Luciano Duarte | Literature and philosophy

Spreadsheets, Spreadsheets…

It amazes me that the world has existed for so long without control spreadsheets. Sometimes I refuse to believe it, but backwards from the 1980s — at least — people lived without spreadsheets. My brain locks up: how? Impossible! And I convince myself that by deleting my spreadsheets, my home would immediately catch fire. There is no routine task that does not require a spreadsheet: from shopping at the supermarket to accompanying readings. Controlling the weight, the level of body fat is very important. The movies watched, the monthly cash flow, the portfolio of assets, the hours in language study, the special alcoholic beverages consumed over the years, the planning of daily physical exercises… all these are mandatory spreadsheets, essential to life. There are others, several others. And I am amazed at this: how to write a book without a spreadsheet? If I was to prepare a guide detailing the writing process, the first and obligatory step would be: create a companion spreadsheet, list the planning of the chapters, define their average length, and only then think about what to write. I would even say that, in many cases, the spreadsheet is previous to the idea or, still, the idea is only possible with the spreadsheet. Strange world…

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To Be Poor or to Be a Slave?

This is a perverse question that is mandatory for all those who, born in a modest cradle, find their interests inclined to something unpopular. I ask: is it possible for an intelligence to be interested in something popular? Perhaps, though unusual. For the question remains vibrant, imposing: to be poor or to be a slave? I can only interpret it as a confrontation between freedom and desire: to answer it is to decide between independence or submission. However, good news: opening the doors to poverty does not necessarily mean that it will stay.

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Desire: the Cancer of the Human Psyche

It is possible to find rational justifications for denying the solutions proposed by the Stoics, the Buddhists, Schopenhauer and many others. But there is a universal truth, present also in Christian philosophy, concerning desire: it is the plague, the cancer of the human psyche, the endless source of frustrations. And if, after careful psychological analysis, we decide to pluck it out at its root, plucking each of our hopes with a hoe, we get rid of an immense, malignant and harmful burden. The problem is that the human being lives on dreams, supports reality in the hope of a better future. To exterminate it, therefore, is to make life lose its brightness, is to give line to indifference, is to deny nature itself, is self-mutilation. Well, that seems to be the way to peace.

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The “Masterpieces of Genre Fiction”

Someone asks me what I think of the “masterpieces of genre fiction”. Strange question. I have never considered masterpieces from such a perspective. I mean: a masterpiece is so — or not — independent of its literary genre. But the question opens the door to an interesting reflection. What has been conventionally called “genre fiction” does not seem to have won the respect of critics. But criticism is usually unfair with everything new. Literature, however, is always on the move — and worse for the critics who do not follow it. On the other hand, the popularization of “genre fiction” owes much to the fact that these works, in general, are written with the reader in mind. Writing with the reader in mind is an extremely effective method of producing poor work. But how garbage has always been successful among the public! Therefore, as far as “genre fiction” is concerned, caution is needed. Under no circumstances does a literary genre impose limits on the quality of an artistic work, so several works of “genre fiction” will overcome the barrier of time and become classics — some, in fact, have already done so… However, the artists of this literary genre will walk for a long time on a narrow line: loved by the public, despised by the critics, having to deal with the tyranny of success that can, in fact, destroy their artistic quality. It is necessary to have the courage to place art as queen and to be indifferent to the public’s desires…

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