A genuinely Brazilian quality, certainly among the most positive in many ways, is this predisposition to good humor. Perhaps it is an African trait, the most important African trait in the Brazilian character. The fact is that Brazilians are refractory to bad moods and have a daily, constant, almost unshakeable joviality that makes life more pleasant and, above all, avoids the extremes to which a bad mood can lead. Such lightness is not found in Europe, nor in the American metropolises, and is a distinction worthy of greater appreciation. However, while this quality improves social life and makes it much easier to get along, it is also responsible for the aversion to deep reflection, something very well attested to by national literature.
Seneca Said That If He Were Offered…
Seneca said that if he were offered wisdom on condition that he kept it to himself, without being able to communicate it to anyone, he would not want it. And it is really curious that even more than the delight in understanding reality is the delight in describing it, verbalizing it, which seems essential for us to prove ourselves by really mastering it, for our thinking to really be consolidated. Although possessing wisdom and being able to communicate it are different things, not knowing how to communicate it seems to us to be evidence that we do not fully possess it, and there is work to be done to reach this level.
Sometimes I am Curious to look…
Sometimes I am curious to look at the curriculum of an architecture course, to try to understand how this absolute, indisputable and blatant regression in the results provided by the evolution of architectural technique was possible. The obsession with low cost does not seem to be enough to justify it, since even in European cities there are none where the modern part is visually superior to the old part. In short, modern architecture is uglier and less creative. What is this, then, that is being taught so that the professional, with better resources, produces something expressly worse?
Although, as Has Been Said, Good Literature…
Although, as has been said, good literature is always more or less autobiographical, it is useless to obsessively search in its details for parallels with the author’s experience. More often than not, experiences only serve as triggers, motifs, illustrations for something that goes beyond them in the work. That is no small feat, and it is more than enough. The rest is the exploration and deepening of the possibilities that literature allows, but that life sometimes does not.