At least one lesson can be learned from skeptics: clinging passionately to a belief is almost always foolish; the best thing is always serenity, in the face of doubts and certainties. To cling is often to close oneself off, adding to the belief a feeling that time amplifies, to the point where, at the slightest setback, a violent reaction is displayed. At the end, not knowledge, even if it is present, but only emotion manifests itself.
Tag: behavior
The Brazilian Today Grows Up…
The Brazilian today grows up without a shared cultural environment. He grows up not knowing, for example, what literature is. And if, by chance, he discovers it, if a miracle awakens his curiosity about it and he looks for the place where the great authors write, where the great critics are presenting and criticizing literary works, disseminating the best that has been written and is being written, he does not find it, because that place does not exist. What is good are yellowed and faded pages that can be bought second-hand. And it is very curious to note that today, even what is written about literature is not written, but talked about: the format of any literary criticism that remains, compelled by the audience, is video. Books and letters have become unpalatable. This staggering cultural failure, the cause of an even greater human failure, would never occur in a country that had at least one educated elite, because if it were truly educated, it would take it upon itself to do something for culture, to do something for the country. But no, no… the best thing now is not to instigate it at all, because the possible patron is an already existing and disgracefully distorted patron.
To Specialize in Everyday Life…
To specialize in everyday life is to specialize in having an immediate opinion about everything, either ill-formed or poorly meditated on. In a very short time, the brain gets used to the poverty of criteria and even convinces itself that meditation is unnecessary, because it cannot add anything. Of course, often one has an accurate intuition of the facts, an intuition that no amount of meditation can replace. But when it comes to everyday life, what is presented as a “fact” is almost always a falsification of a fact or, at most, the fact itself unrecognizable because covered by a deceitful package designed to misrepresent it. As such, and as it is often tedious and difficult to remove the wrapping, the best thing to do, unless a sense of duty manifests itself, is to let it go.
A Genuinely Brazilian Quality
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.