“It is not the happiest who has the most, but the one who needs the least”wrote Saint Augustine of Hippo, Christian theologian and philosopher of the 4th century. Things have changed a lot since then. Now thinking that you have lost your cell phone gives you a microinfarction. You have your whole life there, in the machine. Imagine if you lose it.

But the human being has not changed that much. We continue to be apprentices of a larger world, of a voracious nature. We face experiences that mark a before and after in our lives, that teach us what really matters.

For Javier Bardem –who in addition to being an actor is a activist for just causes without mincing words and he has demonstrated it on many occasions – that moment came when he collaborated with Greenpeace to create a sanctuary that protects the Antarctic Ocean. Immersing himself in its waters made him understand what really matters. There is no turning back when the human mind understands how small it is and how tied it is to the world it inhabits.

A before and after

The society in which we live rarely invites us to reflect. Yes, meditation is in fashion. But always with something in the background. A listening guide, some music. Never a silence so deep that it forces you to face yourself.

That is, perhaps, what Bardem felt when he submerged himself in the waters of the Antarctic.“They told me there have been more people on the moon than on the bed of the Antarctic Ocean”explained the actor for Ethics. “And I was one of them.”

The experience was almost magical. “I was there, floating in that tiny submarine, with the pilot close to me,” the Oscar-winning performer tells the magazine, when “suddenly, I started to feel a tremendous dream. I thought maybe it was a lack of oxygen or something like that, but he (the pilot) told me no, but that it was just that I was relaxing, because the landscape invited me to do so. It was absolutely true, it was like being in the womb again.”

Discover what is most important

During those four hours that he remained submerged in the Antarctic bed, Bardem saw “species of fish and octopuses with a lot of color, strange and different shapes.” His actor’s mind brings him back to the cinema. «It was like being in a James Cameron movie. It was a blessing, being able to be there to enjoy it,» he confessed.

After diving in, work came. Be the face of a movement, gather two million signatures and advance the purpose: to make the Antarctic a sanctuary. “I have rarely felt so proud of a film as for having participated in this experience,” acknowledged the actor.

But like any great revolution, the change was not only external. In Bardem a seed of something new was sown, of an ancient knowledge that awaits beneath the depths. The adventure, he says, made him realize what is really important. And it became clear to him that he must defend it with all his strength.

Beyond property

When the truth is exposed, there is no choice but to understand it. Happiness is not in what we own, because the truth is that nothing belongs to us. We are on Earth passing through. We are as ephemeral as a sigh.

No, happiness is not in what we have. It is in what we feel, in what we livein what we experience.

“The less I have, the freer I feel,” said the actor in the aforementioned interview. “If I had to mention something, I would tell you that my children and my friends, although they are not really mine, are their own.” To all this, he added: “Sometimes an experience gives you much more than any material thing.”

For him, it was that submersion. That moment of peace in the womb of Mother Naturewhich taught him to reconnect with what is important.

Purpose rhymes with happiness

There is something else in Bardem’s story that he himself does not mention, but that is implicit in his words. We cannot be happy in this life if we do not have a purpose. And the purpose is nothing other than to put the talents received at the service of others.. Make our time on Earth an attempt to leave it better than we found it. To make the lives of those around us, be they children, brothers, mothers, fathers, friends or strangers, a little better.

Javier Bardem has spent years making his career a bridge for stories that leave great lessons. He has accompanied millions of viewers in solitude. He has encouraged us to think, to see beyond with his words. And now, as a Greenpeace ambassador, he finds a new reason for his life. One aimed at making the world a cleaner place for new generations.

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