Amusement park

The amusement park has closed. After so many accidents, it was decided that it was the right thing to be done. It was time to a reconstruction, an analysis and stop the amusement rides engines.

The environment was often visited by children. And it was not just an amusement but but a little universe to be explored. The lost treasure, the dukes swimming on the lake, the picnic under the Pohutukawa Cornwallis tree, the sunset and the emerald mountains.

A mysterious voice came from outside and a curious child had heard his name. The voice told it would want to come in and the child, innocent and willing to bring the unknown friend to those wonderful world he already knew, was ran over by a truck when trying to cross the street. That happy place had gone sad.

Some weeks later, the joy returned. One more call, one more child trying to bring the one who was calling hum. One more death. The joy ceded to sadness a second time.

After these deaths, thing were not the same, glad and happy as it was before. Having fun had became harder. The smile was no longer being spontaneous, but a grin to show a false fun and sympathy.

The public was decreasing. Internal accidents caused more deaths. One child flied from the roller coaster. Nobody noticed. A child broke her legs in the bumper car. Nobody went to help her. A child yelled for help while he was being swallowed by a boa constrictor. Nobody neither saw nor heard. Nobody wanted to believe. They decided to ignore.

The marketing was not working anymore. The more promotion, the less people. Even all the good things the amusement park could offer, nobody wanted to go there. At most, they called the children expecting them to risk their lives and get hurt – or die. They glanced through the cracks on the wall. They presumed the place was a crying shame and that nothing interesting could be in the inside then, they turned around and walked back to home.

Then it was decided to close it. It was not easy to resign from the joy of those who had already had fun in that little world barely known, but it was necessary. It was necessary to fix the amusement rides, to water the flowers, to mow the grass, to clean everything and to put garbage into the garbage can. It was necessary recreate, revitalize and it could only be done with the doors closed.

Who wants to come in must wait the reconstruction to be finished in order to not get hut. The administration believes that is not necessary to spend time and money on marketing, because there is already too much. Who wants to enter after the reconstruction will be welcome, those who does not want, should be away and this one will never know what is losing and what could be enjoying.

We inform the amusement park is closed for revitalization. Nobody will suffer an accident anymore. We no longer will invest in ads to avoid a bankruptcy. Those who want to have fun here now must wait the revitalization to be over.

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?

Kaleidoscope

Is the person you really are (or the person you think you are) the same one people around you think you are?

Who am I? One day, a lot of people may have wondered about the person they are to answer to this question on Orkut, or because some situation made them to analyze the person they have been or they were.

There is not an exact answer to this question, but we can come close to an acceptable theory. It would be better developed by one who knows about oneself very well. What one likes and dislikes and knows how to recognize one’s own virtues and shortcomings.

And even if we had created a very true theory about the ones we are, what would be its value? Strangers create concepts about us right before trying to know us deeply. Only time and living together are able to show to them they might have been mistaken. Who is the one that have never met somebody and thought this one was unpleasant and then changed one’s mind when time showed to this person that that one was not the one you thought one were, or the opposite?

And our truer theory may not match with the people around us theory. One may think you are more or less intelligent you really are, funnier or less funny, more or less problematic, etc.

So, theories we create about who we are not only have a short validity (once we are always changing for better or worse) as they also may vary from one person to another. And so, who we are? Are we a different one from each one point of view? Or are we inside a kind of kaleidoscope, the same person saw just by different angles?