The Three Piles

Goracio to the Witness dialogue on limitation, coherence, and the three piles

 

Witness:
You never told me what changed you.

Goracio:
It was a big loss for me. More like a rupture. One morning, the land I belonged to no longer belonged to me. The border moved. The language changed. And I was declared foreign in the place I was born.

Witness:
Exile?

Goracio:
Yes. But not just geographic. Temporal, emotional, symbolic. It was as if my life split into three piles:
—What I will do. (A small pile.)
—What I will probably do. (A larger pile.)
—And what I will do in another life. (The largest of all.)

Witness:
And the first pile—did it ever grow?

Goracio:
In years, yes. Slowly. But then an astrologer—one of those rare ones who speaks in riddles, not predictions—warned me: Do not let the first pile grow out of nostalgia. Let it grow only from necessity.

Witness:
What did you learn?

Goracio:
Five things. And each one demands something of me.

First:
When events confront you, you can overcome them. But afterward, you realize they were placed, not random.
So I no longer ask why me?
I ask what now?
Destiny isn’t a map—it’s a hand. You must learn to read its pressure, not its lines.

Second:
Family ties are gravitational.
When they break, your orbit shifts.
So I honor the pull, even when the relationship is strained.
I don’t pretend closeness where there is none, but I acknowledge the force.
You feel the break, even if you don’t understand it.

Third:
Strangers sometimes mourn you more deeply than friends.
Grief is not distributed by proximity.
So I choose my circle not by history, but by resonance.
Who listens without needing to explain? Who stays when the story falters?

Fourth:
The rupture teaches you that time is limited. Hence the piles.
So I ask myself:
What belongs to this life?
What am I postponing out of fear, or politeness, or habit?
And what must I release—not because it’s impossible, but because it’s not mine to carry?

Fifth:
Things matter only to the living.
Values can shift in an instant.
So I choose what complements me, not what consumes me.
I no longer chase permanence. I seek coherence.

Witness:
You speak as if the rupture gave you clarity.

Goracio:
It did. But clarity is not peace.
It’s just the absence of illusion.

Witness:
And the largest pile—the one for another life?

Goracio:
I visit it sometimes. Not to retrieve anything.
Just to remember what I once thought was possible.

Witness (after a long pause):
We rush toward things we name as meaning —titles, roles, even redemption.
But often, what we chase is illusion.
And once we catch it, we must ask not what have I found?
—but who has found it?
The lesson isn’t in the prize.
It’s in the one who arrives.
And whether they still recognize their own need.

Goracio (softly):
Then let us arrive slowly.

***

Author’s Note: On Piles, Lessons, and Values

The “three piles” metaphor reflects a cognitive reframing of life’s possibilities. The five lessons offer coping mechanisms: shifting from victimhood (“why me?”) to agency (“what now?”), rebuilding relationships through resonance rather than proximity, and releasing burdens that no longer belong to this life.

These insights emphasize agency: destiny as pressure rather than fate, grief as non-linear and unpredictable, and the pursuit of coherence over permanence.

The Witness’s final reflection critiques illusory pursuits—titles, redemption, achievement—and suggests that true meaning lies in self-recognition. The text affirms being over having, arrival over acquisition.

The closing pause and call to slowness mark the dialogue not as resolution, but as continuation. The Three Piles becomes a reflective memoir and a philosophical mirror, inviting readers to map their own ruptures onto Goracio’s reckoning.

Written in the orchard, under the turning sky.
August 2025

—Author