Taking Life Too Seriously

Says Chamfort:

Le théâtre tragique a le grand inconvénient moral de mettre trop d’importance à la vie et à la mort.

It is true… There is no denying that taking life too seriously brings numerous drawbacks, starting with the inevitable anguish. By giving too much importance to life and death and realizing that both are largely beyond its control, the spirit will experience despair. But one thing should be noted: emphasis is necessary for the theater to move; the message of a play will never have the same effect if it is devoid of dramatic exaggeration. To say with Nelson Rodrigues: fiction, in order to purify, needs to be atrocious. But perhaps these inconveniences are necessary not only for the theater, but for life itself, since in complete indifference man will always remain exactly where he is.

An Inexplicable Feeling of Duty Haunts Me…

An inexplicable feeling of duty haunts me for a long time and demands me to portray the drama of Dom Pedro II. In my mind, I have already done it in verses, plays, movie scripts… But, in truth, I have done it because I cannot get rid of this obsession. Why? It is funny that, as usual, whenever I finally decide to execute the task, dozens of reasons make me abandon it. And the image of this man keeps coming to my mind while listening to Mozart’s Requiem. Seneca, Socrates and many others whose unjust end is obvious to my eyes do not inspire a similar feeling. It is Pedro II, and it has to be him for some reason. I do not know what to say…

In This Age Where There Are More Voices Than Ears…

In this age where there are more voices than ears, more books than readers, and more ease than willingness to learn, it is unlikely that a true intellectual authority will rise up and achieve the prestige of a Voltaire, a Goethe, or a Walter Scott. The attention he would garner for himself would at most be fleeting, and he would therefore hardly enjoy the solid and lasting recognition that great intellectuals have enjoyed in other times. This shows but one characteristic of this age of diffuse and uninterrupted bombarded attention. It is to be feared what can come of an age not only lacking true authorities, but guided by false ones; but, in any case, what one must conclude is that, to the intellectual, everything has become considerably better.

It Is Curious to Note That Many Great Artists…

It is curious to note that many great artists, especially in the 19th and 20th centuries, have had personal relationships with each other. Curious because, something that should configure normality, seems the exception. Previous centuries, in which distances seemed greater, saw themselves more or less dependent on a whim of fate to concentrate superior spirits in certain locations, as has marvelously occurred a few times in history. But still, something more is needed for a friendship to be established. And both whimsy and this something more seem to have abounded in the 19th and 20th centuries, when there were so many great names who knew each other, who were truly friends. I cannot notice it, without feeling sincere glee for all of them.