Third (fourth, fifth...) culture kids

"Brazilian? But how come you don't look brazilian?" they ask me, shocked and frustrated after realising any attempt to guess where I'm from is wrong. "And your english is very good! You don't talk like the other brazilians I know!". I nod and smile and briefly explain my family and how we function. Depending on the person's interest, I can go more to depth in explaining or not. 

To many people, it is strange the idea that people can not have one standard and stereotypical cultural origin. People who genuinely understand generally are those who have either spent a considerable time abroad, or people who have in fact been raised between two or more cultures. 

There is a particular name for people raised between cultures, Third Culture Kids. It's a term used to describe children whose families are from a first culture, but they live in a second culture - therefore, the child has a third culture, which involves both of the ones they have contact with. In 2013, 220 million third culture kids were estimated in the world. 

I wouldn't call myself a standard third culture kid because of being of the second generation on both sides of the family. Both grandparents on my mother's side are Northern Irish, whereas my grandfather on my father's side was swiss, and his wife was brazilian with portuguese and/or spanish roots somewhere far off. What this means is that my european cultures were slightly more diluted. This still didn't make growing up much easier. 

Firstly, though Brazil has many races, my very pale skin, blonde hair and green eyes still aren't treated as standard. But more than that, I always felt like this outsider trying to decode my friends and acquaintances, trying to live as though I were as normal as possible. Faking an accent in English, not talking about how my home was different, hardly ever having friends over. 

Our british side always regarded honesty very highly, and I was always told I shouldn't lie - but my blunt honesty from a very young age has over the years certainly hurt people I met. When I was told to be honest, I foolishly understood I ought to say what I was thinking.  What to me was 'being honest', to the brazilian culture was being rude. Instead of saying "We should go out some time to catch up and have some coffee" (aka, I do not have the intention to go out and meet you, but I don't want to be rude), I would say... I didn't think it would work out. I thought I was avoiding being deceitful, they thought I was being rude. No one was wrong or right, we wanted to communicate the same idea - we just said it in very different ways and thus couldn't understand each other.

Growing up, much energy had to be put into consciously trying to read expressions and micro expressions, body language and speech nuances to try to see when people understood in a different way than I meant something, and thus begun trying to shape the way I spoke to be understood. 

What I didn't know was that at that time I was trying to understand the cultural iceberg: 

Although inserted in the Brazilian culture lots of the time, I really only knew better the Brazilian surface culture (behaviour, language, some customs and traditions), while at home I was taught mostly the british and some of the swiss deep culture. I felt like a fake, because my surface and deep cultures, in many senses, were clashing cultures.

Brazil vs. Britain

Writing in this, I am going to describe my experience in my family that is a traditional christian Northern Irish family, so much here will not be according to other people's impressions of the current UK culture. Also, I love both cultures in different ways and am continually learning with them; I also understand that many people do not fit into the general stereotypes I will probably exaggerate here: my objective is to explain the different basis of each culture, rather than particular actions - and, obviously, people are people and the basis expresses itself uniquely in each household and human being. I hope I don't hurt any feelings, and if you disagree in any way, please give your point of view in the comments! I'll be delighted to hear more.

All the feels British and brazilians regard feelings in very, very different ways. Brazilians, like most latin cultures, regard feelings very highly and many of their decisions are many times governed by their feelings. If a brazilian is happy, they will laugh, if a brazilian is sad, they will cry, if a brazilian is angry they will argue. Music, soap operas, stories, all have fantastic examples of how important their feelings are, and showing them is definitely not an issue.
British are most definitely not like that. David Gilmour put it very eloquently in one of Pink Floyd's songs, Time: "Hanging on in quiet desperation is the english way". Well, that was how I was taught to live. If something hurts, you ignore it. If you want to cry, you just stop talking (and if you cry, do it behind closed doors without anyone EVER seeing you). If you are happy, don't go over the top. You have feelings. People don't have to know about them.

The british blues Maybe it's the grey skies, the rain, maybe british are just very good at hiding their feelings, but they seem to have this need to be slightly on the down side, it's like the mood baseline. On the other hand, brazilians are generally happy people, and I really admire that. They may not have food to eat, the government may be complete and absolute and utter - pardon my language, but I need this to get the point across - crap, but they are still happy people. Give them a pair of havaianas to be the 'goal posts', a ball (many times made of old socks), and they're happy. They smile a lot, and party even more - I still don't know why they party so much, but apparently, it's a big thing. There's always a reason for a big party, celebration, gathering and food (mostly deep fried, or packed with sugar, or better still, both). Let them watch a soccergame, and they're happy (as long as their team wins).

Tea or coffee? British tea and brazilian coffee are just the beginning of the differences in food between both countries. Brazilians cook with lots of oil and really (really) like their red meat - by the way, brazilian churrascos are fantastic. They also have lots of rice and beans - practically every meal. In britain, potatoes are the big deal in every shape and form. British food tends to be much more bland and to have less seasoning, brazilians like their peppers and seasoning.

Relationships The fact that Brazilians are very governed by their feelings means that this will affect their relationships a lot in good and in bad ways; they tend to be very warm and very touchy-feely - girls kiss cheeks of both guys and girls they meet, guys tend to shake hands or hug other guys (if they know each other very well). Sharing, being together and hugs are important. Couples have no issue with being exceedingly affectionate in public, to the point it gets awkward. Bus stops, subway stations, shopping centres, restaurants. You name it. Much french kissing goes on anywhere and everywhere. Even in restaurants, couples rather than sit in front of each other to look at each other as they talk, they tend to sit side by side to be closer physically.
This physical touch thing seems very alien to my home, by which I was surprised one day my granny just came and gave me a hug for no reason whatsoever. Also, Brazilian relationships tend to be very intense (varying swiftly between extreme love and extreme hatred), and even unfaithfulness is a big thing in relationships (I wonder how much this comes from the soap operas that often portray cheating on a spouse as a good thing, or how much the soap operas reflect the already existing culture); an example is the fact that the adultery website that was hacked had the highest concentration of people in a city signed up on it was in São Paulo. This shoots up divorce rates to 69%, whereas britain has a 47% divorce rate.

Say what you want to say Communication is very different in both cultures, as I described earlier. Brazilians seldom say what they mean, and will very rarely answer "No" to a question they have no intention ever saying "Yes" to. Also, honesty is not valued as highly as being "clever", "not hurting someone" or "being friendly". Meanwhile, the british culture is not necessarily concerned about being friendly to everyone, and are much clearer in saying this (as long as they do not relate to feelings). This can be hurtful to other cultures and perceived as rude.

Punctuality I was always taught to be punctual and was told making someone wait is disregarding their time and assuming your time is more important than theirs. Brazilians are almost always late, though its not done to offend anyone. If a party is scheduled to start at, say, seven o'clock, if you arrive at 8 you will be one of the first to arrive - most people will arrive an hour and a half to two hours late. People already assume it, and time is not a concern.

Proudly third cultured

I could list many other differences, but I think you get the point of what I'm saying - I was raised between two very different cultures and have had to learn a great deal. I wouldn't say it is better to not be a third culture child, in spite of the fact that there were some challenges I only came to recognise many years later. They are different ways of growing up and have their own benefits!
But the truth is that the benefits from being raised between multiple cultures are much greater than the issues coming from it. From very early on third culture children learn that there are multiple ways of seeing the world and interacting with it, and learn to try to read and respond adequately to people. Many times, we have to change the way we speak, but we (many times awkwardly) always try to be understood. We learn that the world is a vast place with many cultures.
Perhaps that is why it is so much easier to be friends with and have lasting relationships with people who also understand this and also are third culture kids - even if the first and second cultures are entirely different between the people. You don't really know what fitting in entirely is like, and thus know what it's like to not really have roots anywhere. It is like this secret world that both of you know, and can both explore together. It's the sudden realization of "You've been through that too??".

Therefore, the next time you ask "where someone is from", if they hesitate, know they aren't being cocky - it's just hard to explain a culture that is different from all others. We don't think we're better than anyone, it's just hard to be a citizen of a world only you and maybe half a dozen other people know. But I still think it's totally worth it!

Lost at sea

When I had a piece going to an exhibition one person asked what I was thinking of doing, and so I explained briefly the symbols I attributed meaning to and which I wanted to put in my work; another person listening in then said "No! You can't plan it out, you have to let it flow and put your feelings out in your art!". My response in disbelief was "Sorry, that's not how I work."
Don't get me wrong - I like art. I like music, drawing, painting. My great difficulty is this generalized feeling that anything and everything is art, much which came from the dada artistic movement and has survived many decades.
Over the past century, artists have been putting a lot of effort into removing the need of a reference in art - paintings no longer had to look realistic, or based on the physical reality; music no longer has to be bound by the rules of what constructs harmonious sounds; poetry does not have to have structure, rhythm or even relevant content; contemporary dancing is a general mixture of feelings and concepts. The efforts put in by artists certainly have been paying off, art is no longer bound by rules, structure or even thought.
However the great issue in this that I see is: I wonder if old forms of art are still considered art at all. In an attempt to relativise and remove rules, that which is according to rules by many is no longer considered art. The effort of the 'brain' is not as valued as the effort 'of the heart'.
 I strongly believe that art is merely an accurate reflection of a struggle that our society is in. Currently all things are tolerable, to the extent that the only thing intolerable is intolerance. In an insane attempt to make all things right, the definition of 'right' has been lost. There is so much 'freedom' to think, that, unless you 'freely' think with opinions that also relativise concepts, you are no longer free to think such things.
My line of thought may have become confusing, thus I will explain with the first example I presented, the one about my painting. We have been investing so much on labeling all things, even without structure and merely feeling art, that when there is structure and no feeling, it is no longer considered art. In a second example, we have put so much effort into being able to think anything (or nothing) that often I wonder if we have been thinking at all
The feeling I have is that absolutes and rules are an island that bound us for very long, and we were always told we oughtn't travel out of the land because it was too dangerous, and it was 'the wrong' thing to do. Because we knew what wrong was, we had no issue with that and the majority of the people lived their quiet lives on the land, never knowing what lay beyond the shores. A few thinkers, philosophers, adventuorous people over the years did explore the shores, and did so progressively more. Over the 1960s, crowds of people invaded the sea. They decided they were no longer going to be bound by the island and wanted the freedom of exploring the sea.
Now, I have no issue with thinking outside what we are told. Questioning, wondering, even seeing other islands to decide what we see as right, wrong, good or bad in accordance with our beliefs. However, what seems to have happened is that we have gotten lost at sea. In leaving the island, we have gotten lost in the vast nothingness surrounding us. And, not only that, we also shoot down anyone trying to swim to any island. We believe so much that the sea is the ultimate freedom, that in order to 'protect freedom', we prevent people from seeking land.
Having any belief - any island you call 'home' and believing that is the best land to be in, is seen as foolish. And so those who live in the sea believe themselves to be the 'wisest' and the 'thinkers', when what actually happens is that they believe nothing, defend nothing, and have no home. Someone may live on an island - having a religion, defend a political, moral or ethical view - and know just as much (if not more) than anyone of those lost at sea. The great difference is that a decision has been made as to what they choose to live by.
Of course, not all people at sea are like that, and sometimes they just respect that others have their islands. As well as there are extremists on their islands that profoundly hate people on other islands or at sea. But that isn't the point I want to discuss here.
The main point I want to reach in this metaphor is the fact that recently more and more people are lost at sea, driven by the tides in their lives and susceptible to the waves of feelings. We were told to swim, to explore the world, we were told to follow our feelings and marry whoever we 'felt love' for, to work in 'whatever makes us happy', and to 'follow our hearts'. Of course, keeping in check things we like and people we have affection for - investigating islands and being able to choose which one we like most - does not seem a bad idea at all, much better than being assigned an island. However, we did not count on how much the sea can change. We sought places where we had both the safety of an island, and where we could follow the current of the sea (only to find that in the sea, the waves go up and down). And so, in despair, continue in the sea looking for that wave that will keep us up continually without ever breaking; wondering, where it was that we went wrong because everyone seems to be on the top of the wave.
Our music is now a mess of layers of instruments with no sense or coherence. Our art, is a mess of colors with no sense and which each person sees one thing. Our poetry is lost in small concepts of feelings, of emotions vulnerable and restricted to the microuniverse of relationships - nothing more is written about the islands. We are lost. We are at sea. We are roaming aimlessly, and we don't even know why we left the island in the first place.
The thing is, if you stay in the water, floating in the sea long enough, sensory deprivation starts to kick in. And all the feelings there were - they begin to get lost. We grow weaker, and stop swimming and merely float. We dived in to our feelings, and with time we begin to realise we don't actually feel anything at all.
Many of our generation depend on our parents to be our islands, to provide and to keep us going. We depend on others to make the decisions that will keep our society - the relationship between islands -running. Because we are spoilt children who ran away from home, got lost at sea and refuse to grow roots on any island at all. All because we are free, and wise, and thinkers. But who will be left to care for the islands? To make sure that there is communication between the islands, if we shoot down every ship sailing?
We have no anchors and we have no hope. We want so much freedom, we don't care if that means taking away someone else's freedom. We are decaying islands - we believe they are only illusions in our minds to make us feel safe.
We have failed to understand that, yes, we must have freedom to think, but that that doesn't mean we do not have an opinion. As Aristotle put it in one of my favorite quotes:

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."

Or, if transporting this to the metaphor regarding wandering between islands:

"Not all those who wander are lost."

But all we are is shipwrecked at sea, following what the tide brings, vulnerable and fragile, basing decisions on the waves. Entertaining thoughts to the extent that we accept none, wandering and being lost.

Still we wonder why so many of us our drowning.

And yet, we believe that being lost is the price of freedom.

Wherever you are, be there.

Coming back, I was already making myself ready to be busy at a thousand miles per hour. I was  hoping to work, study, learn, go back to ballet, and be as busy a bee as my name has described me to be. However, I was surprised and taken aback by how quickly all that changed - I suddenly realised my plans wouldn't come through as I had expected.
Confused, I began to pray and wonder what in the world God was doing - after all, I had been praying about being 'useful' to him while back at home for however much time he wanted me here, and being useful (in my mind) meant being everywhere at once. I wanted the freedom I had while away - being able to walk, be independent and go everywhere and anywhere; then my health just halted me, and though all is well, I can't do as much as I thought I would do due to waiting for a minor surgery to be done.
I felt in a cage. I felt my freedom stolen. I felt my offer to 'be useful' had been dismissed unceremoniously.
As I was reminded what it feels like to stop, I began slowly to take less interest in offence with the events and rants about it, and took more interest in stopping to listen. The more I read the Bible and prayed, I was reminded that all the things we do are to be done for the Kingdom of God - not only work, studies and ABU (or Christian Union). But also the simple daily living on a slow pace.

"So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you."
- Romans 12.1-2 (MSG)

Staying at home can be as much of a gift to God - pottering around, doing dishes, cooking, baking, cleaning, organising and even doing things I like such as painting, reading, drawing I could do this as a gift - as those big things done all over the place. 

On Sunday, I was reading for the second time in two days a parable Jesus tells about the Kingdom of God in Luke 13:21-22 (NIV) which again brought me back to this same concept:

Again he asked, “What shall I compare the kingdom of God to? 21 It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into about sixty pounds of flour until it worked all through the dough.”

As I read it, I had a moment of epiphany: how extraordinary it was that in that social context - in which a woman had little rights and were in the margin of society - that Jesus would choose to talk about the Kingdom growing in the hands of a woman, in a wee kitchen in the back of beyond, making bread. In such an unlikely and unexpected scenario, something so small made the bread grow and bless many people that could be fed! (I was even more surprised to find that who was talking about the text exactly focused on these aspects of the parable as well!)
So my mind began to function in tune with this - that in the most ordinary, unexpected things I could be just as useful to Him as i was at a thousand mph. I focused on the notion that, yes, this is where He wants me for the moment and thus I ought to make the best of it! Wherever I am, there I should be with all my heart, and mind and soul.
Today as I sit and think of my last couple of days - an afternoon spent yesterday listening to Grannie's stories about her childhood in Ireland, listening to my uncle's stories about trips in Africa, South America, and all kinds of countries, conversations I have had through skype with friends, being able to pray with my family and talk a wee bit about things I have been thinking about and learning... I am finding what a blessing it is to listen and to learn. I am finding that my want to be on the go could have stolen me of the incredible opportunity to be still.
I am currently thinking thankfully that I was put into a non-optional hold, and how it has been a blessing.
One of my favorite verses comes to mind: "Be still and know that I am God". The word "still" comes from a hebrew word, raphah, which does not mean 'to cease moving or working', as we could understand, but to 'let go' and 'let yourself become weak', in the notion that it is not us that have control, but God. It is not for us to stop doing every work, but to stop doing work we are weak and unfit for (like trying to determine every moment of our lives). And I like that - although find it very hard to live by.
In a sense, God has literally made me be still for some time, but for me to learn to be raphah (which is all the harder and more important to learn). But I am  glad. It has taught me, yet again, to quiet down my heart, my thoughts and my will to trust him to do that which I am weak for - and to just quietly continue with the small works, simple maybe as mixing bread, and letting him use it as he will. Being wherever he put me with all my heart, focusing on the tasks at hand and giving up on losing my mind over concerns I can do nothing about.
In a little metaphor, it's like I was rushing on the highway trying to 'be useful to him' and unexpectedly He pulled the breaks of my car  - and now I'm getting to appreciate the birds, butterflies and bees, the landscape and the flowers he put for me on the highway to just appreciate and learn a wee bit more about Him.

Time travelling backpackers

“Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilisations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.”

It sounds catchy when describing Star Trek. In a way, we all sort of believe it - that space is the final frontier, that its exploration is what makes us adventurous.
In a certain way, that can be correct. In another… I’m not quite sure.


Lately I’ve had lots of friends traveling, and have even travelled a bit more myself, and there’s something about it that opens our minds, makes us more understanding and perhaps even wiser. There’s something about seeing cliff formations that formed thousands or millions of years ago in the bottom of the ocean that makes your life feel like a whisp of smoke. You start to question the great importance of your existence when seeing buildings and monuments that have withstood wars, weather, revolutions and changes over thousands of years. Seeing in a museum - or even in the streets of a foreign country - that the way you live life is most definitely not the only way to live life. The way you make your rice, the type of bread and the clothes you were. What you think is ugly or beautiful. None of it is a universal concept - it is mostly influenced by your culture. You are not the only one with a ‘right’ way of doing daily things. In that sense, yes travelling in space - going to other cities and countries - is an amazing frontier, exploring new worlds and civilisations.

However, I do not believe that the only way to be brave, bold and an explorer is by taking a walk, driving a car, getting a plane ticket or even travelling for years in a space ship. The truth is, I find it hard to believe that that is ‘going boldly where no man has gone before’. Most places we go - as in us, usual non-astronaut people - aren’t somewhere unique. Many people have gone there, even if you go to the most inhospitable regions of the planet.

On the other hand, I do believe we are all explorer - every single being inhabiting time. Time goes by, and the space - the places - remain. There is a certain security in that, in going to huge monuments that have survived so much. However, travelling in time, there is no security to grasp, there is no certainty. This second of this day will never come again, and in the next second you will already be a different person - not necessarily due merely to experiences that change our personalities and minds (even though those play an important role too on a more long term basis) but molecules are being substituted, tissue is being remade, we are different people in every single moment in time we inhabit.

When we explore time, although many times against our will, we are pushed on to explore literally where no man has gone before, for it has not yet come to pass. And once you pass it, you cannot go back. There is no way to know where time may lead, the changes that it will bring to our hearts, minds, souls, bodies, or even to the physical world around us.

Perhaps that is why we cling so much to space, to all that is material and tangible - for keeping our minds on that allows us to have a false sense of security. It’s like carrying with us in our journey through time whatever home we imagine our past to be. We cling to that which remains, that which we believe will not change - but time changes that too. Photographs fade, metals rust and get tarnished. Pages of letters go yellow and the words in ink dissolve, stain or disappear altogether. Time is merciless, taking away any sense of security or homeliness. Even the hugest monuments suffer with time - the acid rain corrodes, structures get worn and broken.

Mountains crumble, oceans rise and we are reminded over and over again that whilst inhabiting time, we will be trapped in the unknown. We are aimless, exiled explorers of the ever changing dynamic present we inhabit. We may try to build our home, instead of in nostalgia and the past, but in the future: only to find our wishes and desires are meaningless in light of the unpredictability of changes that come in time. We hold onto expectations which, mostly, cannot become part of the present.

What is left then? Despair? And eternal homelessness? Possibly. Homesickness for a home we have never known? Probably. But that is not bad. The same way that when in our humble travels in space we fear losing what we leave behind, we learn to love what we get too - we learn that missing is probably good, because it means having good things to remember. We learn that dwelling upon our home country or our next destination prevents us from enjoying the mountains and forests and fields before us - and this is also true in our time travelling.

Accepting homesickness is a lot easier when having a deadline to strive towards. It allows us to enjoy what we have without loss in imagining and longing. And with time, it is the same. Ultimately, as christians we can look forward to eternity, when time will not bind us anymore. We can enjoy our temporary journey away from home, learn from it that we have no control over events, learn that we are most certainly not the centre of everything, learn to live in the temporary homes our hearts are given: friends, family, church, things we have a healthy love for. We learn to keep our eyes on eternity while living in the present - but never being encouraged by God to mistakenly think our vulnerable camping tents to be our home.

Until then, if I may paraphrase:

“Time: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the human souls. Their lifelong mission: to explore strange new futures, to seek out new life and new civilisations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.”

Homo dividuus

There is a strange species of half people in the world nowadays, Homo dividuus. There's something missing in their eyes, there's a feeling of longing hanging from their shoulders of what they left behind. Sometimes you talk to them and wonder if they are all there with you; if you ask them, they will gladly tell you about where their other half was lost, but you have to ask. They may be surprised and with a glint in their eyes of saudade ask: "Do you really want to know?" You might learn of foreign cultures, names you never imagined, foods you never tasted. These people are stories, but they are also story tellers. Give them your ears, and they might give you a piece of their hearts.

It’s hard to be the half human, the one that got away. To be made of mismatched pieces from all over the globe. To not be the one scheduling the next meeting in the pub, the next movie or coffee - but the next Skype chat. To be the one getting souvenirs, not presents. To be the one sending a card instead of being at the wedding, the birthday party, the visit at the hospital. The one interrupted by bad internet connections.

When you leave, you learn to live of stories told rather than lived events; you also become a story teller, because much of the time, that’s all you are. Whenever people ask of you, you’re just the story you managed to conjure enough courage to tell - the pretty picture, not the struggles, the everyday fight to be alone away from home, trying to find out where ‘home’ exactly is.

Your family doesn’t know anything about your routine, where you live, where you work. Actually, no one does: just you know where you came from, where you are. Your new best friends, when you tell people back home about them, become names that all seem to blend together in a mess of impersonal sounds, surnames and occupations. You want to tell the stories so that they come alive, so that they know you and your new friends as you do - but you fail. So much is just names. How do you put a life into a 40 minute talk? Into a two paged long letter? You can’t. The emphasis you gave was the wrong one, the one was not accurate, and you start to wonder if anyone really does know you. Heck, you’re changing so much even you don’t know you.

Suddenly, no one else knows about your quirks and routines - you live amongst strangers. You have no one to talk to in a nostalgic tone, and if your friends are also in that situation, you all learn to enjoy what is happening now; to have the late night conversations that bring together everything you’re scared to share with others, because the world suddenly seems so foreign. Maybe you venture to tell old stories to each other, but they don’t quite know where you came from. It doesn’t come across as sad as it was, or as funny as it was.

The ones you left expect, and the ones you are with too. The ones you left all feel you ought to be the one coming after them - after all, it was you who left, right? They are convinced your new life still revolves around the things you left. They assume your time away has been in a time capsule and that nothing will have changed. And then when you go back, they have to get to know you all over again.

You do not love what you left any less, but it’s hard to get that across. You wanted to be at the party, take flowers to the hospital personally than send a stupid e-mail. You wanted to actually attend the meeting and have a conversation having a drink of coffee or after a night out in the pictures, instead of struggling with internet connections sitting in your room frustrated.

The thing is, you can’t hold onto things as you used to when you were there: if not, you aren’t really there or here. We live here, and we do our best to show we still think of the ones far away, but technology isn’t magic. In the end, are we ever in only one place - mind, body, soul - at once anymore?

We try, honest we do. But we’re torn people, us, the ones that left. We never feel we’re good enough daughters or sons, we’re not great friends, because everywhere we go, everything we do, there’s just half of us there. Every person we meet, we hand a part of us to them, and we will only be with that missing part when we are with that person: and so we are damned to never be whole. The price of flying is being broken. The price of leaving is never being good enough for everyone. It hurts and it breaks us that much more every time we disappoint someone, whenever we forget a postcard, email or letter.

And there’s nothing more we can do about it, because we have no home anymore. We can’t forget any of our homes, we don’t have - nor want - selective amnesia. We wouldn’t change it even if we could, because all those we meet, all that we lived, it helped to break us into who we are - and that’s what love does, it breaks us for others. And is there any way to love more than to give away who we are? Our time, thoughts, feelings? No, we wouldn’t. Because when we left, we lost, but we also gained. We lost part of ourselves, but we also were given parts of more people more amazing than we could imagine. We learn that the world doesn't revolve around us, and that doing our best will just have to be enough.

The wings we are given can't carry all that we are, but sometimes half is all we need - it leaves plenty of room for what we're given overseas. 

Still heroes

I knew that being around Parkinsonian patients would be a new and somewhat distressing experience - I had no idea how I would handle it - but in part that was one of the reasons why I decided to go to the Parkinson’s Patient conference: to watch, to learn, to get in touch with reality. I don’t want to be a researcher that only researches for facts and publishable data, I want to have a reason for what I do, so I decided to try to dive into the reality of the people that live every day with the condition I am currently studying and researching treatment for.

Needless to say, it was heartbreaking to see this. To see the lack of expression in patients (the mask-like face is a symptom), the tremor, the slow speech, the freezing and difficulty in moving. But more than that, seeing the carers of the patients - many of which were hard, and probably they had to be so to survive in their situation. These are people - mostly spouses - whose lives were put on hold to live up to the promise ‘in sickness and in health’ ,that twenty years or so ago they walked down the aisle in glamorous garments to make. A life that would be marked by loss - even if not of life, but of freedom, of support, and of receiving love. People that have to find strength from the crumbs of what is left at the end of another day doing everything for someone else, strength to go on to the next day that will be equally draining, exhausting.

There was one couple in particular, however, that captured me; they laughed and smiled an awful lot together. Even though he had very, very impaired speech, she could still understand what he said and translate it to whoever was talking to him - jokes included. He laughed and made a point of doing on his own all he could. She smiled even talking about the hard things, and I saw the strength that no hollywood movie hero has ever displayed in any single blockbuster. A wonder woman, with kids, with a disabled husband, who still found strength for joy. It was heartbreaking but encouraging at the same time. I saw a hero.

That night, I came home having all the patients, the stories and the tears they shed talking running through my mind. People that have lost and are continually losing more everyday, either by symptom, or because people avoid them due to not knowing how to handle talking to someone in such condition. They not only lose health - they lose friends, family, careers. Very selfishly, the fear of someday being in such a condition, in either of the two positions - of the patient or the carer - was overwhelming as I prayed and thought about these souls I met.

The next day, I went to the Titanic Experience. A place that talks about the Titanic, from being built to the dreadful end. As I went in, I was assigned a passenger as was my boyfriend, and at the end we were to find out at the end if we would survive or not. As we walked in and saw the Heartbreak pier, where many families left the country, many people left all they knew to immigrate, and at the end sat in a replica of one of the life boats of the Titanic and watched a projection of the enormous ship, big enough for 4,000 people breaking and sinking - thinking of the 1,500 lives that were there, lost, frozen, drowned. In the end, my assigned passenger - who by coincidence was about my age, leaving her home country to make a life abroad - survived, was saved in one of the life boats. Jonathan’s passenger, also his exact age - which hit very close to home - was lost at sea. I thought about the passengers, the families, the loved ones.

Having all this frailty in mind made this week a somewhat disillusioning experience, but not in a bad way at all - literally, a freeing from illusion. I thought about the frailty of life here on earth, about how often we fool ourselves to think that we will not be the odd point in the statistics - the one with a diagnosis of Parkinson’s, Alzheimer, ALS. We will not be the ones on the sinking ship or crashing airplane. Those are places only for numbers - not for real people with real names, lives and dreams like you and me, right? Those are things for headlines, not for life changing (or ending) events for us, our family, friends or neighbours.

At the end of the day, as I saw my brazilian Valentine’s day timeline on Facebook - with extensive cute pictures of engagements, weddings, dinners and dates, promises of unending love, and even wedding invitations I could not help but quote in my mind the movie The princess bride upon the abundant overuse of the word Love: “You keep saying that word, but I do not think you know what it really means.”

I wonder if we were reminded that we are not untouchable, if our promises would be the same. If we didn’t feel young, healthy and filled with ambitious dreams, promises of “sickness and health, better or worse, in wealth or poverty” would still be the same. If we knew the darkness and ugliness of poverty, loss, pain, illness - if we knew what fate awaited us, would we still put our feet onto that ship sailing away from the last port of call?

Maybe we would, maybe that is one thing that is right about love - it is naïve enough to believe it can keep promises that otherwise would be unimaginable; or, perhaps more correctly, it is wise enough to know it can keep difficult promise regardless of feeling, but by choice.

Lastly, all these thoughts brought me to think of the one who is love. God.

It made me think of a verse that kept me going this week, “Be still and know that I am God”.

The original word “still” on the hebrew manuscripts for this text does not mean just stoping and taking a rest: It means allowing yourself to be weak, it means letting go completely and knowing you cannot do it. We need to know that he is God, and by knowing he is God, we are not trying to be God ourselves - we know that we are weak, that we are not untouchable. We know that our brains can stop, our ships can sink and that we cannot fix everything according to what we want - because we are just human. But that does not mean we stop, we through in the towel - it means we work, in spite of our weakness, knowing that there is One who truly is strong as we wish we were, wiser and more loving than we can even imagine.

Though we do not understand what He is doing many times - and most of the time have a very different opinion as to what He should do, it means the heavy burdens are no longer ours to bear, but his. We do what we can with what he have, trusting there is meaning in all the mess. And, in the end, even in our frailty, we can be a hero - even if silent, anonymous and that had no plaques, busts or even a name remembered - still, we are capable of extraordinary things. Through the strength that God gives us in true love, we can keep unkeepable promises, sacrifice our dreams to honour our loved one, or even sacrifice everything for a complete stranger and give them our spot on the last safety boat. Then, in his strong hands, even our weakness can be of extraordinary strength.






A note: I do fully understand these are just random thoughts, most likely excessively theoretical of someone very inexperienced to talk about most things here mentioned; I also understand that within 5, 10 or 20 years I will probably find most of this, at least naïve, if not plain stupid, but... well, you came into the blog (aka, graffitti with punctuation) at your own risk! Thanks for bearing with my thoughts thus far!

The excuse of feeling

Arranged weddings, working in a certain occupation not by choice or talent, doing things simply because they have to be done. The horror. The horror of the thought of doing things - living life - due to need, convention or just because things are like that, not because of feeling. Unimaginable. Not living your life ‘to be happy’, is inconceivable.

However, when we put thought into it, the idea of living life governed by feeling, passion, interest, motivated by happiness is something relatively new in human history. So many times occupation was determined by heritage, marriage was determined by business, even death was determined by war, freedom has only come by bloodshed.

In order for us to ‘be free’ of many of these responsibilities - for there to be freedom, peace, human rights, for people to choose their spouses, many social conventions were fought against by very brave people who most likely sacrificed their own happiness, freedom, place in society of even their lives in hope that generations to come would find what they sought. They were motivated by rational decisions that saw much further ahead and that ambitioned good for more than just themselves.

Our thankfulness to this has been pitiful, at best.


When comparing previous generations to the current ones, it seems we have been raised to be ridiculously spoilt and unbearably selfish. In the same logic of a father trying to give to his child ‘all that he has never had’, previous generations have given us much that we have never had - and in this process we have never learnt what the response ‘no’ is, we have never learnt to take up the burden of responsibility, duty and honour carried by our ancestors. They tried to protect us from the world, and in the process failed to prepare us for it.

We are now used to the naïve (if not stupid) idea that we can do whatever we want, we must chose what will satisfy ourselves rather than the community/family/social context. We have been taught that our sole parameter to be consulted and referenced in decision making and attitude are emotions.

In this, our emotional intelligence seems to be that of a toddler, and a spoilt one at that. So many times we see people breaking promises, cheating, lying and hurting other people using emotion as an excuse for it.
“I’m sorry I lied and cheated, I just don’t feel the same as when we started going out. I don’t love you anymore.” - the perfect excuse in every ‘romantic’ movie in which cheating is involved, only it is sugarcoated by feeling. It’s ok for you to hurt someone else, as long as you feel happy now. Or so says media, anyway.

The thing is, if it is merely emotion and instinct, instant reward that governs us, what is there left to make us into families, into communities? How to we reach out when we only ever learnt to look into ourselves?

Psychological phenomena such as depression, social anxiety and loneliness come as no surprise in these contexts. Obviously, if told by our surroundings that we should be entirely happy all the time with every single thing we do (and having this thrown in our faces by social media portraying perfect lives), upon finding life also involves responsibility and contrary circumstances (from doing the dishes to bereavement), we panic. There must be something wrong with us - we aren’t living life right.

We were told that if we followed our hearts and our feelings, everything would go right and we would be happy, well then why is it not working with me? What is wrong with me or my life? Do I need more feeling - and thus resort to medication and drugs in seeking pleasure like this? Do I need more people to have feelings for - and thus must be famous? Maybe if I had more money and more brand things I would have less responsibility, and have extra time to ‘feel happy’.

The trouble is, whatever durable happiness in our lives, does not result from feelings or magical events coming after ‘following one’s hear’ , there is no instant formula.

Most of life comes from rational decision making, otherwise we are overwhelmingly susceptible to circumstances and those emotionally unstable and easily swayed, and the very notion of anything durable and long lasting being crushed by the fact we do not have control over life. Otherwise, upon realising we have no control over life… we break. And we find ourselves alone, because following our emotions we carelessly and stupidly burnt every single bridge behind us when moving onwards to where our hearts lead.

My intention in writing this is not to be hypocritical and point fingers and say everyone is wrong by seeking happiness - I do it, and many times have done so selfish and stupidly. I am glad to be able to pursue a career I feel I have aptitude to do, and am very thankful for the fact I was not married off at 15 years old due to an arranged marriage between my father and someone else. What I am saying is that it seems we have gone to the opposite side of the spectrum of abusing freedom to the extent to invade other people’s freedom and well being. From a very strict and structurally unyielding system, we have gone towards excessive choice and overwhelming expectations. I most certainly do not propose returning to what was, but finding a mature balance between both.


I do not think it to be a trivial shift, and it’s like humanity itself is growing up like a person: beforehand we expected to be told what to do, and now like reckless teenagers are doing anything we want because we think we are very grown up and can decide for ourselves, and now and again stop to wonder if it was that bad having someone helping us to do things, and if the excessive freedom is good.

I do hope, however, that the tendency will be freedom without injury of others, that there will be choice, but that there will be wisdom and love - not the kind of love you wait to magically feel, but the kind that you decide. The kind that you choose to live as though you love others and care for them, even if you don’t. Using your freedom wisely, not only for selfish ambition of happiness. And one day, you might actually find yourself actually loving others - and might find the happiness of the other is also yours. All resulting from decision: not from feeling. Maybe then, by choosing wisely, we will be honouring the sacrifices done by our ancestors: then, maybe someday, we won't need any more excuses at all.