We need to learn how to be like Juan Muñoz.

Juan Muñoz is better known to the cruel audience of Spain as the other or the blonde from Cruz y Raya, and from that otherness, he has built a fascinating and tragic narrative of failure. If Muñoz had disappeared, like so many other figures, after the breakup of the comedy duo that brought him fame, he would be a character without curves or peaks. But Juan Muñoz never left; his reappearance on Survivors was a half-hearted return. Spain has never completely taken its eyes off him, with feelings that have varied between compassion, corrosive mockery, admiration, astonishment, and identification. He contributes significantly to this by laughing at himself, getting angry, and expressing himself with an overflow and spontaneity that cannot be faked. We know that if Juan Muñoz were a character, the actor portraying him would have won many Oscars.

Last week, he had one of those very human outbursts on Telecinco, rebelling against Emma García’s mistreatment, and in this way of protesting while simultaneously accepting the blackmail of sensationalism, he once again earned everyone’s sympathy. Juan Muñoz is human, too human, Nietzscheanly Dionysian. The contrast with José Mota helps him. In contrast to the supernatural image of the exemplary, polished, and celebrated comic, the impeccable achiever and master of clean humor who always measures jokes to the exact point of laughter without disturbing or embarrassing anyone, Juan Muñoz is wild, scruffy, and sometimes brutal. We understand his anger well when he rages, and his laughter at inappropriate times when he laughs.

The story of Cruz y Raya transitioned with him from comedy to tragedy. The relationship between the two old friends reminds me of that of Stefan Zweig and Joseph Roth. The former, exemplary, neat, celebrated in the finest salons, always esteemed and senatorial. The latter, marginalized, furious, shunned by his friends, a firebrand, uncontrollable. I could write a literary essay about Zweig, but I wrote one about Roth, and if I were tasked with writing about José Mota, I would much rather do so about Juan Muñoz, because success holds no interest except for those obsessed with it. But the success that slipped away, its margins, the shadows of frustration, the slightly hoarse voice, and the sleepless nights are the germ of literature because they are also the germ of life. A few simple souls may aspire to be José Mota, but living consists of learning to be Juan Muñoz.