds, or to hear the voice of your true mind,
is not a petty or arbitrary matter. Quite the
contrary; it is ethereal and abstract, and yet as vital to
you as anything can be."

Don Juan paused for a moment; then he began to talk again about the
album.

"My own album, being an act of war, demanded a super-careful
selection," he said. "It is now
a precise
collection of the unforgetable moments of my life, and everything that led me
to them. I
have concentrated in it what has been and will be
meaningful to me. In my opinion, a warrior's
album is
something most concrete, something so to the point that it is shattering."

I had no clue as to what don Juan wanted, and yet I did understand him
to perfection. He
advised me to sit down, alone, and let my thoughts,
memories, and ideas come to me freely. He
recommended
that I make an effort to let the voice from the depths of me speak out and tell
me
what to select. Don Juan told me then to go inside the
house and lie down on a bed that I had
there. It was
made of wooden boxes and dozens of empty burlap sacks that served as a
mattress.
My whole body ached, and when I lay on the bed it was
actually extremely comfortable.

I took his suggestions to heart and began to think about my past,
looking for events that had
left a mark on me. I soon realized that my assertion that
every event in my life had been
meaningful
was nonsense. As I pressed myself to recollect, I found that I didn't even know
where
to start. Through my mind ran
endless disassociated thoughts and memories of events that had
happened to me, but I couldn't decide whether or
not they had had any meaning for me. The
impression I got was that nothing had had any significance whatsoever.
It looked as if I had gone
through
life like a corpse empowered to walk and talk, but not to feel anything. Having
no
concentration whatsoever to pursue
the subject beyond a shallow attempt, I gave up and fell
asleep.

"Did you have any success?" don Juan asked me when I woke up
hours later.

Instead of being at ease after sleeping and resting, I was again moody
and belligerent.
"No, I didn't have any success!" I
barked.