Arquivo de behavior | Page 54 of 60

Few Defects Make a Worse Impression Than the Inclination to Retreat

Few defects make a worse impression than the inclination to retreat or, if you like, misanthropy. However, I do not know the answer: how to know human nature and not be a misanthropist? How not to let our psychology contaminate to the point of repelling any relationship of forced intimacy? How not to hate the theatre of convenience? I study and find the obvious: the great artists shared this quality. And they were mostly hated when not ignored in life. History sometimes deludes appearing to have made some changes in the human psyche. The reactions to external stimuli, the dynamics of personal relationships, the foundation of life together have changed only in detail. The general concept has always repulsed those who hate social life. Not only has repulsed him but has also persecuted him to reform him: the extinction of the individual has always been the task of the collective, society has always arrogated to itself the right to demand that all play roles. That is why it is funny to note how misanthropy, the natural path of an observer of man, tends to worsen to infinity: the search for retreat is necessarily accompanied by persecution.

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The Clash Between Vanity and Conscience

Some natures impress by the complete absence of the clash between vanity and conscience. Perhaps by the very weakness of conscience, which justifies seeing it ignored by the most popular currents of psychology. In some, it seems simply that it does not manifest. But it is incredible to think of someone who, not once in his life, prays for the pettiness of his own conduct, for the motivators of his own “will”. To do so and not proceed with condemnation would be understandable, but the fact is that, in most people, there is not the slightest trace of conflict.

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An Unsuitable Animal [2]

Forced to wait in a line, with nothing to read, I enjoy the moment in a fun activity: trying to list the things I hate most. Here we go: (1) dissimulation, (2) bureaucracy, (3) demagoguery, (4) groups of people, (5) marketing, (6) expansiveness, (7) noise of human voices, (8) futile conversation… I list and have an idea. The smile is immediate. Again, I perceive myself as an unsuitable animal. I consider, perhaps, that my existence is an evolutionist enigma. I have countless contrary manifestations to the environment, so I risk my nature to be the portrait of maladjustment. In me, the intro and the extra are related in hostility, they repel each other without any possible conciliation. I deliberately refuse to integrate the medium, even if I fail and it unbearably persecutes me. I remember the words of Thoreau: “Wherever a man goes, men will pursue and paw him with their dirty institutions, and, if they can, constrain him to belong to their desperate odd-fellow society”. Oh, annoying life! Unbearable conventions! Stupid talk!… Goodbye, note, even you cause me anger.

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An Unsuitable Animal

Once every two years, I am forced by the Brazilian State to leave my home and go to a polling station. The State, authoritarian, forces me under the threat of complicating my life if I do not comply with the obligation I contracted without ever having signed a consent form. That is why, religiously, once every two years I am, on foot, going to a place I do not want, to face a long queue that displeases me and to type numbers that I do not like in an electronic ballot box. This is how I proceed from the age of majority. Well. Given the pretext, the joke: I noticed, in this 2020, that I have never voted for a candidate who has won, for any position, be it municipal or federal: I always choose who loses. I think and automatically the smile sprouts on my face. I rejoice every time I see evidence that I am not like other people. So I have further confirmation of what I already know: I am an unsuitable animal, I have no resemblance of ideas, temperament, or anything else to the people around me. And if the future of Brazil depends on me waking up on a Sunday, facing a queue and I have the right to choose (which, of course, I do not have, despite appearances), the country is chipped…

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