The chic tragedy

Everything's image. We know beauty calls attention and everybody wants to feel pretty. If it wasn't for that, it wouldn't make sense taking a shower, brushing the hair, clipping the fingernails, dressing clean clothes, working out, etc. It's not only a matter of health, but is a matter of esthetic too. There's no problem in wishing to feel prettier or feeling attraction for what's beautiful; the problem is when someone has the beauty as its single talent, or when the beauty is offensive for people who are (or think they are) ugly due to their inferiority complex and laziness to take care of their appearance.

The attraction to the beauty is not only resumed to the physical of some people, but for the beauty in general. It includes richness and power too. Some of the recent tragedies have shown how much people are obsessed by the triad beauty-richness-power. We can talk about two kinds of TV shows very successful in Brazil: soap operas and reality shows. The competitors of a reality show are young, rich and pretty – the ideal standard of beauty – and the audience are, usually, the contrary of them. The soap operas and even the Brazilian literature focus, mainly, on a bourgeoisie family dramas.

Now speaking of an issue that the Brazilian media loves to sell (tragedies) even of the false people's commotion that pretend sadness to hide their fixation for them, we have several examples of what can be called “the chic tragedy”.

The case of Isabela Nardoni girl would have caused that national commotion if she wasn't a pretty girl from a middle class family? What it would be if she was a black, not very pretty and daughter of a poor family, thrown from a flagstone of the slum house, would she have caused similar commotion? Why the “handsome beggar” from Curitiba could mobilize the social networks to localize his family and “touched” these people due to his problems with drugs? Why the several ugly, dirty, drugged and drunk beggars that sleep in the streets couldn't touch these people so “human” of the social networks if it is some much easier to find them even in small cities? Why is it so common to see an U18 boy being treated as a condemned criminal in national network while he is just alleged, specially if he is black and poor? Why doesn't it exist a pre-condenation of the media when the criminal is a TV host that refuses to do the breathalyser test, when a group of young boys set fire to a indigenous man, or when middle class teenagers rape a girl? Why the violence against homosexuals causes revolt on the social networks only when the violated guy are handsome and masculine, while the ugly and queer one is a reason of laugh even for the gays?

And what about in the international level, would the 9/11 attacks have the traditional worldwide morbid annual highlight from the media if they had happened in a country that isn't very expressive economical and culturally in global level like Somalia? Why does the hurricane Sandy called so much attention of the international and Brazilian media if similar bigger and worse tragedies like this are used to happen every year in Southeast Asia? Why the recent shooting in an American school “touched” so much the people worldwide? The Realengo school shooting didn't touch the world in the same way and there isn't a sick tradition in the international media of speaking of the anniversary of the tragedy every single year.

The fixation of the society goes much beyond of the physical beauty. Even their brotherhood is conditioned to it. The “chic tragedy” shows how the humanity feeling is selective: what involves pretty, rich and powerful people or things, touches; what involves ugly, poor and powerless people or things, doesn't touch or is conveniently ignored. The chic tragedy shows how much people can be superficial and futile, even when try their best to hide it due to their obsession for their image face to society. The chic tragedy shows us how the evil got banal and how the people are hypocrite when trying to pretend sadness when, actually they are sadist and nourish a real obsession for other's pain and failure?

The torturous act of thinking and loving

The supposed end of the world is coming. In about three weeks, there will be a true deluge of shared crap images on Facebook. There will be a deluge of worthless and sensationalist news reports establishing terror seeking for high TV ratings. And there will be religious bigots selling plots on Heaven, self-flagellating or even committing suicide. And in this atmosphere of chaos and bizarreness we could reflect a little about the human race.

What today's man changed faced to those from the Ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, Middle Age or Modern Age? Except for the development of the sciences and technology, maybe just a little in what concerns to civility. It may sound an exaggeration, but are we really more civilized, more critical, more intelligent?

Let's look around us. Is slavery really over or does it only changed the name to wage labor? Did we really acquired more political powers or are we being modeled by a culture that dictates how we should think and express ourselves? Does democracy really exist or is it just a fallacy because the population doesn't take part of politics and their single effective political power is voting? If we are rational, why do we consume by the necessity of having a succeed life instead of a good life? Why do we destroy the nature? Why do we see people starving, murdering, suffering and our maximum gesture is disguising pity and crying tears of vapor?

We are getting stupid, we are decaying, we are boiling down to and treating people as things, objects. The word “humanity” should be banned of the dictionaries by the group of the language control: it has a pejorative connotation due to its association to a specie that destroys nature, the other animals and themselves.

It lacks love to the world. It lacks courage to the world. It lacks respect to the world. It lacks the minimum of intelligent to feel besides their bellies to the world. I just would like to live in a world that worked properly and not where even the most basic thing – thinking and loving – the man haven't learned yet.

Alienation is a shelter

Study. Work. Create. Don't think. Get busy. It makes you feel well. Doing nothing is doing ill. It's not worthy thinking too much. Maybe this what they call destiny. And destiny is not written at all, but sketched and it's up to you erasing some lines and rewrite them. It demands much patience aiming a goal, an ideal that is converted to personal satisfaction and therefore, in a new sensation of happiness. But it lasts too much and it's tiring. So don't think. Study, work, create, keep the mind busy. Alienation is a shelter. This way you don't think bullshit. This way you don't keep self-destructing. This way you conserve that reserve of hopes that your anxiety and desperation have been consuming as long as you get older.

And I Will Kiss by Underworld by HollyBanks

Team Captain Planet

Then she got off of the car dressed elegantly, put her sunglasses and lit a cigar. But immediately the noise of the bus stopping at the bus station suddenly woke up her to her ordinary and banal reality. She had got a place to sit down doing so much effort and remained there, compressed between the window and the obese lady witch blubber worked as a pillow. It was what she had thought and her siren of morality sounded in her conscience, censoring her because the word “blubber” sounds extremely offensive when related to an obese person. She would call her “fat”, but the siren of morality would condemn her even more. She was getting pissed off of this constant self-vigilance that repressed her all the time, obligating her to think about the etymology of every single word in order to not be condemned as a terrible human being full of despicable prejudices.

She no longer felt free to be the one she was. She felt someone molded. In an informal conversation with an acquainted guy she met in college that called her attention, not only by his physic but also for having an “air” of cult person, she heard a subtle moral lesson when she used the word “blacken”. That dishearten her tremendously. She was told that blacken means “to turn black”, in a negative direct relation to black people. She wasn't racist, but the simple fact of unknowing the origin of the word blacken made her racist, even in a veiled way. It seemed that either she adapted herself to the politically correct, that she used to compare to 1984's George Orwell Thoughtcrime, or she would be obligated to be stoned with speeches of perfect world, flowered, full of fluffy and jumping rabbits with a rainbow in the background that only wasn't real because people full of prejudices like her existed on the Earth.

She decided to remain quiet. She would love to send that people to hell, but she preferred to behave morally and hold her swear words to her, therefore, who uses verbal violence loses the reason and blablabla. She felt no more free to swear!

The worse was that she was seeing lots of people taking part into this committed to a cause group. She didn't know if it was a kind of moral coercion or even a trend. Since some time she started observing that there's a way that dictates that all the human kind must be committed with a cause. How isn't committed or criticizes that this commitment is nothing but vanity, to seem more “intelligent” or “cult” or “awesome revolutionary” was considered less deserving of respect according to her observations. And the repulsion shown by the moralist speeches, by the look of disappointment or censor, by the hand in the mouth in an expression of incredulity or horror, by a supposed feeling of “pity”. She was out of this trend and it bothered her. It didn't mean she wanted to take part, but she noticed that people were turning out to be less spontaneous and even more unbearable and boring.

“But what if I the boring one is me? But what it if the problem is me?” she wondered all the time.

Maybe she was. When she tried to join this trend, she felt extremely artificial. Artificial laughs, artificial interests. She didn't feel free anymore to be herself, that one that used swear words sometimes, not too into the etymological meaning of the words, that used politically incorrect words and to not be committed in a cause or slave of her own vanity, desperate to show herself off, sound intelligent and socially responsible, in impressing by wishing a Nobel Prize. She wanted to be “prejudiced”, “ignorant”, “irresponsible” according to the committed guys, but she felt alone being herself. The new order was seeming to be the artificially in its more advanced stage. She used to consider herself as authentic, but it was ugly and something she should be ashamed for.

Anyway, she used to think too much as well and it was another thing that deeply bothered her. Then the best she could do was accepting, trying to ignore, once again compressed in the window by anyone with a large body mass index. Maybe she could fall asleep again upon an area of a great reserve of glycogen and dream of a world in witch people wasn't too neurotic related to language or in going out by flying as Marxist Captain Planet, crazy to save the world of the degradation caused by the capitalist bourgeoisie oppressor and make the heart signal with the hands.

Maybe in the next incarnation

It rains and it's cold outside. I'd like to go down into the layers and layers of blankets. To jump down into a hot water fountain and let me involving, sinking, feeling the heat, feeling its embrace. I'd like to run barefoot through the desert, the dizzy Sun burning my skin, totally dirty of sweat and dust. The hair shaggy.

I'd like to throw out my brain or, at least, give it a break. That's impressing how neither during the sleep it stops, but if it stops, we'll die. But the problem itself is this obsession of wanting answers for everything, of wanting to analyze everything, of wanting to judge everything, of commenting about everything. Oh God, what a boring behavior!

Did we born free or slaves? It doesn't matter wherever we were born: either we adapt to both economic and social order of the standards of success, or we'll be predestined to starve or to be isolated. It's a hard reality to get rid of because the world always was this way.

We were born to die. Religion educates people for the day of their death, and life on Earth becomes just an extensive course to the Heaven's entrance exam. And life passes for those alienated in feeling guilty due their sins. But there's also the religion of success because, in order for us to be happy, we have to accumulate material goods, working hard to achieve richness, impressing the others and then, filling up all of our kinds of emptiness.

Life is short. Too short. We should love and live more. But in this life, we'll work hard because our retirement, in fact, will be in our death. We have time. Maybe in the next incarnation we may love those today we hate or despise, in this life they must suffer because our ego is hurt. Maybe in the next incarnation we may be free from this idiot necessity of salvation and success. Maybe in the next incarnation our hearts may be clean of the current resentments and then, we'll be finally free to love.

Durkheim knew

He had been sent to the Hell on Earth, but he didn't know how exactly he had been there. Everything was wrong, everything used to go wrong. His job was awful and even if he was very talented and creative, he used to be always seen as lazy and opportunist. He felt he hadn't friends because no one showed some sympathy for him. They were all self-seeking that always used to remember him in moments of extreme sadness and, after when they were feeling better, they ran from him as the Devil runs from the cross.

It was like if he had been excluded of the whole process. He swallowed too many things, tried to abstract the grieves, but the polite silence just corroded him, the hate corroded him. He cried of angry. He used to feel too many repressed hate. Why the hell he used to imprison himself in a life that was not his? Why did he receive indifference when he gave love? Why did he see everybody loving to live in that mask ball, in that theater piece of a foreseeable script? He couldn't fool himself. He was out and this isolation was killing him each day, each hour, each second.

Then he decided to accept the lugubrious world where he lived, even he desperately wanted to leave from. He just wanted to be one more, he wanted to be one more alienated, whatever, he just wanted not to feel rejected as he always was. But he discovered he couldn't find fullness even throwing himself spontaneously in the fire of the hell. Damn it! It was like the shitness of his life was a kind of black humor reality show, where he was reason of the laugh of normal and happy people.

He thought it was time to say enough. That he was been extremely altruistic in following the ruined values of justice from a society that avoided him. Why to be good with those that only slight him? Why to smile to those that showed him their middle finger? Why to count till ten when he was cursed in his job by his boss that studied only until the 4th grade? Why to be so nice and correct? Why didn't he fight back?

Then he blew up. He decided to destroy his life at all, doing to deserve all that repulsion he always felt. We would channelize his hate, we would be finally him, would be that mad and dangerous person he was labeled by never spoken words. He would go to the hell, but he wouldn't there by himself.

He robbed a machine-gun from a 14-year-aged trouble kid that was previously stabbed. We went in the fancier mall of the city wearing his best clothes. He bought a ticket to watch a remake of a Disney's fairytale. He entered into the crowded movies room and the machine-gun started to work. Brains flew everywhere and his eyes were shining for the first time in his life. We was born to kill. He felt pleasure in doing that. Everyone would pay with their lives for the sorrow he felt during all those years. The room became a swimming pool of blood and when he prince was about to kiss the Sleeping Beauty, he took off his own life with a shot in his mouth.

A note was found inside his pocket hours later and revealed to the necromaniac media. He had for forgiveness to the victims families, but he had received a divine mission. Necromaniacs demanded the death penalty in Brazil, even the murder had committed suicide. An office was prayed for him. His co-workers were shocked with such a behavior: “he was a very calm person”, they said. But the rotten society was unable to analyze what happened. It was the same society that used to disguise grief and horror by the massacre, but searched on the internet for pictures with their bodies all teared in pieces because it gives them sadistic pleasure. They hadn't notice they were all homicides. They didn't know it because they didn't know who had been Durkheim.

Anger never dies

Life isn't easy. Life isn't fair. Happiness isn't something unreachable, but it doesn't fall from the sky: you must deserve it, you have to fight for it.

Happiness is something everybody searches for. Who would be crazy to seek for unhappiness except for the crazy one? But what's happiness? Few people know, few people understand it because a lot of them think this is an universal concept while, actually, it is subjective.

Performance society tries to standardize this concept and those who lives in the immaturity constantly get frustrated by the constant feeling of unhappiness and emptiness. In this case, happiness isn't in the present time, but either in the future, lying in the hope that someday things will get better, or in the past, a time of sweet memories. This Eros love to the performance blinds and the individual gets incapable of questioning some things about oneself and the world and, consequently, of understanding the misery this one complains so much.

Laziness and cowardice are things so hard to fight against... snapping the bubble and leaving your comfort zone is so hard... “it's so comfortable to be small”, Kant would say... it's so hard to have the attitude to change: change yourself, change one's own reality. It's so much easier to curse and envy. It's so much easier trying to despise other's victories for the miserable of spirit feels less worse when feeling hurt by other's success and happiness.

In order to be happy, or unless feeling happy without appealling to its artificial means like drugs and anti-depressive pills one must, first of all, being humble to recognize one's own imperfections and vulnerabilities. It doesn't mean embracing the fail or being ridiculous. Ridiculous is thinking you're being ridiculous by confessing to yourself your own fears that might sound silly and childish, more ridiculous than this is having the romantic vision of life by thinking that happiness lies in a Hollywoodian amazing life or that is, necessarily, the standard of the society of performance.

Life isn't easy. Life isn't fair. Happiness isn't something unreachable, but it doesn't fall from the sky: you must deserve it, you have to fight for it. It includes some sacrifices and the path to happiness may be, ironically, torturous in the beginning. Leaving the comfort zone never is easy, letting go the tutor's hand and walking in total dark it's quite despairing, but if you want to be free, dare to break with your immaturity! You have to try at least! Falling, crying and being eternally traumatized with the pain will never help anyone to get anywhere, except if it has an appeal to the people's pity, that isn't neither a little virtuous and it is pathetic, it's being proud of one's own cowardice.

Projecting your own imperfections on others using them as weapon and shield may even sound smart initially, but who really losses with this? You may harm someone, but if this person has the minimum of maturity and self-love, he won't let himself to be affected by the words of someone who seems to have a disturbed feeling of pleasure in the sorrow and in gnawing hates. He just doesn't care, he's doing what the resentful child always wanted to do but was too coward to even try: he is being happy, he is living the life! That's way the feeling of envy and despise face to the other's success.

Nobody likes this type of negative people. Nobody likes people that are always complaining about the same problems every single day projecting the reason of their unhappiness on others. Nobody likes people that are always in the defensive ready to attack and that refuses help and refuses to help oneself. Nobody likes people that got traumatized after their first and only fail that start to think that nobody and nothing worth. That the world is bad, that people envy him, that everybody's an ignorant and that, as long as he hadn't born in a golden crib, he is destined to be a never recognized talented person. Then, he doesn't understand why the world turns it back to him and, thanks to his shameful arrogance, he thinks the world is wrong and unfair, but he's never able to recognize that HE is the problem. It's so much practical projecting this imperfection on another one and being sarcastic... Is it being happy?

Well, happiness is subjective. If an individual is happy gnawing hates, good for him, although it is very dubious. In order to be happy, it is not necessary to have all that the performance society implies for us to be and to have, and it doesn't mean as well, refusing everything it sells us. The most important thing is being in peace with yourself, doing what you like, being surrounded by people that are with you to plus, not to subtract you and to let you down, feeling bizarrely happy by trying to bring you down for the misery they spontaneously decided to live with.

References

FERRY, Luc. Qu'est-ce qu'une vie réussie? France: Grasset et Fasquelle, 2002.

COMTE-SPONVILLE, André. Petit traité des grandes vertus. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1995.

KANT, Immanuel. Answering the question: What is Enlightment? Königsberg: Büsching Magazine, September 30th 1784.

Sometimes I feel so angry at you

Look at us micro kids with both of our hearts blocked.

Sometimes I feel so angry at you. You can impact in my mood, usually for worse. And then I feel so angry at me and the anger I feel at you doubles because I feel myself extremely ridiculous.

Ridiculous because I notice I am a mere Eros' puppet, that my limbic system is defective. I keep on making the same childish mistakes, being a slave of my selfish desires, allowing myself to be threw by someone who's just giving me a shit! It seems I never develop the necessary antibodies to stop being enchanted by those who step on me, but no, I'm an accident masochist.

I hate myself for being extremely lenient many times and insist on thinking that everybody is good, that some people just have a hard temper to deal with but, deeply, they are lovely. It even sounds arrogant of me to think I'll be the one who will change everything, that will transform a violent pit-bull into a graceful pink-colored poodle.

But that's alright. I have never had the talent to pretend to be someone I'm not, I have never had the talent to pretend I have the virtues I still don't. I find myself now in this embarrassing situation of not knowing how to behave and policing the way I show you my affect. If I'm kind, you may arrogantly understand it as I'm really suffering of love to you. If I control my words, I feel like suffocating myself with a pillow on my face. I wish that the tactic of the measured care was absolute and obvious. I run the risk of torturing me by seeing you dating another one in the end.

It's hard for me to say that, even there's some trace of possibility that we may have some future, it's remote. If you really liked me, you'd be more receptive to my praises instead of always throwing me cold water. If you really liked me, you wouldn't try all the time to show yourself off as someone as intelligent and understood about life as I am. It seems like you constantly try to make me feel inferior.

In the few moments you were kind, maybe you were experiencing a moment of weakness and I was the fool of the moment that would listen to you without criticizing. Or because your options were scarce. Or because you had seen something good in me, until the moment you woke up and saw me just like another insignificant person in your life. Have you ever give me a chance? Have you ever tried to see something special in me?

No! It seems I'll always be someone you just don't dispose at all because for you, I don't make any difference. I can't see too much of you because you create barriers around you as if I was unable to overstep them. I'd like to know you better, but you don't allow me. In this moment, I'd like to be sure you're really an asshole. Maybe then I can feel angry at you in peace and feel better with myself.

Light and darkness

It's quite common to compare things of the past and the present. At the same time we had breakthroughs in medicine, in technology and in the achievement of respect for minority or historically repressed groups (women, homosexuals, black people, handicaps), it seems that society haven't evolved that much in the way of thinking. The critical thinking, that is not that complex once you see the positive and negative points of the things, it seems more as a “gift” than an ability that may be developed since one's childhood.

Maybe the excess of information generated by television media and internet has atrophied our brains or we lost focus on what's worthy to know. In order to absorb all, including useful and useless, literary works were ruminated for those who are lazy to think. Besides, the “opinions leaderships” still exist. Instead of listening to who have a cause knowledge (professors, experts, researches), many are based on the opinion of tendentious or sensationalist journalists and controversial celebrities, interested on the maintaining of the status quo.

We progressed here... we regressed there... Its like walking on a treadmill: we walk and keep in the same place but, if we stop, we'll fall. We can compare the society along the years with water in its different states of matters: water, vapor, ice... At the same time it changes its shape, it doesn't change its essence: it remains water, the same water of ever. And at the same time society changed in the last years, decades, centuries, it seems it behaves similar. The critical sense is an ability developed by few people, while many still venerate fame, money and power.

The problem of its lack of good sense is that almost everything seems to be divided only into “right” and “wrong”. This duality always exist, as if both, apparently antagonistic, couldn't coexist, or then, a third, forth, fifth way of thinking. We see this philosophy mainly on YouTube, news websites comments and in people's day by day talk. For a group of people, being humble to admit you don't know many about a certain issue sounds like a “certificate of lack of culture”. In order to not be out of the “well-informed” people, some convert themselves to clichezism. Among them, there's a desperate necessity to show off: if one is not handsome, hot and even nice, he tends to convert to clichezism to sounds intelligent and wants to pass the impression of being cult and having a strong personality.

And so, people start having a generalized vision of everything with it's two opposite currents, as well as stimulates ignorance and the reinforcement of several kinds of prejudice. When talking about things of Brazil, we have the chauvinists (in a few number) that blindly love their country and the pessimistic that thing that anything about Brazil works or is good. In politics, there's still a childish fight between petistas and tucanos, that try to defend their beloved parties speaking about Mensalão to not to talk about Cachoeira and about Cachoeira to not to talk about Mensalão (as if corruption was restricted to only one political party). When one speaks of religion, the bigot religious fill public institutions with crucifixes and defend the moralism to embase their prejudices. Atheists are used to be as bigot as religious are when attacking religious as a way to fight back. While some people are right and sincere, others are nasty and false. These are some examples of this cliche and immature thinking, as if everything were obvious and simple to be understood and with a already created formula to solve them.

That's why its disappointing for us to be already in 2012, 21st century, in an era that used to be imagined as that that men would stop with wars and think of the common good, and we notice that society changed not that much in its essence. Many still behave a selfish and irresponsible way: money is our modern god, a basic and finite natural resource (water) is still wasted, consuming keeps strong and alive destroying the natural resources for some people to feel better in having material goods that others can't afford, lots are still dying in traffic violence because of alcohol and etc. It's disappointing to see that with so many information available for anyone who wants to access it, clichezism is getting stronger and discouraging the critical thinking, without meaning to be rude or alienated to a narrow-minded view that everything has to be divided into light or darkness.

An amazing life

We are subjected to several kinds of dictatorships in our society. Many of them are imposed in a subtle manner, but very present. There's no one putting a gun against our heads pushing us to do a certain thing. It's the society, the culture who put this invisible gun. But the hand that shots never is theirs, but ours. The choice is ours.

One of the dictatorships is the happiness'. It doesn't mean that happiness is a bad thing, obviously it isn't, but you just can't concept it. What makes one happy, may make another one unhappy. The happiness dictatorship doesn't take it into consideration and establishes a standard. And this standard seems to be accessible only to those who have money – lots of money.

Happiness is having a big and comfortable life, having an imported car, being able to go abroad, having a pretty skin, a pretty hair, a pretty body, a nice job, going to best parties and eating and drinking the best the money can provide you. Fame, power and money: if you have the three, you would be happy according with the dictatorship.

But we know that the rich people also cry. What's the point in having these stuff if people approach you by interest? How is it possible to be happy living surrounded by safeguards and living in a fancy prison? Anyway, few people perceive this dictatorship. Few people think critically, maturely, wisely. Many prefer to live in the bubble of their ignorance, happy with their convictions and carpedienzist lifestyles.

In order to be happy, you have to think big, fly high. Happiness, then, stays attached to things that are usually unreal or inaccessible to many people. In the seek for the dream, people live in the future and forget about the present. And in the seek for “big and better” things, the smallest ones start to be ignored.

Following the happiness dictatorship is not enough, it's necessary to show it off. By behaving in this way, we will be contributing to the guns to be put against people's heads, perpetuating the cycle. We need to assure others and ourselves that this dictatorship brings happiness. Who's out, is treated as someone unhappy and influenced to believe he's really unhappy, starting to question his self-esteem.

In order for us to be happy, we must have an amazing life. We should feel ashamed of ourselves of doing simple and worthless things, specially, talking about them. We must have horror to the trivial, to the routine. And we must, of course, practice the exercise of self-affirmation. Everything must have be great, in the contrary, it's despicable and deserving of depreciating adjectives carefully chosen, because it's necessary to destroy the self-esteem of the people for us to feel better with ourselves.

But the truth is that almost anybody lives a Hollywoodian life. Almost anybody lives the life so intensively that causes good envy commentaries: “Wow! What a Carpe Diem well-followed!” We are driven to treat the celebrities as gods and foolishly believe that money brings all the material stuffs, that brings fame, that brings success, that brings love and finally happiness. And in this blind search for happiness, we leave the life pass away because we were always living in the future, never in the present.

Carpedienzism controversy

If someone used to follow the “carpe diem” as philosophy of life before it became the clichezist's (verbal) philosophy of life too, probably didn't like the radicalization of the motto. As well as people that did read Clarice, Nietzsche, Freud and understood their work and didn't went out raking everywhere their quotes, either on the virtual People Magazine, or in the real life anyway. “Carpe diem” is now the positivist clichezist's philosophy of life. Clarice is the romantic's bedside book, Caio Fernando de Abreu the depressive's, and Nietzsche the intellectual’s.

Clichezists don't think. “Carpe diem” and the thinker's thoughts were distorted, fatally. The silly thought that the world is divided into “good” and “evil” has gained might and, of course, many people is by the side of the good because they are afraid of the pains of hell.

The clichezists carpedienzist philosophy is a utopia and once it's a utopia, sooner or later its followers will do things that doesn't match what it preaches. The carpedienzist is that one forcefully positive that sees the world with Pollyanna's eyes. Is the ideal of human being morally perfect: they're polite, love the animals, help the poorer, feel touched with the starvation in Africa, don't say dirty words, don't drink alcohol, don't smoke, don't listen to “garbage music”, don't play jokes, don't fart, forgive and don't fell resentments, are sincere, don't fell envy, respect all the people independently of their race, religion, sexual orientation, etc...

Maybe this is María del Barrio or some Manoel Carlos' Helena of his soap-operas. We know that this kind of person doesn't exist but anyway, the clichezists think and expect people to be this way because “they're this way”!

Even if they preach and try to follow the carpedienzism as a philosophy of life, they behave in a contradictory way when someone “hit what hurts them”. Then they reveal their “bad” personality side, or “fair” as they prefer to justify.

The quotes above illustrate a little of this duality of good and evil of the clichezist. Where's the forgiveness and all the love of that immaculate carpedienzist human being?

Clichezists are aggressive and flammable people. At the same time they are “pure love”, they are always with a rude sound-byte ready to offend their aggressor. Due to the popularization of the internet access, it's not rare to see forums that ends up in fights. These fights generally involves the clichezists during their cliches duel. The clichezists feel the necessity of winning any argumentation, specially the unworthy and frivolous ones. It's the egos war. And a safe war because the troll clichezist is behind a screen and he is too coward to join an offline a fight.

“Sincerity” became a synonym of rudeness. All the clichezists are “sincere”. Envy is a feeling everybody feels for the clichezist, it doesn't matter how frustrated he really is. Everybody wear masks and everybody's false. The clichezist is a poor one, a bullying victim and he isn't revolted because he wants, but because “the world made him behave this way”.

The carpedienzist clichezists gets hurt easily with the evilness of the world. The extremer ones attempt to control the anger and the tears face to the injustices of the world; cause big girls don't cry. And those that know that God is fair, pray asking for Him to have mercy when punishing their enemies. The politer offend in a refined way, with torn sarcasm and ironies. The ruder swear. It justifies the reason the have always a defensive attitude ready to attack in the very first threat signal.

The clichezist carpedienzism is very beautiful, but it's a utopia. The real carpedienzism is a contradiction: it's the clichezists preaching love one they are beloved, in the contrary, they'll preach hate and intolerance. It's the shelter of the naive complexed and egocentric that thinks life is a soap-opera where he is the good boy surrounded by “ villains with envy of my success”, but it doesn't matter, “your envy makes me famous”, “in a good of bad way, speak of me”. And this is so cliche, but they're clichezists. And clichezists don't think.

Non-intentional rumination

In an era in which sound-bytes prevail, thinking is not fashionable.

It's a feature of all clichezist the usage of sound-bytes and quotes for any situation in life. Any situation. It can be better observed on the internet, either in the comments of a news website, or in the comments of a video on YouTube, or even in the virtual clichezism college, the Facebook.

The need of feeling included in this order may perhaps be explained by the necessity of self-assurance plus the inferiority feelings face to the clichezists, that can be pass an image that they are cult people, that they have strong personality and that have opinion. They may impress only two types of people: the obtuse and themselves when the risk of losing an argumentation is imminent. Losing an argumentation is humiliating, they have to win all, they have to have the last word, always. And these are argumentations that are not about any intelligent issue, even because those that may sound intelligent are nothing but a “repente* of cliches”, that is, it's redundant and a clear egos war.

The problem of the clichezism is that it goes besides the difficulty of having a conversation that doesn't end up in the so-called “repente of cliches” or talking to a “cliche player” that will flow the conversation to a foreseeable end. It reflects the lack of critical sense of the person and his functional illiteracy. The clichezist doesn't think, doesn't reflect, doesn't contest the absolute truths of certain quotes. Cliches are used as shut-up arguments and its misunderstanding makes the clichezist to reproduce some quotes in absurd moments, showing that he has no idea of what he's talking about and that he isn't able to talk by himself.

If all the books of philosophy and psychology of the world were burned, jointly with all its digital copies, the clichezists would crumple. Who's would they copy sound-bytes and quotes? Would they be quiet once that don't have any ammunition? Would it occur a process of natural selection in which only the non-clichezists would survive and the clichezists would have to abandon the clichezism having to finally think by their own?

The greatest philosophers and literature writers had to think a lot, to observe, to reflect for then, be able to write their books that would become high level students' obligatory reading. They haven't underestimate their common sense and took a worthy advantage of all the the knowledge they accumulated throughout the years. The greatest thinkers haven't expected to become “ruminants” that chew the knowledge, swallow it, chew again until it be ready, compacted in a sound-byte.

Perhaps the functional illiteracy promotes the clichezism, perhaps the clichezism promotes the functional illiteracy. Perhaps both promote themselves. Such philosophers and writers books are an invitation to reflection, the the expansion of the horizons but for them to understood in its essence, it's necessary to be willing to do it. They save us to start from zero because we can't comprehend the world thinking that life can be summed up as our particular universe, besides it is a complementary reading for those who want to get closer to the reality of what he's studying.

The clichezism preaches the superficiality of the knowledge. What's the use of saying a Freud's, Nietzsche's, Lispector's quote or any other if the person doesn't understand what they mean? What's the use reading a whole book if the functional illiteracy and the fondness for clichezism block its comprehension? Reading is not a synonym of comprehending. First of all, it's necessary to live the situation for better understand it and to be critical and have some trustworthy foundation.

The clichezists fool themselves with numbers and affirmations of people they consider more intelligent than them when, in fact, they are nothing but pseudo-intellectuals clichezists. From the moment the individual stop despising his common sense, develops a critical sense independent from his passions and logic and stop seeing the self-criticism as a “certificate of lack of self-confidence” (because we are not perfect human beings even the police themselves the more for us not to be), we will understand why the clichezism if a bad order. The clichezism blocks, reprehends the free and independent thinking, it's aggressive and offensive due to the defensive behavior of its followers, and ties the individual in a universe of fallacies and utopias, perpetuating the ignorance.

*Repente is a musical challenge in which two poets have to create rhymed verses offhand. It's more popular in the Northeast of Brazil. (example)

The clichezist order

What would it be of the clichezists if all the philosophy and psychology books of the world were burned? Who's would they copy soundbites?

Lately it hasn't been easy to have a conversation with anyone not closer besides the formalities. Not necessarily because they are empty and aliened and manipulable, but mainly because of the foreseeability of the answers plus an arrogant and inflexible behavior. Recently, the phenomenon of the clichezism has becoming more perceptible, specially on the internet, but it doesn't mean that outside it things are very different.

We can start talking about bullying. What's bullying? Some years ago this English word was unknown in Brazil for several people, even though anyone who had already seen an American film or TV series once in a lifetime, had seen a scene of a kid or teen physically stronger and surrounded by thugs to hit and ridicule another weaker and reclusive one. It was physical aggression and public humiliation: only this. But we were wrong because bullying is anything that displeases or offends and that may raise difficulties in the social relations of the victim but... is it life, specially the adult life, full of people concerned in not hurting people's feelings?

The clichezist order is also strongly present in politics. Talking about politics in Brazil still disgusts many people, but the fewer who talk about it, many of them hardly can't do it without hanging to unrestrained passions and cliches. There's a true war between the right-wing and left-wing militants. Corruption denunciations are common and done to blacken the political rival and give demagogy speeches. As it seems to be impossible to exist a serious and impartial press in Brazil, boycotts and criticisms to TV shows and tendentious soap-operas are suggested, besides that the numbers 13 and 45 are as terrible as the Nazi swastica.

The politically correct is one of the marks of the clichezist order. Words that were used for decades were replaced by others with more complex and fancy names. It was bullying. Historically repressed groups as women, black people, and homosexuals have been – finally – achieving some respect in the last years, but it seems that this respect is imposed by quotas and the psychology of the fault. If a homosexual says he is proud of being homosexual, claps to him, he overcame the prejudice. If a straight man says the is proud of being straight, throw stones against this homophobic evangelist. If a black man dresses a “100% black” t-shirt, claps to him, he overcame the prejudice. If a white man says he is proud of his color or his European ancestry, throw stones against this Nazi racist.

There's a tendency, a subtle dictatorship that promotes the homogenization of the philosophies and ideologies. We all know that perfection doesn't exist, but the human mistake it isn't very well accepted. The free thinking and the own opinion are stimulated... Teorically, because in real life, if you raise a opinion contrary to the clichezist order, they reply with aggression. The more impolite say offensive words. The higher educated one, specially the “intellectuals”, delight in ridiculing with sarcasm. Language experts corrects your orthography and punctuation according to the standard language rules. Adverbs may agree with researches and studies. The clichezists of the Geography and Statistic Institute want numbers: “majority, minority, many, few: who they are? I want numbers!”

Review your values, the argumentative clichezists anti-religious want to ridicule your faith and repudiate anything that has a religious background: “why is promiscuity bad, why is raping bad, why having sex in public squares is bad, why being a hypocrite is bad? Don't you know the answers? Where's your God now?”

And the clichezism on Facebook not only recycles classical cliches, as well as it reaffirms the obvious and sells utopias of a world where everybody is immaculate, perfect, wise and full of causes for us to worry about. Obviously every Facebook's perfect human being respects the elderly, the women, the gays, the black people, the children, the nature, the animals, God and all the religions. “It's an absurd that a soccer player receives millions of euros to kick a ball and what about the corruption, what about the violence, what about starvation in Africa, what about education, what about the hospitals? I want chu, I want cha, I want to complain about the success of popular music while the world is dying. What the world will think about Brazil, oh my God, Valesca has a song that says 'take my pussy and suck it', oh my God, wake up to corruption, Brazil, that's why this country doesn't go ahead, everybody's concerned in watching Big Brother”...

Thanks to the clichezist order, people feel the necessity of converting, of being part of this movement for them to feel included in a group that they hate so much. You can't be an ambulant metamorphosis, your opinions must be equal to the clichezist's because theirs are right and absolute. Have a opinion about everything, everything! And as it is impossible, adopt the clichezism. Have a learned by heart saying for any situation in life, like an intelligent humor page on Facebook. Read two hours of synopsis on the bookstore website and have argues won by the rest of the month. Clichezists get satisfied with superficial arguments and ideas because their knowledge is also superficial. It isn't necessary catching the essence of the books, the less reading them because soundbites and the writers thought and expressed themselves by you. With clichezism, you can disguise you necessity of self-affirmation through phrases with chewed philosophies. You don't need to think. Just take part of it.

Delicious nostalgia

It comes and it goes like the waves of the sea, it goes up and it goes down like the stock exchange actions. There are days when everything goes right, day when everything goes wrong, there are days of apathy, days of uprising face to small things, nights of loneliness and despair and nights when the joy recycles itself.

Every one lives his own particular universe in a better convenient way for him. Despite of the attempt of uniforming the ideologies and lifestyle, people are still free to imagine. Memories, even they can seem worthless to some closer of further people, they are theirs, they are unique, nontransferable.

And not only what you lived, as well as what you think and feel. People can really try to imagine what you feel when you share some of these emotions and memories, but they'll never get closer. First of all, because they haven't lived the sensation you described; second of all, where you see magic, they can see ordinary things; third of all, you have no way to know due to the impenetrability of the souls.

But getting closer is a half of this. Identifing yourself in some parts too. It is like smelling a perfume that can please to you and bring you back to good memories at the same time it makes another one to have a headache. Or understanding the deepness of a painting while one sees only scratches. And it can be only scratches, perhaps the painter was so pissed off due to the non-recognized work that he decided to scratch because it is “art noveau” – or it was or it will be one day. The art admirer interprets the world according to the window of his eyes, not as people say him to do. People give their own value to the things. Imposing is useless. Contesting too. Then, in these cases, you'd better artificialize expressions and reactions.

Music... oh music. Able to promote an spectacle of synesthesia and awake memories and sensations of years, decades ago. It is listening “Crying in the Rain” and remember a cold dawn, the lights of the poles still on and everybody sleeping on a mattress upon the living room floor. It is listening to “She Drives Me Crazy” and reminding the time you jumped on your younger brother's belly. It is listening “Total Ellipse of the Heart” and remember that in that time the naive people of your street got impressed about a Saint John balloon burning in the sky – would it be an UFO?

Old songs bring back the good sensations, they bring back that one you was, less experienced, but more purer and dreamer. And when you look back in the past, it is like the life was more colorful. Colors fade away until it remains only black, white and gray while we don't meet the death in the total blackout or during the darkness of the indifference. But not only because of this, it seems like people were more glad, simple and spontaneous, different from the desperate people of today concerned in taking part of a dictatorship that promises happiness but that only makes them feel more internally unhappy, despite of the yellow smiles and the vapor tears being convincing to prove the opposite.

Music have this power of awaking the delicious nostalgia that make you want to share, but it is a little disappointing when you do it and the feedback is less effusive. This is not a question of antipathy, but what has a ego-historic value to you, may not have to the other one, anyway. And well, let's accept and enjoy the rich universe of our imagination, of our liberty land. Dreaming is nice, but it would be better to dream in two in a cold and rainy Saturday night, listening to the delicious songs of Antena 1 remembering the great classics and overeating a pizza without feeling guilty.

Sand and blood

He felt the smell of blood coming out from his nose, its taste on his throat. Blood that was dripping and mixing to the sand. He felt weak, he was dizzy and very injured, he saw distorted images and the buzzing in the ears mixed itself to the anger whines of his aggressors that were feeling pleasure in the violence.

“Don't hurt him or then U.N. won't give us political support if we show disrespect to the human rights” - the leader of the opposition said. And he turned to the injured man: “It doesn't mean you don't desert it, but for us is more interesting taking your place and restoring the republic than seeing you dead. We can provide it later”.

The Arab Spring had come and the king, that got the power through a coup d'état, was falling. His father had been the king, but he was murdered by the revolutionaries that proclaimed the republic.

The reign of the young and gorgeous king haven't last so much and he didn't feel motivated for this. He always felt that love was rubbish because since he was a teenager he could have the odalisques he wanted thanks to his beauty and power. Having a female company had never been a problem and he thought that it would never be. Untill the moment he found one and felt in love for true, intensively. As she had a bad reputation face to the society, he promised to run away with her for them to feel this feeling together.

It wasn't what happened. He got scared of what he was feeling, scared of ending up committing a huge mistake and giving it all up. He tried to convince himself that she was just his first passion of the never-ending summer and decided to dismiss her. He was about to become the king and needed a first lady of his high level.

The coup d'état and the marriage with the international actress had come, as well as the power but... not the happiness. He was the one before that woman but it wasn't the same. He saw a new world, wider, but he understood it as a curse because he wasn't the same one he was: he felt more vulnerable and his loss of security and psychological instability worried his allies.

After a diplomatic event the king started to show he wasn't fine. It was as if the craziness had got him. He decided to get rid of the knowledge and surrender himself to luxury once again. Conducted by Indian drivers and male chauvinist humor TV show female assistants from the East Europe, he burned the books, the wisdom, what he was feeling and was sexually devoured by the woman that made the Indian drivers to feel envy. This kind of self-exorcism session haven't helped because the king was getting worse and worse, more depressive and self-destructive.

The wave of the Arab Spring came to the Maghreb via Twitter and Facebook. It was a revolutionary wave against the tyranny and the fact of taking the power by non-democratic ways incited the opulent opposition to wish to take the power in a more nice way through United States and United Nations eyes. The king was very depressed to refrain any kind of uprising against his government and then, he lost the support of his allies.

Allies that changed their political support. Allies that gave his head to the revolutionaries group that beat him up in front of everybody. Nothing else mattered; losing the power, losing blood, losing his life. He had never felt in love so deeply and he hadn't lost any women yet to learn how to deal with his depression. His regret was stronger because he dismissed her. He loved Sakineh.

Ridiculous thoughts

I'm tired. I'm tired of being friend, of trying to be special for people who don't know how to value my gestures. Of being present for who is often absent. Of feeling guilty for doubting someone's friendship while this one was by my side when I really needed but... I don't know, I need much more than advices for hard times and that's it.

Don't misread me. I'm not in love, I don't want to be in love; this isn't the question, neither the solution. This text isn't for someone in special, but for some people, plural of person. I need presence, I need less words and good intentions and more gestures and attitudes.

Yes, I moved away. Invisibility doesn't please me. I was there, I was always there. It isn't healthy begging for attention and caring with someone who doesn't care, who treats me as a convenience because one day he might need me or then, he feels in debt about me because I was his friend in a moment a friend was all he needed. I'm tired of thinking of good metaphors, beauty euphemisms, nobody reads my blog anyway unless I force them to do it.

And well, would it work if I vomit and tell the truth of what's bothering me? People don't want to help or they can't, I already know the cliches. And even if they wanted to, they couldn't help, all they could do would be feeling embarrassed and feel ashamed of me and it doesn't help. It's disappointing!

This isn't a teenager disillusion, my body possessed by an emo spirit or a night crisis of foreveralonism. Or perhaps some mental problem, depression or misanthropy. Perhaps the problem isn't me but the group of blind people around me that I used to care about, to concern of, to listen to and to try to help. The human being is naturally selfish, he always want to be rewarded for something good he did even though his superego or the society moral rules say this is wrong. The human being is an animal trying to domesticate himself and getting rid of this nature. Well, I'm speaking for myself.

Anyway, perhaps I really shouldn't spend my time writing a text to play this role of seeming ridiculous or mentally disturbed, but I don't have the gift of pretending I'm not seeing, not feeling, suppressing me; not for so long. I guess I have no more patience to make the blinds to see what is right in front of their nose. I neither should take myself the trouble of writing a text with hints for a better understanding of the human psychology. I'm not talking about Freud: I'm talking about common sense, sensibility and lack of tact that people seems to have lost somewhere.

THE CRANBERRIES – Ridiculous Thoughts

Facebook's wall of fame

Because on the internet you can be a star. Because on the internet you can show yourself off. Everyone wants to be a star. Everyone demands attention...

Poor boys and girls were born and raised in a poor environment, without hygiene, without health, without toys. The old TV set was their little portal to the world of wonder. Inside it, pretty children had a happy family that could give them the most expensive gifts, their parents were lovely, their city was beautiful and they had lots of friends that enjoyed enviable quality of life and lifestyle. If I become a model, I can be rich. If I become a soccer player, I can be rich and fuck all the women I wish.

Richer boys and girls were born and raised in a comfortable environment, clean, healthy in a house full of sophisticated technological devices. But it was in a poor land. When they went to Disney, they felt the air of arrogance from middle class the American kids educated to be xenophobic and stupid. They came back to Brazil feeling superior only to the poor ones, the kids of the traffic lights, the slums, the Children of the People. Money they already had, they just wanted to feel important and recognized for all, even bu the riffraff for them to humiliate...

However, not everyone become a model, a renewed soccer player or a Globo Broadcast's Hollywood star. How can I be famous, beloved and hated without the television?

Then the internet became popular, the price of the computers were slashed down and the social networks became a success. It is not the same thing of being the protagonist of a soap-opera but it can be worthy. And it was! Lots of unknown people started to make friends among them. The more friends I have, the more popular I'll be. Fifty friends... three hundred friends... six hundred friends... nine hundred friends... full profile...

I need pretty pictures to post on my Orkut... I need a new digital camera. I need to expose to every one I have a social life... say “cheese”. Take pictures like your were kissing, take them in front of the mirror... I think my body is not nice... I will start going to the gym... Has left to the gym. Shirtless pictures, breast pictures, ass pictures, lascivious pictures...

Hey, wait. Now the poor have Orkut, let's ridicule them, let's put them in their place because we were pioneers of this website and we are better than them... Well, the poor took over the Orkut, let's go to a social network not too popular where we can comment the pictures and proclaim ourselves the owners of it

Twitter to say what I'm doing, did or intend to do. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, Faces. Foursquare to say where I am, at the party, at the gym, at the mall, at the beach... Instagram to show off to there poor people I have an iPhone and my pictures are cult. 1920's effect to the pictures of the beach, 1970's effect to the photos at the nightclub, 1980's effect to the lasagna I've just cooked.

But it is not enough to scream the places I go. It is not enough to report and cool places I'm going. It is not enough to show off my body as my biggest talent... It's necessary to be more than a desirable one financially and sexually, it's necessary to show some culture.

I have never read Clarice Lispector but her phrases impress me. I don't understand of feelings but Caio Fernando de Abreu touches my heart. I don't understand of Philosophy and Mathematics but Nietzsche and Freud know so much about life and about the human being... Oh, Freud was psychoanalyst? Sorry, I'm so cult, so erudite that I mess up my mind with several names and professions.

Brazil's situation is really lamentable, right? The rich class is rich, the poor class is poor and the middle class is middle! Corrupt politician should be a compound word, nobody's trustworthy. Terrorist Dilma. Alcoholic Lula. Globo is right and Veja too. Let's organize a march against corruption because the internet is the sole weapon we have.

What about talking about love all the time, suffering of love? It's necessary fallacy when we want sex or a relationship to mask the loneliness. The likes and comments are my test of popularity. The one who likes my picture or poke me wants to fuck with me. The one who positively comments my polemic post thinks I am smart and wants to fuck with me. The one who is against my opinion is envy of me and should have some sex.

If someone criticizes us, it is envy of our success... Always, always... Poor envy people....

Because on the internet you can be whoever you wish. Because on the internet you can be the perfect human being, hot and photoshoped, ready of impressive quotes that thrills Brazil. Because on the internet you can be a star. Because on the internet you can show yourself off. Everyone wants to be a star. Everyone demands attention...

Once upon a time there was spontaneity and freedom to be the one you are instead of submitting yourself to be an ideal, an utopia, someone who will never exist.

Tromsø

The hot milk cup warmed my hands during that sunny, but cold, winter day in Tromsø. In the moment that my eyes lied on the opened petit suisse pot, the snow outside melt down and I got back to the 1992 summer. The snow was replaced by the vivid green of the grass.

We ran barefoot along the river coast and its transparent water. We could see its bottom full of rocks and even some fishes. And through the wide and opened fields we could fly a kite and admire the curious shapes of the clouds. Or the several stars that the city lights weren't able to hide in the sky.

The kings of the world excavated the ground seeking for treasures. They climbed some hills as if it was a big fjord. How much History could an abandoned house to have?

Two pots of petit suisse and twine and then we had a telephone. Calm and cozy song playing inside a house. A dog running to catch a ball. No worries.

Chicken soup if you caught a cold. Advices when you were insecure. Studying together if one of us had a tough exam in college. Hugging when we failed, hugging when we succeed. Presence if some of our relatives and friends were gone.

At that time, we lived well. We were friends, we were partners. By the look, we could read unspoken words, we could easily understand what each other were feeling and thinking. We were not concerned with the annoyance of the boring people. We couldn't see fun in laughing at people that were different or eccentric. We weren't concerned in judging everyone and everything. We never wanted to be the center of the attentions, being better or worse than anyone.

We were only concerned in living, in appreciating the beauty of live, enjoying a simple life not expecting miracles or everything great. We don't want to waste time with sadness and its unpleasant consequences.

Nothing has changed, we are just older. We still see the world with the same eyes. We still can see and feel the beauty even in the small things.

We have each other. We are more than friends, we are more brothers, we are more than a family. We are a fortress when we are together. We are light when it's dark. We care, we take care of each other. We are a couple that life joined, unable to be separated by anyone.

Sakineh's sour vomit

The Ambassador's receptions are noted in society for their host's exquisite taste that captivates his guests.

Sakineh got negatively surprised in seeing him again. Even she had finally overcame her past traumas, she felt a growing anger inside her. The fact he wasn't single but married with a Westerner woman that barely knew how to dress a hijab decently made her angry more and more.

Differently from her, Sakineh's former lover got positively surprised in seeing her again. It could be explained by the fact that Sakineh was more spectacular than before and also because he hadn't seen the Turkish-Iraqi doctor with whom Sakineh had gotten married. When the waiter took with him the giant tower of Ferrero Rocher chocolates, he finally went crazy when he discovered that Sakineh had a husband. Even of all he had done and said, he still loved her.

Feeling uncomfortable, Sakineh asked “excuse me” and went to the toilet. The Slavic Sakineh's former lover wife offered him a chocolate and whispered at his ear:

“Monsieur, with this Roche, you are really spoiling us!”.

Exasperated, he pushed her to the floor saying “Get out of my way, you bitch!”. She didn't feel humiliated with such an act of rudeness and took advantage of this moment to seduce the ambassadors with a sexy look, biting her lips. Some were recording the first lady fallen on the floor of the Embassy while she said “Record me, edit me”.

As she had never gone to the Embassy of Saudi Arabia before, Sakineh got lost and end up in the kitchen. It was where her former lover finally found her for them to talk and Sakineh spill over all what she wanted to say but that she couldn't. She also felt safe and sheltered in that kitchen full of shining silver knives and cleavers.

Sakineh, it's very good to see you again! I missed you for all those years, days and nights. It was as if the Sun couldn't heat me, as if the Moon couldn't light my darkest nights. - he said using the same words he once used.

You missed me so much that you abandoned me! You missed me so much that you got married with a porn start from Slovakia! You disposed the love I gave you, the dreams I dreamed. You couldn’t do it! You disposed my illusion, the crazy passion. It's too late... - Sakineh said.

Saky, things happened in my life. Things I couldn't tell you, I suspected you could be an odalisque interested only on my goods. I ascended to power and I needed a woman in the same level of mine and you was just an odalisque. What could I expect from a woman that I met dancing at the pole dance to American soldiers in Baghdad?

I was I dancer wishing to make money and fame through the dance and I need to start from the bottom, but I doesn't mean I didn't love you. I gave you all my love and you threw it into the garbage can, you traded me for a woman that sees you as a piece of flesh and you probably see her the same way because well, worse than dancing at the pole dance is being a renowned worldwide porn start! - roared Sakineh.

I was wrong, Sakineh. You were always my true love and I was stupid too seek for something better. With you I realized that loving is too easy, too hard is trying to forget that once all the love I had I gave you. When I noticed it wasn't enough, it was too late to get back and give you what I didn't gave.

Save me from you late regret speech, I don't believe in nothing else that comes from your velvet mouth. Don't say you love me unless forever, don't tell me you need me if you're not gonna stay. Don't give me this feeling, I'll only believe it. Make it real or take it all away.

Iranian cookers came into the kitchen and both Sakineh and her former lover remained quiets. Sakineh didn't want to look into his eyes. She was just looking at a shining knife on the table, imagining she was cutting that man once she loved in small parts to serve him in a soup of blood.

When the kitchen was empty from cookers again, Sakineh decided to put an end in that conversation. She felt anything else but distaste and a great grief by that man and she didn't have a little wish of forgiving him.

Sakineh, I want you back. Come back to me, become my first lady. Come to make me happy – he begged her with tears on his eyes.

I'm happy without you. I have never met a man so coward, so weak, so cold, so insensitive and mentally unstable as you are. If you really loved me, you would never do what you did, you would never speak with me as you did that time. I would have accepted your imperfections because I accepted you even with that dubious behavior. I really loved you and I was never in doubt of my feelings about you. I never looked for “something better”. You build a good feeling together with me but when you destroyed it, you did it all alone never caring of what I would feel. My life became a real hell, I started to use drugs. You had your chance of being happy with me before but you quit. You could have a second chance with me if I haven't met my Turkish-Iraqi husband that treats me as a true woman and cares about what I feel. You are immature and selfish, you don't care of others, only with your own pleasure... - she said all these words coldly and that was making her feel good; she was spelling over all she always wanted to speak.

But Sakineh... - he tried to interrupt her.

You shout you mouth because you have no right to speak. I sincerely want you to suffer because only this way you would understand what I passed. You are undignified of love because you don't know how to love anyone. Follow you path without me, you could have me, but you didn't want. The choice was yours. I'm tired of you, I found another man. Don't look for me anymore. Goodbye – and Sakineh turned her back to him and left...

He remained in the kitchen, paralyzed with those words. He expected Sakineh to jump to his arms but, for his surprise, she was more mature, more than he was. He had never been loved by anyone so strongly and he had never loved anyone as intensively as Sakineh. He felt alone and his speech about the heat of the Sun stopped being only beautiful words to become a fact. It was as if he was surrounded by a cold wind, as if a trapdoor was opened under his feet.

  YIRUMA - Kiss The Rain by Tsukige