Skip to main content

Merit

In a world of meritocracy, you receive an inheritance. Not a big fortune, but some money to help pay your debts, help a relative who fell ill. You are grateful, but you did not merit this. You never did anything for it. You think about how many will never be covered by a rain of golden coins fallen from the sky, while some swim in pools of money, modern times uncle Scrooges destilating hatred towards any step directed to the sharing of wealth in the world and holding on to the belief that they earned what they have. It is such the world. 

Your daughter helped a friend cheat at a school test and got caught.  She was punished with a big F on her exam. She cries and explains to you she was only trying to help a desperate friend. Deep inside you understand her feelings,  but you agree she has to learn that helping a dishonest deed is the same as doing it. Some other parents heard of the situation. They talk to you and seem shocked by the school's decision to punish the accomplice and not just the perpetrator. They tell you: "I should warn my daughter this is how they do it". Your daughter admitted she was wrong and showed regret right away.  The other girl showed no remorse.  

A school rumor said your daughter was not going to be punished anymore, just the girl. This, you  heard from the girl herself, made her sad, not what she did, not what they did, but the possibility of being punished alone. Some people are happy to go to hell as long as they carry someone with them. Your husband wants to run for the mountains with your daughter away from the "psychopath in the making".  You remind him they are eleven. Deep inside, you wonder about the lack of remorse, about the deserving attitude, about the merit... 

This was not an easy week and you feel exhausted. The song playing on Spotify takes  your mind elsewhere, when Brazilian singer, Paulinho Moska, asks you what you would do if you only had this day, if the world was going to end. You feel tired and for a second you think you would do nothing, you would remain here typing until everything became cosmic dust. Then you see the image of your family in a collective hug, your hands on your children's hair, your husband's arms covering you all, your heads touching. If the world is not what we would like it to be or if the world is to end, what you want is to be with them, to love and protect them until the end. 


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

I upset people (This may be the first of a series)

I feel I upset many people. Maybe it is something I do, but the feeling I get is that what upsets them is the way I live, the choices I make. People get upset with me when they hear I don't believe in God. If I tell them that I once did, but have lost my faith after I lost my first child, a premature baby, they fail to grasp the complexity of it. They look at me with irritating condescendent pityful eyes and they think I can be "fixed." To be fair, maybe I fail to help them understand that after what happened to me, God as I came to know it and most people of Christian beliefs do, is of no use to me.  God proved himself either nonexistent or useless to me when my first born died and when I almost followed him due to Eclampsia and Hellp Syndrome (Go ahead and google it! Unless you are doctor or had someone in the family who had this, you will never know it.) He did not save my baby and he did not spare me the excruciating suffering I had to endure. And if you think I...

No espelho

  Olhei hoje para o espelho e me vi mais serena, me enxerguei com mais leveza. Não que esteja de fato mais leve, eu acho. Ou será que estou? Tenho ainda infinitas incertezas e dúvidas aos milhares, mas a imagem que me olhou de volta do espelho, não me olha com tristeza, dor pânico.     A imagem que vejo nesse espelho é de     calma, no olhar certa paz, talvez de se entender humana, imperfeita e aceitar essa condição.     Aqui, deste lado que estou, me observando no espelho, sinto ainda o coração encolher como se uma mão o quisesse esmagar. Encolhe-se para sobreviver e expande-se em seguida. Ao encolher-se, a respiração dá uma pausa e uma bolha de cristal sobe em refluxo, pausando ali no meio da goela. Assim que pode, o coração retorna a seu pulsar, seu ir e vir. Permanecem ali as dúvidas, as exigências, as demandas, mas também os desejos de só ser, irresponsavelmente ser e atender a cada quimera. Porque a vida é curta! A vida é sopro!    E o ...

The kind of person who lights candles

  I am the kind of person who lights candles. This is now, not then. it is a recently acquired habit, one that has done me well. I light up candles every day. In the beginning of each class I set up an intention, I focus and I light the candle. I ask myself to be the light, to be the container, not the conduit. I am now the kind of person Who walks barefoot on the grass of my backyard and lets herself shower in the improbable rain of Brasilia in May.  The four elements rest now on my desk making my therapist smile when told about them, making her proud of myself and my journey. I am the kind of person that feels the connection with the elements, and nature and the universe, so new. I am again a newborn being. And it is not the first time, I have once died and it’s no secret. This time, however, I did not have to die. I had only to shed the old skin, the one who served me no more. I am still the kind of person who looks in the mirror and who wonders who this new being is. This...