There will be a new "Weekly Translation Challenge" on most Sundays and everyone is encouraged to participate! These challenges are intended to give community members an opportunity to practice translating or review others' translations, and we keep them stickied throughout the week. You can view past threads by clicking on this "Community" link.

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This Week's Text:

"Denying temporal succession, denying the self, denying the astronomical universe, are obvious acts of desperation and secret consolation. Our fate (unlike the [hell of Swedenborg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaven_and_Hell_(Swedenborg_book)#Equilibrium_and_spiritual_free_will) or the hell of [Tibetan mythology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naraka_(Buddhism)) is not frightful because it is unreal; it is frightful because it is irreversible and ironclad.

"Time is the thing I am made of. Time is a river that sweeps me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that tears me apart, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire. The world, unfortunately, is real; I, unfortunately, am Borges."

— Excerpted from Nueva refutación del tiempo ("A New Refutation of Time") by Jorge Luis Borges, trans. Ruth L. C. Simms.

"Negar la sucesión temporal, negar el yo, negar el universo astronómico, son desesperaciones aparentes y consuelos secretos. Nuestro destino (a diferencia del infierno de Swedenborg y del infierno de la mitología tibetana) no es espan­toso por irreal; es espantoso porque es irreversible y de hierro.

"El tiempo es la sustancia de que estoy hecho. El tiempo es un río que me arrebata, pero yo soy el río; es un tigre que me destroza, pero yo soy el tigre; es un fuego que me consume, pero yo soy el fuego. El mundo desgraciadamente es real; yo, desgraciadamente, soy Borges."