05 Feb Rare Glances

Legião Urbana – Perfeição (youtube.com)

‘Cause peace without a voice, peace without a voice
It’s not peace, it’s fear!
(Fear! Fear! Fear! Fear!)

Sometimes I talk to life
Sometimes she’s the one who says
What peace I don’t want to keep
To try to be happy?

The Rappa

I remember the literature teacher in high school saying that when we read a text again, we would always see details that we hadn’t seen before. I listened to that song and made the connection.

What kind of dysfunctional peace do we retain in order to try to be happy or to mask a supposed happiness?

In the film “Rare Flowers”, the american poet Elizabeth Bishop watches from the balcony of her beloved architect Lota’s flat as friends play normal soccer on the beach, as if nothing had happened.There was just one problem: it was the day of the military coup.She didn’t understand what kind of peace that was.She said later at a dinner with politicians:

“I’d like to understand this unbearable joy that Brazilians feel, this constant urge to celebrate, and then there’s the melancholy, the drama, it’s extravagance, it’s abandonment. For an American like me, it’s excessive. When Kennedy died, there was such a huge outpouring of grief. Doormen, taxi drivers, cleaning ladies, Why? What did you lose? But when the military coup happened and you lost your freedom, I was there, you went to play soccer on the beach”.

I remembered this dialogue. I was on my way to an appointment in a business tower when I saw two employees arguing about who was or wasn’t going to the World Cup.Meanwhile, the government was closing 2023 with a historic deficit of 230 billion.And nobody on the streets.Of the types of peace you have on the shelf of your mind, there is the peace of complacency, of political blindness, of citizenship with gaps.Brazilians defeat themselves. When a motorcyclist runs a red light because he thinks he won’t get caught.When a guest at a party pays the waiter extra to get better service.When an employee doesn’t want to issue an invoice.This political and moral anaesthesia is a virus that affects many and has the potential to contaminate others.The future is no longer as it used to be, said singer Renato Russo.In the past we had revolutions, ballaiadas, canudos, independence or death.(brazilians wars)

Today we have a meaningless annual carnival in the midst of chaos, an anaesthetising joy.”Panis et circenses”, the eternal bread and circuses, is a dangerous peace, because it masks reality.Is it better to be happy than sad? Yes.But positivity can also be toxic.Renato Russo and Elizabeth Bishop never met.But if I could tell Elizabeth, I would show her this excerpt from the song “Perfeição”, which also criticises this desperation to celebrate in Brazil:”Let’s celebrate our flagOur past of glorious absurditiesAll that is gratuitous and uglyEverything that’s normalLet’s sing the national anthem together
The tear is real

“Let’s celebrate our flag
Our past of glorious absurdities
All that is gratuitous and ugly
All that is normal
Let’s sing the national anthem together

The tear is real

Let’s celebrate our longing

Celebrate our loneliness”

Yes, there are sad and pointless celebrations in Brazil, which only rare eyes can see.The rest are short-sighted, they can’t see from afar the pit of melancholy that our problematic reality inserts us into.Finally, I end this article with the last stanza, which I believe represents us too:

“Come
My heart is in a hurry
When hope is scattered
Only the truth sets me free
No more evil and illusion

Come
Love always has an open door
And spring is coming
Our future begins again
Come, what comes is perfection”

february\2024