Arquivo de Notes | Page 252 of 277

The Great Human Problem Is Whether or Not There is Purpose

The great human problem is the problem of meaning, whether or not there is purpose. And it is not human life and work but the answer. This simple question surpasses all others, it goes through reality in the most intimate details. When all seems well, when fortune decides to show its whip, the problem remains evident, always waiting for an answer: for what? Thinking about it we have, therefore, the necessary tool to measure our dimension, to evaluate our existence and to decide, alone, what we should or should not do.

____________

The Alter Ego in Literature

Some literary characters were fortunate to be classified by critics as the author’s alter ego. Others were born with the stamp from the master who gave birth to them. Alter ego… magical epithet capable of endowing any character with immediate depth, inciting his steps with the weight of real life. Funny! I cannot think of literature that does not contain, to a great extent, the weight of the author’s reality. It is simply impossible for me to imagine a writer writing by giving up his impressions of life, his experiences, his judgments about himself and others, the details of existence that only he notices, the observations he makes about the environment in which he lives. If he is painting an environment, for he will take as his basis an environment he has already witnessed or imagined; if he is describing a character, for he will use the examples that life has given him. Sensations: the simple fact of imagining them in depth is also to feel them, and it is not possible to judge that the author is immune to the feelings that he himself evokes. How would he know to describe them if he were unable to feel them? Thus, the alter ego, a term of multiple senses, can, in psychology, expose an interesting and complex deviation of personality, in literature usually exposes a personality obsessed with himself: the author.

____________

The Silence of Machado de Assis

A target of numerous criticisms being some, in fact, envious attacks, Machado de Assis, in all his life, silenced himself about it. Did they deserve an answer? or rather: is it up to the artist to answer the criticisms that are directed at him? Without saying a single word, Machado taught us how the great artist should behave. Attacked, the master kept his independence, continued working. And if the criticisms exposed any aesthetic or expressive problem worthy of note, then the answer is very clear in his literature. And the great mass of comments, well, they received what was theirs: contempt.

____________

Inspiration: Conscious Brain Stimulation

I read somewhere, a few years ago, a psychologist said that Bertrand Russell used an interesting process when he was involved in complex problems. It would be more or less as follows: Russell thought, with maximum concentration and strength of mind, on the particular problem; he outlined the possible solutions, dismembered them into minor issues, formulated various hypotheses and tried to find, in all, the possible flaws. The question occupied him entirely for hours, sometimes days, and then, when he felt exhausted, he did not publish, nor executed the final wording of his conclusions: he abandoned the problem and let him rest, occupying his mind with anything else. Then, after a few days, weeks or months, suddenly the mind pointed the solution, which came as a violent avalanche, and so Russell sat down to write. What would that be, inspiration? If that is the word, then it is necessary to add that there is nothing divine, fantastic, or superhuman about it. What is there is method, conscious brain stimulation. And if the brain, therefore, sometimes does not deliver an immediate response, it does not mean that it does not work, or that it is not working. In the same way, when it decides to boil at an inopportune moment, it is not doing any kind of magic or exhibiting supernatural powers…

____________