Bruno Elías Maduro, born in Cartagena in 1971, is a Colombian writer, lawyer and philosopher. He published books of short stories and novels such as Noticias de Mamatoco (2013), La aldea debajo de la montaña (2021) and Juan Camacho o los relatos de un pescador (2021). 
He is also the author of several studies on neuropsychology, political philosophy and pedagogy. These include Filosofía de la educación e interculturalidad indígena (1995), Filosofía de la cognición (2009) and Teoría del poder (2015). Early in his career, Maduro was involved in educational work in the Sierra Nevada, where he founded several schools.

'The new' implies, in our minds, a 'mythology'. A fiction. For the new is a belief in a fact that does not exist, that is supposed to happen, that is not yet here but is still to come, and that for now is only a kind of conviction, that is to say, an illusion. The new assails our minds as something that seeks to renew or transform the old. That is why novelty initially seduces us, even though, deep down, we realise that it is harmful and disruptive. Novelty imposes itself as something that has the appearance of being vital and reproductive, that generates life and gives hope. The idea of the new is captivating, attractive, seductive, interesting and striking. The new, by virtue of its novelty, already subjugates us. But the new is a fiction. 
By employing novelty, the market ensnares us. This is one of the advantages of the capitalist world, which plays on this mental weakness of human beings, and has institutionalised novelty as excellent and progressive. Which, in essence, is more fictitious than the dreams of a child playing with his teddy bear. 
The new as novelty plunges us into a kind of trance. It is hypnotic. But novelty wears thin when it becomes everyday and constant; with repetition, the fascination fades and the surprising illusion dissolves, is exhausted. Like a child's toy, it falls from favour and goes straight to the recycling bin. This novelty is nothing but a mere illusion, a fable. The truth is that the concrete and real object is the antithesis of novelty. There is nothing new under the sun.
Capitalism thrives on novelty for its own sake. It is as if the market knows deep down that what is new shocks us. What is new is not really new, but a chimera, a mirage. Often, something that is presented as new is just a reimagined copy of what already existed, but to our mind is original and new. And of course, a surprise. 
Commercialism and business know that novelty, simply by virtue of being new, is impressive in itself. Above all, the institutionalisation of novelty has an immediate effect on people's minds. 
This mercantile era is based on the impact of the new for the sake of the new, of the new as important, which leads to the demotion of the old and the traditional. The old is seen as harmful and detrimental, as decrepit. Human old age falls victim to this divide created by commercial prejudice. The young are valued, not because of youth, but for the perception that there is a new energy, with the means only to maintain itself. The new is the wrapping of something that is presented as innovative, but will, in all probability, be disenchanting. 
Alongside the new is disappointment, which is perfectly normal. That new thing that promised so much eventually reveals its true face. When that happens, expectations collapse. We learn that the content of the package is very different from the wrapping, from the cellophane that covers it. The new is a human weakness in any area of life because it is prefabricated in the fiction that has remained with us since childhood, and is part of our mythology. Of our weakness.
On the other hand, there is what exists. The real, which is crude, cruel, rigorous, inclement and severe, often atrocious, ferocious. Brutal. The real is not compassionate, it is simply reality ; the real does not care whether you accept it or not; it mocks us if we do not, cares not if we do. As if it knows that it is real and that its devaluation is irrelevant. 
The real, in spite of its crudeness, because it is real, is built on the certain and concrete that surrounds us. Reality is not limited to the natural; it also encompasses culture and civilisation. The real is not manifested only in the material, but in the representation of reality in the mind. 
The hunter and the farmer are examples of the human effort to tame the real. One does not cultivate the land with imagination, full of dreams and ghosts -  it is cultivated with sheer hard graft. To profit from it. The real is not the opposite of fiction but its complement. Cultivated land needs both reality and fiction. The farmer does not go to the land only with fictions, as in art, he goes with his hoe and the plough (as if to war). It requires physical labour, concrete work. 
Between the real and the fictitious, which is inescapable, the farmer devotes his life to work and to the effort of the days; he fills the granary with wheat or corn, with the fruit of his labours; he does it, not with myths, but with something real. 
But the farmer must be patient to reap the fruit of his land - it takes time for the wheat to become edible grain, bread. Now, to support that work and that effort, he has had to take fiction, illusion, as a help. The solitary real is sharp, demolishing and destructive for the human mind. That is why, in order to get the fruits from the earth, the farmer needs to sing to it, lull it to sleep with poetry, talk to it. Behind the wheat and the bread is the illusion of art that accompanies it so that the man who toils feels some happiness while he bends his back. Real life is not easy, but if there is illusion, the real becomes malleable.

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