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The road cuts the valleys, mountains, forests. It brings closer, it takes away, it feeds, contributes to the progress, it's the place of fatal accidents. Roads. It tears the green and taints it of gray. It makes possible crossing rivers, frontiers, physical and psychological limits. Anyway, it's possible to write lines and lines of descriptions about it.

A big fish for a small aquarium. It tired, it resigned, it changed. It got, it moved. A fish from Aquarius in January in Rio de Janeiro. New fishes, new sharks, new crustaceans. The water had a different temperature. Getting food was different. The new aquarium, even pretty, was intangible.

Sardine with caviar price. An aquarium full of leaks and out of order things. Little domestic aquariums and of the little of these, many with Oceanarium prices. The warm water didn't please the cold water fish. The fish was no longer with its beloved fishes.

Pursuing a goal is overcoming an almost mental barrier. Opportunities don't fall from the sky, but they are more likely to appear when you work for it. Things aren't as simple as it seems, but they aren't that complicated as well. If winning is a reason to be proud, why quitting is a reason to be ashamed?

Every thing have their time to happen. Difficulties are a necessary bad thing for us to learn to give value to our accomplishments. If you're not prepared for something, dare to face it. If you fall, raise and try again. If a bone is broken, plaster it; it will get better sooner or later.

Disconnected? Apparently, but roads, fishes and difficulties are just metaphors to speak of our search for a goal that sometimes aren't ready for us, sometimes we aren't prepared for them. Some birds born with wings but don't fly. Some have wings, but too short to fly. And others don't have wings, but they create, develop and fly anyway.

The road brings back home, friends, family, life. The wide green that has no end is an invitation to jump off the window and live in that isolated and beautiful world. A river, a train line, the Sun setting and filling the horizon of red and orange. The night comes and in total darkness, stars shine and even the smaller ones can be seen. The Moon illuminates the forest around the road suspended meters of height, it is as if as we fly down over the trees.

Sleeping is not possible. An annoying sound inside the ears, the sensation of swinging is constant, just like a whole afternoon spent in the waters of a shaking sea. Atlantic in the right of yours. Black mountains start appearing. Just like the houses, buildings, the people, the accent. Arriving home. The cloud that engulfs you cozily.

[Rio de Janeiro means “river of January” in free translation]

United States of Mine

For every environment, in front of every person we adopt a unique posture, we adopt a suitable “me”, a language and a particular behavior.

It is interesting how a reality show like “Big Brother Brazil”, strongly criticized by its “bad examples” to our puritan and conservative society, can a be a source of relevant themes to be debated in what pertains to human and society behavior. Just to give an example, one of the main concerns of the housemates is being themselves. But what is it be yourself?

Perhaps one of the most plausible answers is “to behave as you usually do being coherent with what you think and feel”. This thought makes sense, however, it is important to keep in mind that is impossible to establish a kind of profile about who you are.

First of all, we all know that we change as the days, months and years goes by. We might have enjoyed very much something in the past and today we do not enjoy it anymore, or the opposite, we might have hated something in the past and now we love it. Second of all, what is the expire date of a relatively trustworthy profile about who we are?

Not only time can change our vision we and others have concerning our personality. The environment also “shapes” us, as well as people that share this environment with us. For example, the vocabulary we use and jokes we make not always are those we use with who works with us. A person may be glad, playful and funny with a certain group of people, at the same time this one may be more serious and tough with others. Have not this one being “himself” in some of these situations?

In a Big Brother, a housemate may feel intimidated by the cameras, to the exposition and constantly judgment from his house colleagues and the TV audience. He may end up out there being someone he have never imagined to be perhaps because he measured too much his words in order to not displease anyone, as well he may have walked over who dared to try to stop his plans. We can discover a new “me” in situations like these. And we are a bunch of “mes”, we have multiple profiles , almost all of them very similar in its essence, but never identical. For every environment, in front of every person we adopt a unique posture, we adopt a suitable “me”, a language and a particular behavior.

What is “being yourself”? Which are your different “mes” to different people and environments? And when are you being loyal to your essence and when are you fooling others and yourself?

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?