We live in an era in which we are forced to fill the days with activity, with thoughts that follow each other with little rest. An era in which getting bored or stopping to think even seems counterproductive.
Stop at the edge of the road to observe the trafficreflect and be able to put their conclusions on paper was the role of Antonio Rodríguez de las Heras in his column life in digital in EL PAÍS Retina, an online product made with the urgency that permeates the 21st century and that he managed to stop elegantly every other Friday.
Antonio, who died last week in Madrid, was an educated, sweet, kind, empathetic, humble, careful and thoughtful person. And curious and intelligent. He lived life listening, writing and speaking. Learning and teaching.
This curiosity allowed him to remain at the forefront of the world of communication, which, like the universe itself, continues to expand at an ever-increasing speed. His curiosity allowed him to carry out without apparent effort the transition from a world of paper and analog signals to another in which each one of us has become a mesh, in “network nodes: acting as repeaters of what we arrives and also of transformers of what we receive before transmitting it (recombining, altering)”.
His was an unprecedented look at this reality of ones and zeros that we all build day by day. Thus, it was a rare notice in the universe of the media, a world of egos and signatures, of personal brands and pride in showing the absence of doubts.
De las Heras was different: he personified humility from the security of someone who knew a good part of the answers. receive the order from rise his articles (that is, transferring his texts to the editor of the newspaper so that readers could read him) was the perfect job: he never had to touch a comma, never had to call him to ask for clarification for a poorly constructed or hasty sentence. And, as if that were not enough, he gladly accepted, as the youngest of the scholarship holders, any approach or headline proposal, which he received and assimilated to incorporate it into his privileged speech.
Journalists, teachers, students, friends… Many of us will miss Antonio Rodríguez de las Heras. Those of us who make EL PAÍS Tecnología Retina will proudly show off the nearly 60 texts that he delivered to us in a punctual Germanic way. Just as punctual in that last email in which he sincerely apologized for missing his appointment. “The virus has found me and it has hit me hard”, he told us with the healthy intention of recovering her soon. It will not be possible.
His absence leaves us without knowing his valuable reflections on what a postcovid digital life will be like. But he deprives us, above all, of an exceptional person who will be missed in all the places where he displayed his inexhaustible energy.
Consult all the articles of Antonio Rodríguez de las Heras in Retina