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I’m Just Saying What I Can
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About twenty years ago — I was already quadragenary and I was immersed in a crisis that I would not dare call existential for fear of such a serious word -, I wrote a poem in which these verses read: “the one who keeps quiet as I have kept quiet / will not be able to die without having said it all.”
The threat was clear and I went to the facts; after that, I have published seventeen books. The answer I would like to give to why I write is very simple: because I remained mute for a long time. Nothing else.
…I’m just saying what I can.
~ José Saramago
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Eddie Jaku’s memoir The Happiest Man on Earth is one of the most profoundly moving books you’ll ever read. A Holocaust survivor who faced unimaginable horrors, Eddie didn’t just survive — he chose kindness, gratitude, and joy over despair. His story transcends survival; it’s about seizing happiness against all odds.
Eddie believed that happiness isn’t something that just happens — it’s something you actively choose every day. Even after experiencing the worst of humanity, he refused to let bitterness take root.
In Auschwitz, Eddie saw people who had lost all hope, and he noticed that once a person stopped believing in the possibility of survival, they withered away.
