# 16 Struggle Is Everyone’s Father …

In front of me, on a path below the castle of Antequera, in Spanish Andalusia, two bulky men shuffle toward each other. Straw hats and black sunglasses. Shirts and jeans. A Miniature Pinscher beside one man, a small, poodle-like animal beside the other. Pinscherman smokes a cigarette. Poodleman puffs thick smoke he sucks from a small box. Both men walk bent over their phones, the loops of their dogs’ leashes around the wrists of the hands holding those phones. Having approached to within two meters of each other, they halt. They each pull an earbud from one ear, and without looking up from their phones, they seem to strike up a conversation. The pinscher and the poodle stand still beside their owners, tails wagging nervously.

Between me and the two men and their dogs, Boris the little terrier lies on the ground, his tail sweeping through the sand. As I walk past him, I ask, “Why don’t you go play?” and as Boris dashes toward what he assumes to be playmates, I realize that my mood is better than it has been in a long time.

April 28, 2025. It has been raining in Andalusia for months now. Today, it is dry and sunny. After having lived in Austria for some years, Heidi and I realized—Heidi is my wife; we are both Dutch—that the strict rules governing day-to-day life in Austria—ostensibly happily embraced by most Austrians—were gnawing at our joy of life to such an extent that nature’s beauty and the possibilities of enjoying it could not make up for it. We moved to the United Kingdom, settling in England, in the picturesque village of Saffron Walden, just south of Cambridge. Soon, however, the enthusiasm with which the Brits embrace wokism began to gnaw at our joy of life. Too bad, because nature’s beauty around Saffron Walden, though different from Austria’s, was well worth enjoying, and to top that off, Saffron Walden, we discovered, is located in the least rainy part of the United Kingdom. For almost a year, we tried hard to enjoy life in Saffron Walden. We failed, and just after Christmas 2023, we moved to Spanish Catalonia, where people, as we perceived it, were less headstrong and animal-friendly than their desire for independence and their ban on bullfighting had led us to believe, joy of life—again as we perceived it—no longer a factor in Catalonia.

We returned to Andalusia—where we lived before Austria—and discovered that Heraclitus was right when he remarked that no one can step into the same river twice. Andalusia feels different from how it still felt in 2018, feels capitulated to the globalist putsch that is currently underway. Joy of life, alegría, which I always perceived as an Andalusian trademark, seems to have given way to apathy, interspersed with fits of anger. And despite my persistent attempts to convince myself that I am mistaken, I frequently think of late of Ayn Rand's astronaut who crashes his spaceship on an unknown planet. The planet is lush with vegetation, and the astronaut can breathe its air. Yet, he does not act. To avoid possibly having to accept that Earth is too far away to return to, he does not look up at the sky, and because he assumes that his spaceship's instruments were damaged in the crash, he leaves them untouched. He surrenders to hope, and that hope grows when he spots beings in the distance walking on two legs. Those beings will help him find his way back to Earth. We never heard from that astronaut again …

Rand, I reflect as I inhale the fresh morning air, preached laissez-faire capitalism. Youthfully innocent, I saw no harm in laissez-faire capitalism until I realized that capitalism, especially capitalism, should never be laissez-faire, certainly not when democracy is the form of government alongside which it operates. By exploiting useful idiots in politics, journalism, and science, medical doctors included, and by exploiting schoolteachers—useful idiots by definition, if my opinion counts—the top of the capitalist pyramid will irrevocably bend the thought that should underlie a democratically cast vote into emotion, making the top of that pyramid the de facto ruler of countries, communities of countries, and ultimately the world.

As far as my critique of democracy is concerned, I lean partly on Plato—whose critique of democracy my yesteryear schoolteachers seemed unaware of—though I do not recall Plato worrying about a developing top of a capitalist pyramid that would eventually be capable of a globalist putsch. Yet, I think Plato—despite Heraclitus’s warning that insight takes effort—would need only a few hours in the current Western world to realize, and to explain in plain language, just as he explained why democracy is a hopeless form of government, that the philosophical, administrative, and economic course humanity has been charting for the last few centuries can lead to nothing other than a globalist putsch of a misanthropic nature, and … Boris barks shrilly. Seven months old, twenty centimeters tall, he runs around the pinscher and the poodle, who are being pulled off the ground by their leashes.

“No se permiten los perros sueltos unleashed dogs are not allowed,” the two men holding up their dogs shout at me over Boris’s barking. I walk on, call Boris, who, to my surprise, catches up with me and gleefully snaps at my trouser legs, and as the shouting behind me dies down, my gaze wanders from a recently installed lamppost to the castle above me, built by the Moors over a thousand years ago without the help of modern equipment.

Along this path, against the backdrop of the castle, a group of municipal employees, with the help of modern equipment, has been busy for weeks installing five wooden posts onto which they mounted halogen lanterns with accompanying solar panels—a sequence of actions that surprised me. Never had I seen curved posts used for such a purpose, and the municipal employees failed to mount the lanterns onto the posts in such a way that they stand perpendicular to the path. None of the lanterns is functioning, most likely because the castle’s floodlights are so intense that the sensors in the lanterns assume that daytime is permanent along this path.

Boris and I pass under a stone arch supporting a gallery leading to a freestanding tower next to the castle. We stroll around the tower, and through a tiny pine forest, we slowly make our way home. Slowly, because Boris takes his time sniffing at the base of each pine tree we pass before lifting a paw. Since Heidi and I found the starving, then four- or five-week-old animal in the mountains near Antequera six months ago, Boris and I have taken our first walk of the day here around six o'clock every morning—this is today’s third walk. During that first walk, wee see the sun rise, hear roosters crow and doves coo, and as Boris sniffs, I become a Moor, surrounded by peace, beauty, and wisdom, trusting that Abd al Rahman's despotism sufficiently tempers the commercial spirit of the people within the Caliphate of Córdoba to prevent that spirit from producing a ruling class.

But Abd al Rahman does not live forever. That aside, a battle with the Fatimids or with the Christians is inevitable in the long run. Will we win that battle, or will I one day flee in the boat of my uncle—who is a fisherman in Málaga—to the land of my ancestors? It does not matter. Life is a celebration of chances and possibilities, and ... the power cuts out. Panic overwhelms me. Pondering and writing, I have been sitting behind my screens at the kitchen table of our casa cueva, our cave house, for more than an hour since that last walk with Boris. Two or three times each day, the power cuts out in our house, and every time that happens, Heidi soothes my panic by reminding me that my computer automatically saves my work. But I only truly find peace when my computer has started up again and I know for sure no work has been lost.

No soothing from Heidi. Across from me at the kitchen table, she stoically continues to work on the book she is writing—her laptop unaffected by the power cut—and I realize that my mood is so much better than it has been in a long time that I don't jump up to flip the main switch in the fuse box to restore the power. Instead, I allow my thoughts to wander to our future, which seems to have been playing tricks on us over the past few months.

Shortly after I discovered that schoolteachers were but useful idiots, I dug in my heels at school, depriving myself, according to those same teachers, of a future. But Heidi did once obtain a high school diploma, and the average future we consequently have seemed quite clear in the plans it had for us until the end of July last year, when we arrived in Antequera. Antequera was supposed to be a stopover from which our future would lead us to a deserted plot of land in the mountains of Andalusia, where Heidi and I would live like hermits for as long as such a life is still permitted. None of that! From the day we arrived in Antequera, our future did not stir. And of course I realized our future likely wanted us to focus on our books and short stories for a while. Still, my mood deteriorated.

Looking back, I am glad we focused on those books and short stories, though I often wondered whether I should not have chosen a simpler vocation than writing and should maybe not have dug in my heels at school. Chuckling inwardly, I realize that if I had done the best I could at school, as I was encouraged, encouraged, and encouraged, I would now probably be a gym teacher, failing day after day to warn parents about the joy of life they are depriving their children of by ignoring those children's overpronating or supinating feet, their knock knees, their excess weight, their lack of muscle mass, their lack of fitness, and their fixation on screens. But perhaps—and that certainly interested me throughout my life—doing my utmost best at school, I would have obtained a diploma that qualified me as an archeologist, ridiculing day after day those of my colleagues who—not without evidence—suggest that an advanced civilization may have preceded ours …

Heidi and I, in Antequera, focused on our books and short stories. The rain started, transforming our patio into a pool but mysteriously not filling the reservoirs throughout Andalusia, Christmas came and went, the rain continued, with every now and then a dry and sunny day, and … I get up, look in the fuse box, see that the main switch is still on, run to the café on the square in front of our cave house—Boris hot on my heels—and learn that all of Spain is suffering a power cut.

Still no power when Heidi and I get home after a long walk through the mountains with Boris. We cook on our gas stove, and after Heidi beats me at Settlers of Catan by candlelight, I suggest a stroll through Antequera, where it is undoubtedly cozier than ever.

“It’s not cozy in Antequera,” Heidi remarks with uncharacteristic pessimism, to which I irritably reply, “What do you mean, not cozy? Candles are burning in every café. People have instruments with them, and there are parties everywhere. This is a night no one will ever forget!”

“Cafés are empty, because no one can pay. No one has any cash any longer.”

“Nonsense! Everything is running on credit tonight. People will pay tomorrow or whenever the power is restored.”

The moon is new, the darkness complete, as Heidi, Boris, and I stroll through Antequera. No candlelight anywhere. Not a single café open and not a soul on the streets. No guitar music or laughter escapes the open windows of houses, and seemingly without reason, I think of how, as a child, I constantly felt like Rand's little bird, sitting in its nest while its mother, with her beak, one by one plucks its feathers from its tiny body. When the little bird has been plucked bare, its mother pushes it to the edge of the nest and chirps, “Fly, fly …!”

Despite the persistence of schoolteachers and other characters who interfered with my upbringing, I managed to keep my feathers. Now, I stroll through a city where only featherless little birds sit on the edges of nests.

Strolling past a recently installed lamppost on a path below the castle of Antequera, Heidi asks, “Are you throwing your own party now? What are you doing?”

“Just trying to make something work,” I reply, leaping up and down and back and forth next to the lamppost in an unsuccessful attempt to activate its motion sensor, and I realize I would under other circumstances be distraught after our stroll through Antequera. I eh… I am not distraught. A few days ago, our future suddenly stirred, which is why my mood is better than it has been in a long time. Heidi shakes her head, and Boris gleefully snaps at my trouser legs. We pass under a stone arch, stroll around a freestanding tower, and through a tiny pine forest, we slowly make our way home, where Heidi lights the candles again as I boil water for tea on our gas stove.

With a start, I wake up. Raindrops on my face! Blinking sleep from my eyes, I look up at the dark sky and realize that a heavy shower has caught us off guard. I wriggle an arm out of my sleeping bag and tap Heidi on the shoulder. Sleepily, she asks, “What’s up?” as Boris sticks his head out of her sleeping bag and quickly dives back into it.

“It’s raining. Hard. We have to get into the car.”

Seconds later, we sit chuckling amid wet sleeping bags, sleeping mats, and pillows in the trunk of our Berlingo. Rain drums on the roof, and Boris suspiciously sniffs at the gas stove on which I am boiling water for tea and coffee. May 1, 2025. Quarter past five in the morning. A week ago, our future stirred in the form of a message I received from a Belgian subscriber to my short stories. He invited Heidi and me to visit him in a village in Arribes del Duero, a nature reserve west of Salamanca, on the border with Portugal, where he had recently moved with his Spanish wife, and where life—his message read—is great.

Shortly after we returned home two days ago, following our stroll through lifeless, darkness-shrouded Antequera, the power came back on. A pity, somehow. It eh… it would have been fun to live without electricity for another few days. We continued working on our books and short stories until yesterday afternoon, when we loaded our Berlingo with what we need for the trip to Arribes del Duero, about six hundred kilometers from Antequera. We chugged westward until the sun set, rolled out our sleeping bags on the shore of a lake, and as rain pours down and the rising sun reveals a grey sky, we now chug northward through what is likely the Extremadura region. Man, I am happy with today’s bad weather. If Arribes del Duero is attractive in this weather, then …

Arribes del Duero is attractive! We feel transported decades back in time, which feels good. At eleven o'clock, we drive into the village of Montelobado. Boris is hanging out of Heidi’s window, barking excitedly. Man, I trust our future, but I am not sure Heidi shares that trust when it comes to Montelobado. She puts Boris on her lap, looks at me, and says, “This area feels good, but it will be a struggle to build a life here.”

“Struggle,” I reply cheekily, “is everyone’s father. It makes a slave of one and sets the other free.”

“Huh…?”

“Heraclitus.”

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