Many times we have the impression that people walk around without having anything to say, or to respond to us, in the face of the simplest and even obvious questions. I often feel that the biggest problem in the world has been the attempt to escape from one’s own problems. Nothing to say, nothing to dream about, nothing worth debating, and especially, nothing to want to understand oneself. Of course, it is only possible to understand something or someone if we have a term of comparison. We always need a standard, even if imperfect, so that we can have a comparative view and subsequently a possible understanding. So how can we understand ourselves if in our days the opportunities to find patterns, references, or in other words, values that are well defined, to the point of serving as parameters, are so rare? As for the expression ‘maybe,’ it becomes more common than the expressions ‘right’ or ‘wrong’; when the defensive and cowardly idea of ‘I don’t know’ seems to be the most sympathetic and awaited by everyone, we reach the unfortunate conclusion that we are facing a kind of ‘globalization of desires and expressions,’ to the detriment of the emergence of true needs and individual characteristics of each human being.
Notice that to achieve a harmonious musical chord, musicians start from the summation of individual and different notes that complete each other. Each finger needs to be positioned solidly and well-defined on each string or key of the instrument. If we imagined a chord where all fingers repeated the same note, we would undoubtedly have a ‘crude’ and depersonalized sound.
Also, people, when they insist on nurturing common and repetitive dreams and expressions seemingly ‘common to all,’ end up becoming, if we can use that word, depersonalized. By cultivating the fear of being recognized in their true characteristics, many end up forgetting who they really are, and what remains is a void. Be careful! By looking too much outside, one might end up missing oneself.
Not knowing oneself as a unique being and on the other hand fearing the inability to become a mere replica of a majority only guarantees us a certain ‘lack of grace’ in existence. A life without grace and without prospects will always be a wide-open door for the entry of ‘certain strange things’ that illusorily would serve to complete our being. Within this framework, problems such as school inattentiveness, generalized apathy and aggression, as well as the need for drug use seem to be some of the easiest and most practical remedies or actions when trying to alleviate the feeling of helplessness.
The helplessness of self-management. If the helplessness of living with this void seems frightening, try to think about a phrase written by Gilberto Gil: ‘… it is always good to remember that an empty glass is full of air.’ Is it, as antiquated as it may seem, not time to return or seek some new values; so that by being able to compare ourselves to some well-defined parameters, we can rediscover and redraw our own interesting personality, with all its subtleties and importance for the harmony of our world.
How many good things could happen when each of us is willing to spend a little more ‘time’ trying to discover the ‘air’ of our own glass?
GUILHERME DAVOLI
www.guilhermedavoli.com.br