Over the course of a lifetime, one only experiences a sense of progress through beginnings and endpoints. Without them, one feels a sense of stagnation that, being unnatural, causes a growing discomfort; which, even when masked, tends to intensify until it erupts when least expected—and then there is no way to recover the time that has been lost. That is why it is essential to set them regularly as milestones marking progress. This is how one truly evolves: by maintaining the initiative for new beginnings and the maturity to realize that something has already fulfilled its purpose.
A Decade Is Usually Enough to Transform…
A decade is usually enough to transform a beginner into an expert. But what is more striking than the knowledge acquired in a discipline or profession is the obvious change that study tends to bring about in one’s surroundings. So much changes! Ten years later, the beginner has become a different person; physically, he is someone else, and it is sometimes difficult to connect the new expert with the person he once was. Someone who did not know him will no longer find those traits that led to his current state. And someone who knew him before, even if they try, even if they force it, even if they refuse to accept the change, will likely fail to strike old chords, and will end up realizing that they—thank God!—will never vibrate again.
Witnessing Even a Single One of These Moments…
Witnessing even a single one of these moments of “meaningful coincidences” or “synchronicity,” to use Jung’s terminology, more than justifies the study of esotericism as a whole, from the most obscure theories to the most exotic systems of divination. In these moments, one realizes just how inadequate, how foolish this modern scientistic conception is, one that relies on an authority ridiculed by the tremendous, unquestionable, and unforgettable violence of certain experiences. To witness it just once, and it becomes difficult to take any interest in anything “scientific”—the sacredness of the adjective crumbles. So, the real problem: immersing oneself in what is the most prolific territory of charlatans. But there is no way out: one must listen to them, perhaps be deceived, and discover, in the end, what good could be gleaned from it.
Some Might Say There Is No Walt Whitman…
Some might say there is no Walt Whitman, no Eliot; however, what is most evident in Brazilian poetry is that the good poets number in the dozens, and that is no small thing. Poets such as Maranhão Sobrinho, Junqueira Freire, Raul de Leoni, José Albano, and Venceslau de Queirós are rarely even mentioned in anthologies and compendiums. The tradition, for its part, has already boasted several centuries of consistency and solidity. And even though, after a superficial analysis of new and old poets, of hackneyed or imported themes, one might give in to the impulse to disparage the whole, a deeper study leaves no doubt as to the tremendous folly of doing so. Brazilian poetry is excellent; and nothing more needs to be said.