pluriverses

The streets were silent as I walked back home, and my footsteps echoed like a small frail heartbeat on the concrete. Due to not feeling perfectly well, greatly due to tiredness, I resorted to what I usually do on that occasion: putting one foot ahead of the next steadily and only cross streets when the light is green for me (something, I shamefully must admit, am accounted guilty for not doing so often).

However, my focus was robbed in a few moments and my eyes fled away from the course I had set briefly upon encountering from the corner of my eye a bright star that accompanied me to my left, but I just let it be, there in the sky. It was only upon the comfort of arriving to my street I granted my dizzy self the right to look up - after all, I was nearly home.

I looked up to find that there were several little bits and pieces of archaic light shining back at me, forgotten up in the sky. As I arrived in front of my flat, I forgot all about my concerns, about the numbing cold, about everything. I took my hat off - in a practical sense, it improved my view, but my more poetical self says it might have been in some sort of reverence to the largeness of the universe, to the ancient light shining testimony to our own little entropy coming down upon us from stars, reflected off of planets, travelling through the vastness of the cosmos, into earth’s atmosphere, through the lens of my glasses to hit my retina where my specialised neurones quickly collected this processing it abstractly through electrical impulses which traveled across my brain all the way to my occipital lobe, from where the information would be silently distributed to millions and millions of neurones in different regions causing me to consider and think of what I saw.

My mind went in a million directions, maybe as numerous as the stars itself.

I thought of it rationally, the rudimentary and self taught astronomy and astrophysics I have had access to in recent years. I thought of a metaphor I once came up with and thought was wonderfully creative - and maybe it was so for an 8 year old - that ‘friends are like stars, even if you could see them, they were always there’. I thought of how funny it is that we are stardust which can, ultimately, appreciate itself whenever appreciating the night sky. I thought of how maybe, just maybe if even for just a bit we all took a moment to reverently take our hats of, strip ourselves of little daily concerns that seem so extraordinarily troublesome, forget things that seem vastly important in our lives and just looked up to see how small we are - both before space and time - we would realise how very small both ourselves and our concerns are. But, at the same time, see that we are also gloriously significant: able to translate all these dots of light into metaphors, mathematical formulations, poems, songs, and beautiful words to one another.

Looking up reminded me of our paradox as humans: we are surprisingly intricate and complex - holding within us each a unique entire universe - and yet, we can also be extraordinarily futile and useless to the universe: if we cease to exist, it will carry on perfectly fine. We think we are part of the beauty, of the view - but we are just silent spectators in awe, given a chance to see beauty and love in a world we will never, ultimately, belong to. At the end of the day, in an equally glorious and fearsome way, we are everything, and we are nothing.



I heard some footsteps approaching, and suddenly became aware of the fact I had no idea how long I stood by the river looking up at the ancient skies: the world swallowed me up once again into it’s cares, but with a certain sense of wonder and of peace. Maybe the world, cosmos, beauty will carry on even in my absence - but none of that harsh reality can erase the wonder and exquisite honour we have in being a little piece assisting in the functioning in this vastly complex organic, ever changing machinery that is the universe. Due to this ultimate dynamic in it’s functioning, we are comforted knowing, that even if this machinery continues to work, we have a chance to allow it to never work in the exact same way - but it’s in our hands the choice as to the changes we leave, if we break other pieces, or if we help fix them.

Or, then again, I may just be spending FAR too much time with Anne of Green Gables.

Harder than rocket science

There is a sign in one of my University buildings that says: Working towards a data driven society. I always found that confusing, from the first time I saw it up to now. That got me thinking: data? Is that what drives us, or what we want to drive us? Numbers? Information? Is that what they think it’s all cracked up to be?

When I come to think of it, maybe there is not much work to be done to be the ‘data driven society’, because in a way I feel we already are so. Everything and everywhere there is information, we are being constantly bombarded with information: information on what we should or shouldn’t do, on what we need  - and didn’t even know it! Thanks, advertisements! I really did not know I needed all that to be truly  happy! Information on what is happening everywhere: politics, economics, and even celebrity scandals - oh, how was there ever life when you did not know the most recent news about the Kardashian’s latest scandal, Taylor Swift’s latest boyfriend or the clothes - or lack thereof - Lady Gaga wore to a big event. 

We suddenly feel like information is the solution to everything. If we do more research, discover more things, spend longer hours in a lab, get cited more times, sell more news… then we will be closer to solving mankind's issues. If we could only educate everyone, then everything would be great! If we could know everything from the neutron star collision to the positron emission, we could fix the whole world. Not questioning the role of education and it’s undeniable importance, but are we really sure about that? Is that what we really want? Or, more accurately, is that what we really need? 

The thing is, we are treating science and information like our new religion - like it will redeem us, it will save our race from the destruction (which, by the way, most of the time we inflict on ourselves). Science said this. This was published, it must be true. We can now fix the world. 

But the thing about science - the real  science - is that one of the most important things to know is how little we know. The scientist is not known for screaming ‘Eureka!’ and orchestrating DNA into a new perfect combination. Scientists are not priests, chosen ones, or gods. They are just regular people who happen to be very curious and are trying to use that in order to earn a living. 

Most of the time, science is frustrating. It’s tiring. You don’t understand half of what’s going on in your blessed PCR or why your immunofluorescence hasn’t lit up like a Christmas tree. And, even if we do get results, they are not irrefutable. Sure, lots of people say they try to refute it - the academy is merciless. But is it? 

Why then do stories about big lecturers who had 17 papers withdrawn still come up because of inaccurate information? Well, the 17 papers got through somehow, got published, and treated as truth. 

The Publish or Perish barbaric way of life is merciless, more than the academia many times. You know that day when you just really need to get your job done, have family problems, are completely emotionally wrecked and your work doesn’t seem to do too well? Scientists have those days too. You know when you expected one outcome from your work and get something completely different? That feeling, frustration? Scientists also have that. And, although the objective is to be ‘impartial’ in data analysis, how can you? As a scientist, something I have been studying is how all your information is processed and goes through circuitry related to emotion - and nothing can change that. It just does, it's part of your natural neuronal circuitry. All that you study, analyse and research will undergo processing and will be influenced by your culture, social practices, memory, personal history and emotions. And, yes, this is very likely to affect the outcome of your work - even if you are a scientist. We don’t have a little switch to turn off our feelings, or a dose of amnesia when analysing data. 

But, suppose that doesn’t matter. That the brutality of the academia will confirm the veracity in your work, and that you manage to produce information. Suppose we did learn everything about everything. We have science to be immortal, science to clone people. We have science to go to several planets. But how will that affect us? 

The greatest contradiction in this information chase is the fact that if we do not have information to back up our decisions, we will use excuses to do so. In the end, mankind will just do what they want to do and at the moment it comes in handy putting the blame on the fact that we don’t know everything about the universe. If information really did ‘fix everything’, a scientist studying the importance of sleep for cognition would not be working overnight on his paper to be sent by his sponsors’ deadline, kept awake for a week on caffeine, red bull and obscene amounts of sugar. An oncologist wouldn’t be sitting outside the hospital smoking. But still, these things happen. Still, we do… what we want to do.

Saying the world is as it is because of lack of information is at least naïve, if not a plainly stupid assumption; we cannot use ignorance as an excuse for bad decisions. Independently of the amount of information we have, we will make decisions - and they will have to be made even in not ideal circumstances - and we must accept the consequences of this. We will make decisions which will affect both us and others, and we have to accept that. Sometimes it is our fault.

We cannot say there are huge social gaps because the world does not have enough education. We cannot say that if there were more information there would be less suffering, less death. We cannot say information will solve all our problems. That is a childish way of resigning responsibility for what the world has come to be. 

One day, we may be closer to having more information. But what good will that information be if we do not have the maturity to use it? If there is suffering, most of the time it’s because we inflict it on each other. If there are social differences, it is because we have failed to learn to share our resources. Maybe, before looking into our telescopes at the far off stars or into the microscope to see structures so small we cannot see with the naked eye, we should first learn to look at and really see that which is near and those which are like us: a human soul, vastly more complex than any other equationable or deductive or dissective item in the universe. It is another human, with another universe in them, and they ought to be treated with the love and respect you would expect to be treated - just because it’s the right thing to do. 

Maybe then, we can learn to do something useful. Maybe then our mechanical, impersonal intelligence may start to become wisdom. Meanwhile, I’m just trying to figure out in which point of history loving a fellow human being became more difficult than doing rocket science. 

overwhelming thankfulness

It seems hardly fair to chose a limited amount of things (or people, for that matter) to be thankful for. But just thinking of these things already humbles my heart to an extent that makes it impossible to not want to say the 'thank you's aloud.
Thinking only of all the fascinating beauty in the world - the vastness and mysteries of phenomena we cannot fully grasp like black holes that keep us humble, to the small fragility of life in a flower in bloom that soothes our soul - I am already overcome with a feeling that not a million kisses to the Blarney stone could make me eloquent enough to express.
More than that, to be in the select group of people worldwide that has food, warmth, a roof over my head and can only write this because I am one of those privileged enough to know how to read and write... all this makes me feel like I have much more than I am worthy of. If I need water, I just open the tap - I don’t have to walk miles and miles with a bucket over my head. If I want to talk to someone, phones, email, letters, anything can be used. The "saudade" can be eliminated briefly without much effort.
This time that technology has given to me has allowed me to spend a great deal of time studying, thinking and trying to understand some bits and pieces in the universe and trying to find ways to help patients be treated and help people, even if only a little. And for that, I am also very thankful.
I have also been very privileged beyond my imagination to receive a scholarship - to study abroad, to get to know people from across the globe from several cultural origins and customs. Sometimes I have to remind myself: "Yes, you are in Ireland. Your dream of studying abroad has not only come true, but it has come true intertwining your future into your roots". Here I have had a chance to learn of things I love, to show my work to more than the bottom of my drawer, to talk to people who's work I admire and I would never dream of even seeing from afar. These have been three crazy, crazy months of dreams I no longer believed were alive in me coming true.
If all this weren't enough to overwhelm me with thankfulness, there still is more: What makes all that worth it. After all, as Chris McCandless put it, "Happiness: only real when shared". I have a wonderful family that are there for me, that pray even from afar, that read all my nonsense about this trip. I have wonderful friends back in Brazil who still write to me - complain I don’t send news, or even just share their news, offer to help in what they can, and celebrate every joy I have here. That seek me out, and that are supportive and are with me, in spite of the space between us.
I have also met people here that have already become part of me, and that I can’t imagine life without anymore (by the way, sorry guys, nobody's going back to your home countries, you shall be kidnapped and taken with me wherever I end up!). Friends that are supportive, that listen, that show such love I no longer believed was out there; friends that have become a family, that have become part of me in the most unlikely ways, again, that I never believed possible. I'm still trying to figure out how in a few months or weeks one can become so important.
Maybe that’s what this year - more exactly, these 3 months have been: of teaching me to believe. To believe in things I didn't think were real, or possible for that matter. Of teaching me that the big dear world is so fascinating, is so radiantly beautiful and unpredictable, that it can keep alive things you never knew were alive: hope, dreams, love, joy, patience, kindness, goodness, beauty. All burning beacons lighting our way to keep us going.
I thank God for his love for us which made him give us all these wonderful things (and yet not let us forget where our real home is), for his faithfulness, for his unchangeable and yet absolutely unpredictable character. I thank him for listening to every hopeful prayer I had forgotten, every dream I had given up on, and for bringing me to where I am now: making me feel fully alive, living the best of days, feeling that I finally am doing what I was made to do, and that I am where I am meant to be.
"And I thank each person taking part in this journey of belief in the past few months, be you near or far: teaching, supporting, loving in the most beautiful ways, listening, and being as kind on the soul as that blooming flower and more complex than black holes as only a human can be in the most glorious way possible. And, well, I don’t really need to list names - you know who you are. Thank you."

How fragile we are

One would think that with me wanting to be a doctor, seeing corpses on a daily basis, drawing dissected people, it would have hit me beforehand - but it didn't. It took a Human Nervous System class opening a rat for me to realise just how very fragile we are. 

It need not be by spear, by steal and flesh becoming one. It need not be by incredible force, or dramatic hit that the body can fail. As I watched the rat - already drowsy and motionless being pinned onto a cork board by hands and feet, in a gruesome resemblance to a crucifixion, I had no reaction but to feel my stomach turning in itself watching the beating heart exposed and the inner organs spilling out carelessly. With a small guillotine the body was soon headless and with a pair of scissors and tweezers the brain and every nerve was soon exposed. Scissors and tweezers. That was what exposed the main organ giving this rat thought, reaction, emotion, life. All of nature's endeavour to protect the brain and cerebellum, quickly pushed aside by human ability to 'solve problems'. 

It was during those brief moments, a bit less then an hour, that all my dreams and all of humanities problems seemed so pointless. You can work as much as you want for a perfect body, to dress it glamorously and have beautiful hair - it won't change it's destination. You can work as much as you want, fight as much as you want for money, success, diplomas, recognition and some spark of glory - you can't take any of those to the grave any more than you brought into the world when you arrived. It seemed plainly pointless that we should obsess over such small trivialities in our day to day life, if we have the main thing: life itself. 

We can be easily opened, pulled, turned inside out, torn apart and sticked together - but we aren't, we are amongst the living. Our body is constantly functioning to keep us alive, and well, and instead of being thankful for that and living according to this thankfulness for what we have, for having so many loved ones near us that too have survived this hostile world, that are so incredibly significant in ability to think, create, write a song or a poem - and most of all - love and be loved, we still dwell upon issues so fickle. 

Maybe we do not see this fragility, and that is why we obsess over these things. Or maybe it is because we do see this fragility that we seek with such ambition to be notorious, astounding, glorious and exceptional in skill, knowledge, beauty. We do not wish to be forgotten. But by seeking to not be forgotten by the world, maybe we fail to be remembered in a good way. Maybe we fail to be remembered in love, by those closest to us, preferring to be known by strangers than loved by close ones. How many times have I not left family, friends, loved ones aside for career, knowledge, recognition? To 'make a name', to be known? To get a better grade on a diploma that may very well never be looked at? 

What are we doing with our days? Are we doing with our days what we want our lives to be remembered for? Maybe we need to be reminded of our fragility, so that while it does not catch up on us, we can still correct our path and live with meaning more than ambition. 

"If blood will flow when flesh and steel are one
Drying in the colour of the evening sun
Tomorrow's rain will wash the stains away
But something in our minds will always stay
Perhaps this final act was meant
To clinch a lifetime's argument
That nothing comes from violence and nothing ever could
For all those born beneath an angry star
Lest we forget how fragile we are

On and on the rain will fall
Like tears from a star like tears from a star
On and on the rain will say
How fragile we are how fragile we are"
- Fragile, by Sting

The perfect tragedies

Yesterday I did something unusual; I found myself very irritated with the american “hollywood movies” with heroes explosions and perfect endings, and so I decided to watch a chinese film - the original version of Mulan, rather than the american-Disney-happy-ending version. 

I was surprised to find how different the original story is. Mulan was one of the best soldiers in her army, both in skill and in intelligence. She was a general along with Wentai - not “Shang” as in the Disney version - and was in war for 12 years. She saw friends die, her emotional attachment caused the death of many men, and she actually did love the general - but there is no happy ending to the story. 

Turns out general Wentai, who knows her identity as a woman, but still respects her and does all he can to make her stronger and into a better warrior hands himself in to the enemy army in exchange for their survival because he is a prince. Mulan is able to rescue him, but they find that the princess of the enemy people wants to marry one of the Wei - Mulan’s people - for war to cease. Therefore, Wentai would have to marry this princess instead of Mulan. Towards the end of the movie, he says he wants to flee to be with Mulan “It is easy to give up my life for the war to cease, but it is much harder to give up the woman I love”. Mulan tells him she will always love him, but that his marriage is the only way for there to be no more war, no more death, no more hatred. They must sacrifice love for there to be peace. 

The last part of the film says: 

“Someone once said: Travel too far from home, and you will lose your roots; if you kill too many people, you will lose yourself; if you die in the battle, your life will sing into the ground like rain and vanish without a trace. If at that time you fall in love with someone, hope will blossom again from the earth and passionately embrace life.”

This made me very thoughtful of our western culture nowadays. In a sense, love and ‘being in love’ is very important - even the american movies put this idea - but the western culture puts it above all other feelings and circumstances; they say that you have to be happy, you have to be with the one you love. You. No one else. In a sense, it’s rather ironic that love should be praised in such a selfish - and therefore unloving - way. 

We have learnt to see 'love' as a way of self satisfaction, and a way to make ourselves feel happy: we must be with people who make us happy, and love excuses so many things that otherwise would be inexcusable. I wonder how many of us nowadays, in our self-centred culture would have been willing to do what was done for honour and peace in the film. Are those even concepts we value and understand?

As I observe social interaction, and as I am questioned as to why I am not one to be in parties and be involved in one night stands or short term relationships without any real commitment, I am having to think through consciously what these things look to be for myself and why I’d rather pull myself apart from them. Most of these ‘relationships’ - if we can call them that - objectify the other person so they are mostly a tool, a means to ‘have a good time’, detaching the other person from their human image of a person with an origin, history, opinion, feelings. Someones have become somethings. 

I believe this is happening for mainly two reasons. I may be wrong, but comparing nowadays to human history, we are in a sense living better times: wars are not as common as they once were, slavery is now fought against, and human rights exist and we try to apply them. ‘Problems’ are being reduced. We are, now, focusing more on ourselves and our wants, simply because we can. We have no more reason to need one another, because we are used to having no needs that are not satisfied. The only aspects in which we need one another have become very emotionally detached, and people have become as disposable as our plastic cups at the end of a party. The capitalist way of thinking has made everything about our own satisfaction, having more to be happier, and substituting one ‘product’ for another whenever the first ceases to satisfy us. 

When we ‘are in love’, but still live selfishly, we are loving ourselves more than anyone else. When one cheats on another because they ‘loved someone else’, they are using a desire to follow one’s own desire - and therefore self satisfaction and self love - to justify an unjustifiable action. Ultimately, although we idolise the idea of loving and being in love, we idolise it for the benefits it has for us to have a witness to our lives and the fact it makes us happy, rather than to make someone else happy. We are seldom carried beyond ourselves. We love for our own sake, rather than for others. 

Oswald Chambers said: 

“If human love does not carry a man beyond himself, it is not love. If love is always discrete, always wise, always sensible and calculating, never carried beyond itself, it is not love at all. It may be affection, it may be warmth of feeling, but it has not the true nature of love in it.” 

And this, from my humble - and very possibly wrong - perception of the world and my generation is what seems to be happening. We love love more than we actually do love people, we love ourselves and our happiness, dreams and desires more than anything else - because we have reached a technological and economical point in which we don’t really need anyone so close, do we? So why bother with the complications of proximity?

This brings me to the second point: apart from being so self centred, we seem to be afraid of emotional entanglement, because loving means that we are vulnerable. It is easier to objectify others, to see them as someone so far apart from us they are not of the same kind. With our technology and so many solutions to our problems we have become accustomed to have control over all things, and needing someone else that cannot be controlled and that has power to hurt is is a major fear factor. 

We have learnt - and I definitely include myself in this group - to wrap our hearts carefully in other things that are within our control. Facts, theories, knowledge, labels, books, having ‘a good time’, music, drink, entertainment, work, take your pick of things you are attached to more than people. These are the things we ultimately live for. These are the things that occupy most of our time, and human profound and real relationships are just too complicated and hurtful to keep on a long term basis. A computer, a social network, a fictional character are so much simpler, ideal, are they not? They are results of our imagination and skill and we can build them to be what we want them to be - people, not so much. 

So as I come to the end of my considerations, I wonder if nowadays we really are better off than the days we had more ‘problems’, because I believe in a sense our ‘problems’ have just changed to be much more disguised and much more deeply woven into ourselves and our souls, in our very beings and the way we view our own kind. Pain united us when love failed to do so, whereas now we love the idea of love more than we actually do love anyone but ourselves. We have become the centre of our own small universes, and therefore, when we perish ‘in the battle field’, we leave no hope to blossom and embrace life - we search so much for our own pleasure and our own emotional well being away from pain, we seep into the ground like rain and vanish without a trace, because the only ones capable of caring for us are ourselves.  

Maybe it is because of this - because of this search for meaning - that we see the ‘being in love’ as being so ideal, it is our attempt to be more than a shadow quickly fading. But while we do not learn not to have control, while we do not learn to be vulnerable, we will be nothing but dried up flowers who lost our beauty to the harshness and coldness of those surrounding us - with all the beauty we could share being drained out, frozen and shattered just because coldness is the way the world works, and it's so damn hard to be anything different from the rest. 

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from the perturbations of love is Hell.”

C.S.Lewis, The Four Loves

Heróis Póstumos

Nos últimos anos, temos tidos grandes perdas para a humanidade, tanto culturais (cinema, música, literatura), como políticas. Só pensando nas últimas semanas penso em Rubem Alves, Robin Williams, Eduardo Campos. Grandes massas se mobilizam. Homenagens, flores, choros, camisetas, vídeos, cartas - se vê de tudo nas redes sociais e na mídia em geral. Mas é triste isso, que as pessoas só se importam com aquilo que não tem mais. 

Quantas pessoas já tinham lido a obra de Rubem Alves quando era vivo? (leram algo além das frases soltas e fora de contexto no facebook, claro) Quantas pessoas realmente se importavam com o estado psicológico/psiquiátrico de Robin Williams, mesmo quando ele estava vivo o suficiente para fazer filmes para entretê-los - mesmo que estivesse destruído por dentro? Quem se importa! Ele ainda faz filmes que nos fazem rir! 

Percebi isso - de maneira muito discreta, é claro - com minha iminente partida. Pessoas que eu nem conhecia direito, quem eu duvido que soubesse meu nome inteiro começou a vir falar comigo, pedir notícias, falar em despedidas e em saudades. Fiquei confusa. A ausência provoca estrelato instantâneo. E o mais engraçado, é que isso aconteceu mais com as pessoas que me conhecem menos. 

Isso me incomodou profundamente. Porque uma pessoa ausente (seja por viagem, morte, ou qualquer outro motivo), pode ser quem você quiser que ela seja. Você pode idealizar quanto quiser daquela pessoa (especialmente se a conhece pouco): a pessoa real não está presente pra te lembrar dos defeitos, dos problemas, dos dias em que o poeta não poetiza, o palhaço não faz rir, o político faz declarações duvidosas. Torna-se, por assim dizer, uma paixão platônica pela imagem que fica, ausente de realidade. Ausente de humanidade. 

É isso, não gostamos de gente humana, que erra, que faz as coisas fora do que a gente espera. A gente gosta de heróis, de semideuses, e os vivos são antiheróis por humanidade, e não são semideuses por mortalidade. Apenas a imagem idealizada pode ser eterna, imácula, extraordinária. Por isso só podemos agradecer, homenagear e admirar tanto assim - fazer tanto escarcéu - pelos mortos. 

Mas como seria o mundo se fôssemos agradecidos pelos imperfeitos? Se lêssemos as obras dos autores vivos? Se mostrássemos para eles - em vez de para nossa lista de amigos do facebook - nossa admiração? Será que seria diferente? Será que eles iriam embora acreditando ter cumprido alguma coisa de útil? 

Talvez isso só inflaria o ego deles, ou talvez isso os desse esperança. Talvez os destruiria, mas talvez os incentivaria. Nunca soubemos, nem saberemos o efeito que isso poderia ter sobre uma alma humana - imperfeita, em busca de amor e aprovação. Mas o que sei é que seria legal se a gente não esperasse até as pessoas morrerem pra reconhecer suas virtudes, caráter, e mesmo defeitos. Simplesmente pra sermos uma alma humana diante de outra alma humana, e reconhecer que uma constrói a outra - que você não precisa morrer nem ter sua imagem adornada pela morte pra ser alguém importante. Que mesmo que você ainda conjugue verbos no presente - não mais só no passado, e em terceira pessoa - você ainda tem valor. Por isso que tem o nome de 'ser humano', em vez de 'foi humano'. 

Humanos: a esquizofrenia de anjos e demônios

Acho que estou começando a entender porque houve uma popularização tão grande recentemente da ficção. Vejo muita gente obcecada por livros, por exemplo. Por filmes. Por séries. Jogos. Todas histórias que nunca aconteceram nem vão acontecer, universos que por alguns instantes fingimos fazer parte de... até chegar no ponto final, nos créditos ou no game over. Então somos impiedosamente sugados de volta ao mundo real até encontrar o próximo universo para mergulharmos e ignorarmos o mundo de fora, com guerras reais, onde as mortes não são um obstáculo na missão e no jogo, onde a história não acaba no momento congelado e eterno da felicidade: no mundo real, toda história acaba com a morte do protagonista de cada vida. Sem exceções.

A verdade é que o mundo da ficção é bem mais fácil de lidar que o mundo real. Nos jogos você já escolhe antes de entrar no jogo se quer que seu personagem seja bom ou mau, se quer que ele seja um elfo ou um orc. Nos filmes, é fácil saber por quem torcer – pelo bom, belo, inteligente, admirável. Mas o mundo real não é assim; não existe preto e branco, mas sim uma infinidade de tons de cinza que tentamos distinguir se são mais próximos do branco ou do preto, do certo ou do errado, e com frequência escandalosa erramos no julgamento. Não existem fronteiras demarcadas, são todas sinuosas e embaçadas divisões que não sabemos como classificar algo como louvável ou deplorável, divisões claras perdidas entre causas, motivações, fins, ações, pensamentos e circunstâncias.

Uma vez que os eventos passam a estar no passado, é mais fácil reeditar tudo para parecer mais hollywoodiano, com os vencedores reescrevendo a história. Os nazistas eram os maus, os americanos salvaram o dia. Será que pra quem vivia na Alemanha em 1942 era claro assim? Será que alguém lembra que antes dos ‘heróis’ entrarem na guerra, eles estavam confortavelmente lucrando vendendo armas? Será que alguém lembra que as mulheres alemãs que sobraram nas cidades tomadas por americanos eram estupradas diariamente, muitas vezes mais que uma vez ao dia? Esses são os heróis da nossa história?

Toda essa nebulosa escolha de lados fica clara quando olho as notícias da faixa de Gaza esses dias. Vídeos e notícias relatando os números obscenos de civis, crianças palestinas sendo exterminadas com mísseis, bombas e sabe Deus que mais tipos de tecnologias diabólicas a mente humana é capaz de criar. Salvem os palestinos. Eles estão refugiados. Eles estão morrendo. Do outro lado, Israel diz que eles só não tem mais mortos por causa da tecnologia do país, e que o duelo só é desbalanceado por tecnologia, não por moralidade.

Vejo pessoas defendendo o lado dos refugiados, outras dizendo que Israel é o povo de Deus e por isso não estão errados. Escuta, alguém leu o antigo testamento aí? Deus nunca disse que Israel sempre estava certo. Na verdade, boa parte do tempo os profetas estavam declarando como o povo de Israel não estava certo. Por isso eles foram levados cativos à Babilônia, ao Egito. Por isso profetas como Amós, Jeremias, Oséias, Joel, Ezequiel sofreram tentando mostrar os erros deles. Erros. Isso mesmo, coisa de gente humana. De todo tipo de gente humana. "Pois todos pecaram e estão destituídos da glória de Deus." Rm 3.23. Cristãos, budistas, pagãos, agnósticos, ateus, judeus.

Alguém lembra do que Jesus disse? Que veio para curar os doentes, não os sãos. Veio pra ajudar aqueles que sabem que precisam de ajuda. Alguém lembra que foram os próprios judeus que crucificaram a Jesus porque preferiram as suas regras, leis, tradições do que a graça e o amor? Porque ele amava os gentios? Jura que ainda defendem que eles sempre acertam e nunca podem errar?

A verdade é que... não existem as tais chamadas ‘pessoas inocentes’, nem palestinos, nem israelenses, nem norte americanos, nem brasileiros, nem alemães, nem nazistas, nem ninguém. Não existe o lado ‘bom’ e o lado ‘mau’ para escolhermos nas nossas defesas políticas e ideológicas, porque essa guerra entre bom e mau não é externa – na verdade, a guerra externa é só consequência de uma guerra interna individual onde o mal sai vitorioso.

Não somos pessoas boas, e não há pessoas boas – somos humanos: um misto de amor e ódio incompreensível, um punhado de bem e um punhado de mal, um embate eterno de egoísmo e altruísmo, de moralidade e interesse, de certo e errado. A cada decisão que é feita, a cada palavra que dizemos, temos o poder de construir ou destruir pessoas. Todos os dias, toda pessoa que vemos na rua, que conversamos, que damos bom dia, que julgamos quando a vemos no trem – nós podemos amar ou odiar; nós podemos salvar ou matar. E quantas vezes aquele xingamento no trânsito, na rua, por causa de um pisão no pé ou por fazerem algo que discordamos, quantas vezes não ferimos ela? Quantas vezes ao dizermos coisas que ferem as pessoas não quebramos ela? Quantas pessoas já não cometemos homicídios assim?

Somos criaturas esquizofrênicas com potencial de sermos amáveis como anjos, ou cruéis como demônios; no final do dia, só somos humanos. A diferença entre uma guerra com explosões, sangue e destruição da guerra travada dentro de casa, na violência doméstica, do abuso moral, da exploração do outro pelo lucro, é o poder envolvido. O poder e o dinheiro potencializam os efeitos das nossas escolhas – a possibilidade de fazer o bem é igualmente proporcional à nossa capacidade de fazer o mal. Se temos milhões que podem ser investidos em hospitais, em medicamentos, em salvação, esses milhões também podem ser investidos em tecnologia bélica, em empresas que exploram o trabalhador em nome do lucro, no marketing que nos diz que não somos bons o suficiente enquanto não consumirmos mais, mais, mais.

Essa essência que nos faz é algo que vivemos todos os dias nas nossas vidas, são mudanças que acontecem silenciosamente nas coisas mais cotidianas. Nós recebemos a liberdade de escolher entre o bem e o mal. Por vezes isso me faz me perguntar: Como um Deus que se afirma ser inteiramente bom e santo pode permitir a existência do mal? Porque ele ama, e quem ama dá liberdade. Se não houvesse mal, seríamos todos robôs, autômatos, programados para o bem e para o amor. Deus não nos criou para sermos autômatos, nos criou para escolhermos se queremos amar ou odiar, para termos algum tipo de participação no nosso rumo e no rumo alheio. ‘Grande liberdade essa, quando usamos a nossa liberdade pra tirar a liberdade do outro!’, poderíamos dizer. Mas é por isso que, além de amoroso, ele também é justo. Porque quem ama não deixa o ser amado ser oprimido sem fazer nada. É por isso que, embora ele amasse seu povo no antigo testamento, permitiu que eles sofressem as consequências das suas decisões de se afastarem dele.

Enquanto pensava nisso e orava sobre a guerra, sobre a destruição, sobre as mortes, o sofrimento, os pais perdendo filhos, os filhos perdendo pais, e as pessoas perdendo mais que a vida, a esperança... Mesmo que Deus não mudasse o coração das pessoas por permitir a liberdade de escolha deles, ele não poderia interromper as mortes, o sofrimento e os massacres? Quebrar todas as armas se necessário? Contudo, ao final desse pensamento, percebi que o buraco é muito mais fundo. Não vai fazer diferença quebrar as armas, são vão fazer novas, mais potentes, mais letais. Isso tudo que vemos hoje só são sintomas da raça que viemos a nos tornar, são consequências de todas as nossas escolhas por nos afastarmos do outro, desconhecermos outros como se fossem alheios a nós, nos afastarmos de Deus, dando lugar a ódio. Que tudo isso é só uma pequena erupção de ira, de falta de amor, de incapacidade de olharmos além de nós mesmos. Percebi, então, que não são as armas que precisam ser quebradas, mas sim os corações que precisam ser consertados.
E essa é a parte que dá esperança. O conserto, o conserto que a gente não consegue fazer sozinho. Assim que é o contexto do texto em Romanos supracitado:

Mas agora se manifestou uma justiça que provém de Deus, independente da lei, da qual testemunham a Lei e os Profetas, justiça de Deus mediante a fé em Jesus Cristo para todos os que crêem. Não há distinção, pois todos pecaram e estão destituídos da glória de Deus, sendo justificados gratuitamente por sua graça, por meio da redenção que há em Cristo Jesus.

Romanos 3:21-24