Keep walking

At your left as you ladies and gentlemen can see, we have a way where the dreams come true. And at your right, we have the sameness and the traditional boring things.

The famous roasting and dirty road of Guinea-Bissau, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is divided into two ways. You can not stop walking, as if a Johnnie Walker bottle orders: “keep walking!” Two ways to be follow. Make your choice.

At your left, as you ladies and gentlemen can see, we have a way where the dreams come true. It is where the other half of your orange can be found, where you can find what you have lost, it is where you can have everything you like in the place you always wished to... And at your right, we have the sameness and the traditional boring things.

You have chosen left...

Following the left way, you was going up higher and higher. You found shelter there, you started having hope again, started to dream again there, started to smiling again there. Through your veins was flowing the best feeling you can ever have.. Just some meters and you would be at the top of Everest mountain, or some degrees of the stairs that drives you to the starts. You would...

Suddenly everything got dark, you did no have time to understand anything. A motorcycle came flying and hit you on purpose, making you hit your face on the road and falling senseless.

Darkness.

The sky without the Moon and the starts. The blood flowing on the road this time. Through your veins, where once was flowing the best feeling of the world, now was flowing the worst. The one who ran over you was a dreams and hopes thief that uses to drive your victims to the top of the Everest mountain to throw them from there directly to Mariana Trench. From heaven to the hell. Not happy, he stole the victim’s heart, leaving a big hole inside her.

Recover, can you?

The victim tries to get rid of the trench she is. Too much pressure for her head that can not see the sunlight and feel the heat of the Sun. Questions without answers and the desperation to come back to the surface once more. Who is going to help you?

There is the fear, the trauma, the sequel, the scars, the emptiness.

While the victim suffers by herself flailing in the sea, the thief drinks French red wine in a fancy French restaurant. While the victim feels cold, the thief is being warm by the hopes and dreams he stole. While the scar does not close and the pain does not go away, the thief is feeling good to attack another one. The thief does not suffer, does not feel, does not listen, does not want a feedback, he ignores the pain he caused. He does not feel remorse and does not apologize.

The victim is emerging to the surface to come back the roasting and dirty road of Guinea-Bissau. It is the destiny. You can not stop it.

Keep walking!

Ages

You finally became an independent person. You have money to spend in whatever you wish. But what is the price you are paying for this?

There was time, a lot of time. So many years to be lived. There was plenty of time to visit friends, to swap stickers, to play barefoot in the dirty street. Riding the bicicle, kicking the ball and breaking the window of the angry neighbour. There was not big worries, responsabilities and self-pressure.

The world was calm and beautiful. The tears were real and the smile too. The friendship was sincere and when the group of friends used to meet, they used to laugh at anything. Everything was funny. However, there was no independence and everything was all up to our mothers: the money to buy candies, going to the movies, the soccer ball, the toys, the permission to stay out of home until late. No independence and no money.

And time started to fly. Monday has just begun and the following day is already Friday. Time flies and does not last. The 24 hours day is summarized in 6, 4 hours or even less. You do not have time to talk to your friends anymore. Your friends also do not have time for you because now they work. You change, your friends change, they date, they be off and when you meet them, you are no longer friends. You are just acquainted people and your conversation stays focused on “hello, how is your family”?

Why do not you try to make some new friends? Oh, now sincere frienships are rare. Beauty and personal and professional success become prerequisites for this. Your friend tricks you and became your supervisor because he stole your ideas. You find out that your best friend cheated you with your husband. Or perhaps another friend of yours just disappears because he is dating and his girlfriend wants him to live just for her.

That is adult life, my friend. Feel ridiculous whenever you wish playing with your friends. Feel ridiculous whenever you miss espontaneous and true friendships. Feel ridiculous whenever you feel like running away to anywhere. That is adult life, hold on!

Wake up early, have lunch, laugh at your boss’ stupid joke, tolerate your coworker who complains about everybody and everything all the time, come back home in the crowed subway, arrive home very tired, cook the dinner, watch some TV, take a shower and sleep because in the following day we are going to have more of the same routine. And when the weekend arrives, you will have to drink alcohol to have fun in places you are just a good behind the storefront.

There is a lifestyle to be followed. Force yourself to be in and pretend you enjoy it. Censor your childhood desires and the unarchived dreams. They will say you are out of your mind. Time is short. Now your mother is your job. Your family are your coworkers that only talk about their families, home activites and sex. Friends are gone and each one of them chose different ways. Your friend is the television. And besides your job is your mean of living, is also your getaway from the reality. Because here we live to work for us and for people who can enjoy life, that is nothing but something that happens while others are having fun.

Out of the water

I am like those fishes that swim against the current. I have my own ideas and my particular way of thinking, behaving and living.

I break the rules and prejudices. No, I am not a rebel. I just can not enjoy what they impose as “funny” or “boring” so, I am a fish out of the water.

When people show their hot bodies at the beach and I show all the whiteness of my less developed muscles, I am a fish out of the water.

When people tell the places they have visited around the world and I only have been 40km away, I am a fish out of the water.

When people have a social life and have somewhere to go and to do every weekend and my few friends are away or busy, I am a fish out of the water.

When people can buy expensive things, spend a huge sum of money in whatever they want and I suffer a lot when I have to buy a simple t-shirt, I am a fish out of the water.

When people talk about having kids and a family and I can not have it or prefer to be single, when people eat with a fork and I eat with a spoon, I am a fish out of the water.

When everybody make fun of other’s tragedies or supposed choices they have made and I do not think it is funny and fair and I have to realize that this is real and we have such a disgusting society, I am a fish out of the water.

And when people can not think on their own, when the ignorance is the tendency of this summer that never ends, when people do not have a thinking brain inside their heads and I can think on my own and have a thinking brain, I am a fish out of the water.

And fishes out of the water feel weird and strange because they are different compared to the other fishes and they know only a handful of fishes that can really understand them. Sometimes, they would like to be like the others and feel they do not have a problem. But unfortunately they ca not fool themselves so they feel they are fishes out of the water.

World peace

The Miss Universe judge asked Miss USA what was her biggest dream. She answered: the world peace.

Perhaps it was just a cliché answer for her to be considered a kind human being and win the Miss Universe contest. Perhaps it was really a sincere wish of someone who believes that someday this dream may come true, even though she knew it was humanly impossible. Who will ever know? Will we be alive when the world peace reign on the Earth?

It is funny that some words have nothing to do with their root, right? For example: humanity has synonyms like kindness and benevolence. Ok, as if the humans were naturally kind and benevolent.

Human beings are magnificent creatures. Unlike other animals, they do not need to hunt and use their fingernails for this purpose; they developed a high level of intelligence that made possible to control their animal instincts. Perhaps because of this, it sounds offensive to call humans as animals.

Humans kill other animals to eat them. Vegetarians repudiate such act. Humans kill themselves not in order to eat them, even though there are rare cases of canibalism. But humans kill for power, for pleasure, for wealthy, for fun or to maintain their “honor”.

Humans destroy themselves and the nature. The Earth have already shown the reflexions of the human intervention on it and shows its angry with floods, droughts, erosions that culminate in the loss of human and wild lives.

The planet is already fed up. Humans are so arrogant that they say they believe in a God that created a world for them to destroy freely all He built. They are so arrogant that they think they can sell vacancies in the heaven after their pathetic predictions about the end of the world.

But it was not necessary a meteor to collide against the Earth raising a cloud of dust that blocks the sunlight and kills the humankind with a new glacial age. We will still have dogs, cats, flowers, trees, butterflies, all the animals, all the insects and all the plants to enjoy one more sunny day.

The dogs howl to the moonlight. They miss a friend. The cockroaches dance samba on the wreckages. They will have organic material to eat for decades. The end of the world had come... for the human beings. The Earth is still intact trying, by it own, rebuild itself after all the destruction humankind have caused.

The world peace had come. The world had reached the fine line of the unbearable. Humans destroyed them by themselves with their chemical and biological weapons. No way humanity was a synonym of kindness and benevolence.

The last men the remained on the Earth were fighting among them for the right of becoming the King of the World and enjoy the little water and food that had lasted. So, one of them took a gun and shot all the others that had remained alive. He was the only one man on the Earth. There were nobody to serve him, to admire him, to feed him. He went crazy due to the starvation and due to the disturbing loneliness. Then, he did the last discharge of a gun that the Earth could ever hear. He shot his own head. The last man on the Earth had died.

Finally the world peace was achieved when all the humans were died.

At my feet

Today I want to play and you will be my toy. Giving my underhand speech and your neediness, I will have you at my feet.

I want a spare person. I want to have someone available when my friends turn me back on and I feel alone. I want someone available when I need a trophy. I want someone available for me to humiliate and to humiliate oneself for myself showing that I am the hotter one and that I am not the one who needs somebody for me, but you that are lonely.

I have chosen you to be my temporary arrangement so, be proud of yourself. You will know the prince charming you thought it would not exist. I will relieve that torn heart and you will feel once again the things you thought they were limited to your imagination, to your adolescence or to the romantic movies.

I have been playing this game for a long time and then I know all the tricks I have to set to turn you emotionally dependent of me. I will be a poet. I will write beautiful and extremely sickly sweet things. We will have lots of things in common: the romantism, the pleasure by reading, the city we live in, the style of job, the days-off.

And when you are captured in trap, I will control you through your feelings for me and I will have a lot of fun. We will plan something that will never happen, I will become a cold and far person that will leave you by yourself in the room waiting for me untill so late for nothing. And this will be my patience game that will last for days.

It is nothing personal, nothing against you. I just had some little problems but let me know that all the lies I told you are true and I do love you and you were the most fascinating person I have met in the previous years.

Today I woke up feeling I little bit hypocrite. I will say that those things I am looking for are those the world ignores. I will criticise the shallowness and I do not want to be seen as a piece of meat. While you are waiting for me at the room one more time, I will enjoy life and have some fun with the wrong ones while I do not find the right one. I will use, abuse, be used and be abused. My démodé speech against shallowness will be forgotten.

And coldly I will teel you all the details of the much I had fun and the many people kissed last night. The tears that stream down your face will not touch me. I do not have a heart, I do not have feelings to understand. I do not care if you are going away. I am hot, I am gorgeous, I am absolute and you only have this pure and sincere heart that explains your neediness.

I will never assume my mistakes. I will never feel remorse for the bad I have done. I will never apologize. You are the only one wrong person. Do not doubt me never, ever! I am a person who lies, who says what I do not feel, I am not transparent but, above all these thing, I am innocent.

Continue being my temporary arrangement. I need a trophy to show off the world when I am feeling alone. I need a temporary arrangement to remind me that I will always have someone begging and humiliating oneself for my love. I need you to be used in my plan of causing jealousy in someone else when it is necessary. I need someone to hurt, to tell my non-sexual sexual adventures.

I need someone to keep my ego in the high levels. Keep your hope alive but keep in mind that you will never be as good as I want you to be to me.

The more I make you cry, the hotter I feel.

Today I woke up feeling a little bit false, a little bit cold and a little bit cruel. Io sonno un poeta o sonno un imbecile? It does not matter anymore. Today I am feeling so well...

A people who fights for justice

Every day, more and more Brazilian citizens have access to the internet. No more Globo Broadcast’s partial information monopoly! Now we are free to look for the truth.

CNN, BBC, Reuters, Wikipedia, blogs... Information is on the fingertips of any Brazilian citizen who wants to research the truth of the things over the internet. We have the incredible opportunity to protest and organize flash mobs on social websites such as Orkut and Twitter. Everybody supporting a better and fairer Brazil.

- Look at it! Globo is cheating in the Head of Household Competition! Luizão continued putting the sandals into the basket case after the time was over! What an injustice! I’ll record the Competition scenes, I’ll edit a video and I’ll post it on YouTube and spread it on Twitter.

- Man, do you remember that eviction with more than 150 millions of votes? It was a big lie! All the polls created by UOL, BOL, IG used to show that Patricia was supposed to be evicted with more than 75% of the votes. How can be explained the eviction of Denise with 62%? It’s very strange, isn’t it?

- Oh my God! Karolaynne shouldn’t have been chosen to represent the Pará State. C’mon, we don’t deserve a naughty and opportunist representant like her. Last week she only talked bad things about Wandersson and now she is talking to him as though nothing have happened just because he won the Head of Household Competition. I’m really ashamed for her living here.

- I can’t believe Marcelo Dourado won BBB10. Brazil don’t deserve to be represented by a rude, homophobic, violent and disturbed man like him.

- Let’s vote a lot to evict the Lia, The Crier! #outlia

- I can’t believe Samir was evicted from Colírios Capricho! What a cheat! He was the most gorgeous of all the boys. The most perfect one.

- What? Luan Santana on the top of Twitter’s Trending Topics Worldwide? I won’t allow it to be on the top any longer! I’ll tweet “Pedro Gabriel Lanza Reis” and “#Brazil♥Restart”. *-*

- WHAT DO YOU LIKE, FELIPE NETO?

- “You can shoot people and blow things up and they say, ‘Thank you! Take a monkey home with you!’”

- SHUT UP STALLONE!

- Restart Family is no longer good because I arrived here at 8am and they didn’t come to speak with us. No, I won’t forgive them, I’ll swear them today on Twitter, a lot... Indeed...

[...]

While we, the Brazilian people, use the internet to denounce all the scandals of Big Brother Brazil and its manipulated results, or to swear too much on Twitter, corruption happens freely in Brasília. A protest on the top of the Trending Topics does not depose no one from power, does not make justice to happen and does not make your life better.

Big Brother Brazil 8: when an injustice happens, Pedro Bial, the TV hoster, comes to save the day.

Cultural references (download).

Almost there

Oh, my dreams are just in front of my eyes now. They are so real that I almost can touch them. I am reaching the last degree... Then my dreams turn out to be smoke and I fall down.

Dreams are like a big stairway that its bottom is on the Earth and its top is in the stars. That is a stairway full of obstacles and broken degrees. The higher you are, the biggest the falling. Are you one of those dreamers who intends to touch the stars in the sky? Yes, I am.

After so many fights, dreams, persevere and work hard, here I am, on the top of the stairway. You may say I am already a winner because I have already reached the clouds and I have gone further. Oh, my dreams are just in front of me now. They are so real that I almost can touch them. I just need to make a move, I am reaching the last degree... My hands are about to connect the man to his dream. Then, all of a sudden, everything disappears. My dreams turn out out be smoke, the stairs turn out to be smoke and I fall down. I am falling, falling down. Stars fading away.

To the winner, the roses, the glory, the recognization and those award that worths more than money: the feeling of you are a winner.To the loser, the lions that devours his head and the expectators go crazy. Perhaps you had better be the 3rd place. You end up winning.

You almost succeed. Is there a feeling that is worse then this? Almost... If it had not been that mistake, I would have won. We are raised to become winners, not losers. The winner is worshipped, recognized and to the loser, remains the shadow and the “almost” feeling.

I am proud of everything I have accomplished, of the barriers I have overcome, but I have not wanted to feel this bitter flavour on my mouth. What makes me frustrated is not the loss itself, but the fact that this opportunity will not appear so soon and even the way I was dreaming of. I have done my best, but it have not been good enough.

My body finally hits the ground and stars disappear to be replaced by a silver sky. The world around me enjoy to see I am a loser just like them.

I almost succeed, I could had been succeed... Well, worse than the feeling of “I could have been” is the feeling of “I have not even tried”. I reached the clouds and this is something to be proud of. And it is necessary too many courage to go upstairs in a stair that you know it can disappears anytime...

Dreaming is not for the weak ones.

A hot body but nothing else

And you sought love in the desire and then he said he loves you and wants you to go to the end of the line.

I want to be loved. I want the world to admire all my beauty, my curves. I want to hear the whistles when I pass by a under construction building. I want to become the new desire, a reason of a car crash.

In order to become a desire, you must shut up your mouth and work out. Work out a lot! I must use short and tight clothes to show off your body. I must know how to bend your body in a way your ass and breasts can be properly admired. You must know how to drink through a straw in the sexiest and provocative way. You must know how to drive a man crazy and on fire.

Desire attracted others desire objects, politicians, soccer players, money, dirty sex, naughty looks, low-quality TV shows, sex magazines.

However, the desire did not attract respect, attention, affection, friendship without sexual intentions, admiration and the so sought love. A hot body only aroused the desire of sex on others, leaving a sensation of abandonment, loneliness and emptiness.

Come on desire, do not be a fool waiting for an everlasting love. You demand too much while you have too little to offer besides your own body. You seek for love in the wrong places. How do you expect to be loved if you do not even love yourself?

Watermelon woman and her future...

A right, not a favor

In a land of impolite people, any gesture of politeness causes surprise on people. Respecting the laws for many is not something they must do... but big a favor...

Brazil is a corrupt nation! What a big new... When we talk about corruption, we immediately think of our politicians. People complain and get scandalized as though they were an example of honesty... When a Brazilian citizen behaves honestly, he thinks he should be thanked for it... or he thinks he should receive a graft.

An elderly woman enters into the bus and the seat provided for elderly people is occupied by teenagers. She needs to say “please, may I sit here?”. They leave the seat and she thanks.

The parking lot vacancy for handicap people is occupied. A responsible person for that place calls the owner of the car and he comes walking with their own legs to go there and take out the car. He does it and ignores the “thank you”.

The pregnant woman wants to be served in the preferential checkout and the men (that do not have uterus) allow her to “jump the row” but they show disagreement in the way they look at her.

The boss says his employees should have work harder because his company does not delays the pay day.

The cops are very proud of hunting the gangster, even though an 8-year-old boy has been shot in his head.

You do not need to feel you are morally obligated to thank, not alone to feel guilty if you do not do it. They did not do a favor for anyone. They have just done what they were supposed to do.

In a land of impolite people, any gesture of politeness causes surprise on people. In a land where taking advantage of everybody and everything means “to be smart” and to be honest means “to be fool”, we take pity on the “fools” that respect our rights and we want to retribute the “kindness” because we do not want to behave as though we were not thankful.

Unfortunately, we live in a world where people need to fight for the justice to criminalize acts of discrimination. Does anyone know how to put into practice the meaning of respect without expecting the law to force us to respect people?

The hardest revolution

The most difficult thing is not to start a revolution. The most difficult thing is to revolutionize people’s mind. It is put into their heads that they have and they are the power.

Hello, let’s start a revolution? Let set us free from the chains of opression and fight for rights in order for us to have a fairer society. Think of a problem that affects a huge number of people and then think in how we can start it. Let’s revolutionize!

What about a world without wars? Let’s show to the Lord of the War all the horror of the battlefields: multilations, destructions, people’s death, financial crisis. Let’s forget that there are no war without soldiers. Let’s revolutionize and show them they are risking their own lives to defend the interests of a little number of powerful people?

What about a safer traffic? Let’s complain about the lack of signs, about the terrible roads conditions. But let’s forget about alcohol that not only kills due to drunk drivers, as it also destroys families.

What about the youth without drugs? Let’s increase the number of cops in order to fight against the drugs traffic and open more centers of rehab. But let’s forget about the parents that do not talk to their kids and do not care about their emotional problems.

What about fight for more labor rights? Let’s demand our politicians and our labor syndicate the creation of laws in order to avoid exploration of poor people at work. But let’s forget that a company without workers does not produce and it is not profitable.

What about a country without corrupt politicians? Let’s demand the approvation of laws that do not allow politicians involved in corruption scadals to be elected again. But let’s forget that the ones who elect them is the people and that people are not honest as well.

The most difficult thing is not start the revolution itself. The hardest thing is to revolutionize people’s mind and put into their heads that they have the power of changing but, first of all, they need to change their minds. Besides, the revolution it is not made for a single person, it needs the people to gather for same goal.

Human being is proud of being a rational animal, but is so slave of their instincts, slave of their selfish desires and ends up killing, dying or living in the same spiritual misery because they have a big difficulty to put into practice things that are extremely simple.

All of us know that the condom prevents AIDS and non-desired pregancy, but it is no taken in consideration when people are slaves of their libido. All of us know that driving drunk is one of the main causes of car crashes, but a lot of people still think that they can drive when they barely know what they have done 2 minutes ago. All of us know that the polution and that the destruction of the natural resources are destroying the planet, but lots of people still waste water and throw garbage in anywhere and everywhere.

Centuries have passed but the mind of the human being developed too little. While a big number of people do not have good sense, all of us will suffer the consequences of the ignorance of the 21st century Neanderthal Man.

The journey

In a sea that Google Earth can not localize there is a small island with a whopping fortress built on it.

An island in the Lonelyness sea. An almost uninhabited place if it had not been for a single person that lived there all alone, the Queen Reason. She had only one concern: to protect her son, Prince Heart.

She had already seen all the horror of the world beyond that imaginary ocean and she decided to run away to the more isolated place she could find out. She moved to this island, she built that fortress and she put her heart in the softest cushion, covering and isolating him inside a glass box protected by lasers and with the temperature controlled. He was there, warm and secure, the biggest desire of the Queen Reason.

As time went by, Prince Heart felt alone. He was feeling so alone that he felt sad many times. Queen Reason lived a dilemma: the unhappy protection or the dangerous seek for happiness?

Prince Heart was extremely persuasive. He could make his mother to cede to the most absurd and dangerous requests of him. And he had won once again. Now, he was free of his mother protection, he left his home and through the seas, he sailed.

And then Prince Heart saw terrible things. Broken and full of scars hearts have hunted him like vampires wanting to suck human blood and died-alive bodies wanting to eat human meat. And they have hurt him in the most painful ways. The heartache was much more intense than physical ache. Then he could understand why there was too much protection around him before he left his home: he was the more precious treasure of Queen Reason.

Prince Heart was now living his mother’s same dilemma. Should I live isolated (but safe) inside the protection of the Queen Reason even though it makes me unhappy? Or should I take the risk of being totally destroyed during my journey of seeking for a heart that will protect me and make me happy at the same time?

[I want to come back home]

How special are you

What makes you a special person? What do you sow and what do you pick?

How special are you? That is the question I make for you, dear reader, and I would like you to think about it during some daydreaming moment of your day, like while having lunch by yourself, for example.

When we want someone to show some interest on us, we sometimes try to show them how special we are and we invite them to come to our world. Oh, we are so fool...

It is very hard, sometimes it is almost an impossible mission, to try to convince people we are special. It does not work trying to impose them this. Everyone discovers that by oneself and sometimes it takes weeks, months or even years.

We raise the garden, we water the flowers and we wait for the butterflies to come to us. If the one who you are interested did not show any interest for you and did not want to discover how can you be special, it is a problem of his/her. It is a natural filter.

Only the people that sincerely love us will join our world without saying “excuse me”. They will open the refrigerator, they will take a beer can and they will turn on the TV to watch the soccer game with their feet upon the couch. And as the time goes by they will know a lot about us, our weirdest manias and the way we behave when we face different places and situations.

If somebody knows you prefer use a spoon to have your meals, if somebody knows your favorite soccer team is Aston Villa, if somebody knows you enjoy writing on misty glasses, if somebody knows you have a blog that is read by a little number of people, if they know your dreams and your fears and what makes you happy, it is a sign that you are special for this one.

What makes you a special person? What do you sow and what do you pick?

Ropes and people

Somebody has told me that there is a pot of gold in the end of the rainbow that can be found in a familiar place.

Welcome back to the hot and dirty road of Guinea-Bissau where hearts are dragged. Once again we are there, walking without stopping, taking right and wrong ways. Destination: happiness.

Throughout our journey, we will find lots of people willing to help us (or not) to take the right direction. They will join us. To them, we will be tied by an invisible rope on our feet.

Some people will walk in the same rate than ours. If we are tired or down, they will pull us ahead and will show us the way for us to take. They will become our friends and they will be my our side either we take different ways or until the road is over.

A lot of people will become a dead weight for us to carry. They will not help us when we need, they will not pull us through, but a humanity feeling inside our hearts will morally obligate us to carry them. They are unusual people we carry and make us tired. Why do not we get rid of who does not bring us anything good?

And there will be those crazy people that will try to pull us back. They will pull us to the bottom of the well they live in with all their might. They can not face themselves behind us or see us too close to the pot of gold.

Inside our pockets there is a sword we can use to cut the ropes. The decision of going ahead leaving behind everyone who does not allow you to be happy is yours.

No more caring with about other’s problems if they do not help themselves. No more caring about people who does not care about us. Someday they will forget us.

Characters

Imagine that you can reinvent yourself. Imagine that you can achieve perfection. It is not a dream, it is reality! It is not wizardry, it is technology!

Close you eyes and look to yourself. What do you like and dislike about you the most? What do other people like and dislike about you the most? What makes you special and what makes you boring? Have you already though? Well, it does not matter. We are not here to think. Thinking is a boring people’s thing. We are here to follow a scrip that will drive us to success!

So now we can be the last cookie of the package. Now we can be the cold Coca-Cola in the desert. See yourself as the king or queen of the World, very powerful in your throne with your followers worshiping you. Is it mpossible? No, no, it is not impossible. Yes, we can!

How am I? I have 1,024 characters available to convince people that I am interesting.

Time goes by... who am I? “I am a person who...” backspace... “no, no, no, it is kind of foolishness writing this”... In the end, it is very hard for you to tell who you are in 1,024 characters. Is it too little to show to people the person I am? Is it enough to tell the world how special I am? Is it able to describe me in a faithfully way?

Hey, wake up! Who is interested in the truth? In a world where people are always in a hurry, who is going to be the detective who will spend his time searching the true? Searching the true is exhausting so I will believe in your lies - if they are cool, of course.

Say you are the one people that want you to be. Never reveal your fears, specially because you do not have fears. You are an ocean of courage and self-confidence. Write that you are a person who lives intensely all the days as if they were your last days. Say you love things you do not love, but love because loving is fashion this seasom.

“But this is not me, Peterson!” Remind yourself that you do not have an appointment with the truth but in being orgastic!

You not only are brave, self-confident and fashion. You also is cult. Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Freud... You have never read nothing written by one of them, you do not know where did they come from, what do they wrote about. Anything! You just read over the profiles powerful phrases of them and you decided to use them to emblazon your culture and say to yourself you are powerful.

Who does not loves me is envy of me. I feel sorry for envy people.

And then, as long as you are getting older, you will become the character you created for you. You will always be an exclamation mark (twisted, but still an exclamation mark). People love perfect people and everybody loves an exclamation mark

This is not you and you know but... who matters? Who likes people who has doubts? Who admires imperfections, fears, craziness, failures? Let’s be just one more lie in a world of lies. Let’s pierce our eyes and be happy forever.

Smile and the world will smile with you. Cry and then you will cry alone.

I do not want to be a character, I want to be a real person. I do not want to pretend I am a 23 years old ancient wise man. I want my doubts, I want to eat the dessert slowly.

Let’s be a legitimate question mark instead of being a twisted exclamation mark.

In the umbra

We were born from the top of a circle and the destiny wanted us to be part of the same group. I am the Earth and you are the Sun.

In an universe full of doubts, we were there, totally lost, trying to find the sense of something. In this moment, you started to shine and to attract those planets and astronomical objects wandering through the Space.

Sun, the center of the universe. Everydoby circling you, all of them were fascinated by your bright, light, heat.

Mercury and Venus were the first and the second ones that tried to be yours, but your extreme heat destroyed any kind of life inside them. Pluto, however, was ignored and sent to live all the cold of its almost absolute zero.

You used to light me in that dark and deathly silence and confusion. You sent me your shine and I reflected it on my rivers and on the top of my snowy mountains. You gave me life and you allowed me to beget life.

But on our way there was a Satellite, there was a Satellite on our way.

The protagonist became a supporting character. It also wanted to feel your bright, your heart, whatever. It was rotating around me if it were your owner and I, a threat. I was afraid of being behind its shadow.

Moon made a point of showing me that it was receiving your light by its phases. It reflected intensively your light during my darkest nights. It pulled my tides with extreme violence, letting me disturbed. Undertow.

Wandering through the space. So the day the Moon put it shadow on me had come. Solar eclipse. Umbra, penumbra. I do not want feel things in a half, I want the intensive ones. Sun, heat me with all your light, with no penumbra if you want to be mine. Moon, freeze me with all the darkness of this Universe, the umbra, if the Sun chooses you.

Planets will align themselves

2012 will come

It shadow on me, the Moon will direct

I will live in the deeper darkness

A meteor will come in the wrong way

and against me, it will crash

My kinds of live, it will mow down

A new glacial age will begin

An unberable pain inside my heart

Stars, they will be witness

of the runner-up's silver tears falling down.

Café

Was it a far away dream? Was it the more intensive sensation he could ever live and that he could never relieved again?

It was an ordinary and cold afternoon. A body of an unknown man appeared lying on the floor. He was cold and he did not make any movement, apparently, he was dead. People in that place, curious, raised the traditional questions: “who is he”, “where did he come from” and “is he alive”?

Another unknown man walked straight to him, taking with him a steaming cup of coffee and milk.

The smoke slid in the air and entered into the fallen man’s nostril, heating that cold body. And that cold body that was hard and without life as if it were a rock, reacted. He had just been born.

— Drink this cup of coffee, my son, — asked the man, his Savior, that have given him a smile and turned around and went away with His mission accomplished.

He did not know anything about himself and his past. He just knew that he wished to drink that cup of coffee, as though it was a surviving instinct ask.

He drank the first sip of coffee. It was the first time he had ever drank coffee and milk in his life. The heat warmed his whole body and he felt full of life. The sweet flavor of the coffee also did not remained only in his stomach but it flowed through his body and reached his mind and heart.

He was a young man that would like to share all his happiness caused by his first sip of coffee. He met people, made friends and enjoyed those happy moments that were lived for the first time since he drank coffee.

Time went by and the cup was getting out of coffee but someone always served him more. Sometimes the cup itself used to fill it up by itself, just like magic. During this time, coffee was changing taste and temperature.

Few people brought hot coffee and milk. Some people only brought black coffee with sugar. A lot of people brought black cold coffee without sugar. It was a bitter coffee, hard to drink.

The man absorbed everything the coffee could give to him. He was a coffee addicted now. His animal instinct already knew that coffee was giving him life and that without it, he might lost it and become a cold rock on the floor once again.

In the begging, coffee was sweet, hot and flavorous. As time passed by him, he had experienced the coldness and the bitterness and they also flowed through his veins, reaching his heart.

More and more coffee. More cold and bitter coffee.

There was not that pleasure in drinking coffee anymore. Was it a far away dream? Was it the more intensive sensation he could ever live and that he could never relieved again?

Sad and frustrated, that man was drinking his coffee as a slave. He knew he could not just give up if he wanted. It was not allowed by him and by others.

One more sip, one more sip, one more cold and bitter sip of coffee. Inside that bitter heart, the feeling of hope remained there reminding him that one day coffee would be sweet and hot again. He already knew that it would not be an everlasting sensation, but he was willing to enjoy it until there would be no coffee, and then he could thank his Savior personally for giving him life.

Fortress

There were raining black clouds over people’s head and it made them feel sad. What does it could mean?

In a parallel world to ours, there is a kingdom called Badland, located between the past and the future. Something weird happens in this very familiar place: the rain is constant and particular.

Right after the born, a black cloud appears over every Badlandish head. The period of the rain and the kind of rain were different to each citizen. Whereas could rain for days over somebody’s head, it could even rain for others. Whereas could rain criticism disapproval over some ones, it could rain gibe laughs over others.

Some people understood the logic of the rains like why it rained was not just water but laughs, criticisms, magazines, crucifixes. The rain represented what was hurting their owners and was destroying their self-esteem.

Over the head of someone who had a beauty complex, it could rain cosmetics, silicones, Men’s Health. Over someone who was afraid of seeing their honor destroyed, it could rain disapproval looks, gossips and the guilty of failing.

In order to reduce this unpleasant quantity of rain, those who discovered the black clouds logic attempt to build their fortress, some of them were efficient and others were not.

There were people that looked at these people and could not see them being caught by the furious rain. They were good actors and actresses. They could be healthy outside but they were hurt inside. They protected them in a stupid way, getting strong with fashion, fake smiles, unreal happiness, cliché philosophies.

They would like to build their fortress that would protect them from the rain of stones, criticisms, laughs caused by those fucking black clouds. If they could build their fortress, maybe the cloud would disappear.

But how people could build their real fortress?

The monkeys

Darwin was right! Men definitely came from monkeys.

Monkeys might belong to different races. They might be white, black, indigenous, mongoloids. These differences work as pretexts for some monkeys believe they are better than the other ones.

Monkeys might have different social status. They might be beggar, poor, rich, millionaire. These differences work as pretexts for some monkeys explore the other ones.

Monkeys might worship different gods and prophets. They might be Christians, Jews, Muslins, Buddhists. These differences work as pretexts for some monkeys attack the other ones.

Monkeys might be different physically. They might be tall, short, fat, thin, gorgeous, ugly. These differences work as pretexts for some monkeys discriminate the other ones.

Monkeys might have different ages and sexualities. They might be men, women, children, straights, homosexuals. These differences work as pretexts for some monkeys believe they deserve a special treatment comparing to the other ones.

Even though they have all these differences, they are all monkeys.

Monkeys are not polite. They scratch their genitals in front of others, they belch, they fart, they speak loud, they interrupt the other monkeys while speaking, they jump the rows, they park on the space designated to elderly and handicap monkeys, they let their cell phones ringing at the movies, they do not respect the crosswalks...

Monkeys are evil. They invent gossips, they spread gossips, they buy gossips, they make evil jokes, they mock the others, they tell lies, they enjoy the other’s tragedies, they want to know who was murdered on the noon news.

Monkeys feed themselves eating trash. They gather in front of the TV to watch urban tragedies, they listen to obscene songs, the wear the fashion tatter clothes and spend their banana-coins to pay and to get more debts in order to impress the monkeykind.

Monkeys are the basis of the pyramid; they are the mass, the population’s majority. Monkeys have the power. Monkeys are the power. They elect the new successful songs and TV programs. They elect the monkey-king who will explore them and have a fancy life while starving monkeys will call him “Your Majesty”. Monkeys accommodate themselves on their rotten trees praying and putting “on the Hands of God” their hope of better days.

Monkeys are the gears that move the world back. They see nothing, they listen nothing, they say nothing. They do not care to be explored and eat trash. They do not want to improve. They feel glad with small things. It is easy to please the monkeys. Does the monkey want bananas? Give bananas to the monkey!

Beauty and nothing

One day I looked at the desire, but it even looked at me. I was out of the beauty standards.

Good morning, desire. I see you wherever I look, on TV, on the magazines, on the billboards, at the movies, at the mall. It is impossible not falling in love with your beautiful face, perfect smile, your soft skin, your bright hair, your hot body.

One day I looked at the desire, but it even looked at me. I was out of the beauty standards.

It hit me hard my ego and self-confidence. I have never felt so ugly and unattractive. I wish I could be an ostrich and lay my head on the ground.

But I would not want to conform myself being an ugly and unattractive one for all my life. So, I started to build my beauty, ignoring superficial beauty and building my inner beauty.

People around me got surprised due to all my intelligence, but I still was not attractive, I was not a desire. Why nobody could see my inner beauty? The “Beauty and the Beast” tale did not touch anybody? Was it just hypocrisy?

I started to hate much more the desire, being aggressive with those who admire the desire and the desire itself. I learned to be rude and sarcastic when offending it. I would like revenge because you rejected me.

I screamed:
― For me, you are the perfect example that beauty and nothing have the same meaning.

You did not understand. I got frustrated. Shit!

...

But who am I trying to fool? In fact, I still want the desire even though I am not like it. And I am a frustrated one because I am out of the beauty standards. I think if I was frothy, or if I stopped rejecting what was said it is frothy, I would become frothy and happier...

Yes, I enjoy being hit and having my heart dragged through the roasting and dirty roads of Guinea-Bissau.



Full version of the movie above on YouTube.

Afraid of Sophia

As I am afraid of the truth, I prefer to live the comfort of the ignorance.

They have arrived full of knowledge and I was afraid of them having the power to make blind people to see the world from a blindness that keeps me in the power. I will send them to the bonfire.

I have created a whole universe, fantastic stories, the good ones winning the bad ones, divine justice, severe punishments; everything was well-created to make me the most immaculate being in the world and to make my case always.

But the lost sheep have run away from their group seeking for the truth and some knowledge. They have discovered disconnected things, contradictions. I have sent my best bad wolves to hunt them, annoy them and make them feel afraid of the punishments of my book.

I am really afraid, I strongly repel it and the last word is mine, always mine. Power is mine, only mine and never will be theirs. I behave as if I were innocent. I say you are possessed by bad spirits, you are evil, you do not believe in anything and your retribution will be grisly.

And them I leave running, I summon my followers to confuse you. Most of the people are right, right? Do not try to make us to see. Ignorance comforts us and makes us feel so good... We are fine living this way. So, get out, I do not want to know. I will escape from you. Get out, get out!

Knowledge and superiority scare the weak and ignorant ones.

Further

It is difficult not associating people around us to happiness. We need people; the most difficult thing is finding the right ones.

During our life, we met thousands of people, but only some of them will become our friends or affairs. We seek for special people who will support us in difficult times. Have not we already found these ones but we have not notice it or we have ignored them?

You may say:

― But there are a lot of people in this world. How could we know?

We create a kind of filter. We filter people and we also idealize the ones who do for us, taking in consideration our tastes, expectations and personality.

Sometimes we get so focused in the profile we are looking that makes us ending up considering it as true. What does not fit the ideal is not useful, so our filter says: discard this one.

We discard people because we have no patience for trying to know them better. We blindly believe in our jaundices and crazy theories about “the reason of they behaving the way they do”, even though we have just met them five minutes ago.

You may have already met someone who you considered unbearable at the first sight, but today, helped by the time, you have discovered that you was wrong about this one, right? Of course it may have happened! But what did you change your mind? The fact of living together with this one?

Yes, living together force us knowing people deeper. It shows us that our conceits of “the right person for me” limits us too much, it makes us close our eyes not seeing people out of our conceits may also be interesting. It is a matter of taking a chance on others and taking a chance on you.

― Oh, but there are a lot of people in the world and my filters are so helpful...

Let’s be careful with our filters, ideals and conceits. They not only limit us on knowing a very specific kind of people as they also may be specious. They can make our searching on looking for interesting people something exhausting and frustrating.

So what about ignore them a little bit? Will you be able to discover the “knowing me, knowing you” magic? Are you willing? Are you willing to look further?

Cake receipt

It is very simple and easy to make. If something goes wrong, the fault is yours and only yours.

Having a happy and without big problems life is very easy. You just need to mix all the ingredients and follow the instructions by the book, and voila! Everything will go right. Let’s go to the ingredients:

- 1 spoon of happy smiles

- 2 cups of patience

- 5 cups of understanding

- 1 ½ cup of kindness

- 1 glass of fun (it includes spot jokes)

- 25 self-help books

You may say:

― But Chef Florindo, I have followed this receipt and it was not succeeded. I WANT YOU TO BRING MY MONEY BACK!

But did you really do everything right? Did you mixed all the ingredients in the right way? Perhaps you may have forgotten an ingredient or you may have used it too much or to less as it was required.

Life is so simple but people are so suspicious thinking it is as complicated as to tie a knot in a drop of water. Life is like a cake receipt, and if you follow correctly the instructions, everything will go right and if something goes wrong... well... it is your fault because you did not follow it religiously.

― Oh, really? If people have followed theses instructions, we would have several happy people instead of selfish, frustrated and cranky ones.

Try to eat the cake when it is still hot or when it is not ready. It will not be good and do not you blame the cake. Everything has its time for happening, my friend. And once again you are not following the instructions! Do you remember the two cups of patience? They are missing in your cake.

― Glanotski, vratski, odubaye! (grumbling)

The cake receipts are absolutes. If something goes wrong, the fault is yours, only yours. Do not try to apologize. People are not crazy; there is a not unfriendly person. If somebody is crazy in here, this one is you! And if you want to know why you are crazy, buy my new book, in the bookstore closer to you!

...

I need to tell a Secret to you. Actually, cake receipts are not absolutes, even though they work a lot of times. Sometimes the cake does not grow and I do not why. Perhaps there are really unfriendly people and they do not react to the heat. Well, I feed myself eating doubts.

Infanticide

And one more child had been killed. The media did not notify anything. These cases were quite ordinaries, not attracting people’s attention to it.

Once upon a time there was a society where children were not welcome. They did not have a long lifetime and they used to die a little everyday, in a slow and painful process. For many people, it was natural, like these “things of life” and in this society, it was expected everybody to turn out to be an infanticide. There were homicide infanticide and suicide infanticide people in it.

The homicide ones were the ones who used to kill the children. They were bitter, frustrated, sad and selfish people. They used to do it by destroying dreams, by acts or words. They used to say that happiness is an illusion and unhappiness is an inescapable destiny. They could not sketch out a smile and other’s happiness was considered offensive by them. And always they could, they used to trick someone and take some advantage of them.

There was sincerity in children. They used to say and behave the way they were feeling. There was bright on children’s eyes. They could see what was really beautiful. There was happiness in children. They could smile without great reasons. There was innocence in children. They used not to make friends for mere interest.

They have screamed: “The child is smiling, take out all its teeth! It must be one of us, an alive body with a died soul. It must grow up and become artificial just like all of us”.

The suicide infanticide ones saw all this nastiness and they could not find happiness in the society they lived. All these black clouds with bad feelings gave them two options: to die or to kill.

You decided to die. You would rather kill your child and spare it from the homicides. It was your last act of protection. And so you killed the child and yourself. You made it become and you turned out to be one more alive body with a died soul. Did not you really have any exit? Why did you kill the child inside you?

Hit me, I love it

Heart is a muscle brain can not control.

And I, a person who though that was immune to silly infatuations and able to choose when I would like to fall in love, have gotten a strong charm flu. My heart started to beat faster, my eyes started shining and I got a dreaming face.

People warned me saying that you were not good for me, but my heart asked me to ignore them. It told me they were green of envy because I was in love and they would like me to join their Unhappy Lonely Convicted People Group.

Today I want you, only you and nobody else. You have the essence I always was looking for. But hey, please, look at me!

You have looked at me and I overestimated any foolishness able to melt my butter heart. Everything you asked me I did without hesitating, the last thing I wanted was disappointing you. And when I had done it, I was afraid of losing you due to rubbish and because I could not show how important you are for me. I know I would never find someone as interesting as you.

People warned me that I was blind and that you did not feel anything special for me saying I was just another one. I have wondered in many ways of pleasing you and I felt in the top of the world when you used to say “cool”. There were people interested in me that tried to please me for me to notice them, but I asked them to leave me alone because my heart had already a owner. “You must love people who love you”, used to say the “jealous” people around me. But…

Je suis folle
Je m'abandonne
Mea culpa

And is it easy to choose the one we will fall in love with? Heart is a spoiled muscle that does not give up, no matter how it hurts.

Angst, frustration and the eternal fear of being alone invaded my soul when I saw you did not care about me. No matter how I tried to please you, I got nothing else than indifference. My heart only woke up from the trance and set my shackled self-love free when you started enjoying in seeing me making everything you wanted without hesitating, just like a obedient pet.

And then I woke up to give up. A person who when is not indifferent to me, want me to be act as if I were a pet definitely is not good for me.

Heart is a stupid muscle and tends to choose what is worse for it. It is a muscle that depreciates good things and overestimates bad things. It is a muscle able to make us lose the sense of what is ridiculous. It is a muscle that enjoys being dragged through the roasting and dirty roads of Guinea-Bissau.

________________________________________
PS: Even though I wrote this post in 1st person, I am not living what I wrote.