Watching the presidential debate of the Band and because of him harboring unconfessable thoughts, I realized something that may seem obvious to you, but that, for me, as I am, was a surprise: the political discussion has never brought anything good to my life. Anything. A nothingness so absolute and frightening that, at the time and with fright, I even turned off the television. Go retro!
I had to call right away because watching the debate is part of my job. But at that moment it was already another. The hasty reader might think that at that moment I became either aloof or cynical – or, worse, a hideous hybrid between the coward and the nihilist. Which what! In the next instant, I understood myself as a free person. Truly free. Maybe even a little drunk on that freedom.
(Drunk in the figurative sense, huh? Even because if I were lunatically altered of course, after “this freedom” would be amended with “If I’m lonely / Thinking about you.” And now you’ll have this song in your head all day).
I said, however, that politics never brought anything good to my life. And now I’m realizing that’s not the case. Politics has given me only one good thing in life: the possibility of writing and using politics to draw the reader’s attention to other aspects of life. As in this text, for example, in which I already mentioned a pagode and now I’m going to talk about friendships.
Well then: friendships. As soon as the lightning struck me that politics didn’t bring me anything good, I ran to counter-argument with a single word: friends. Nice try, superego, but no. The friendships I made just out of some sort of political affinity were short-lived. If they were friendships at all. On the other hand, the friends I made more or less by political affinity remained for other affinities.
Unconfessable thoughts
At this point I ask the reader for permission to take a turn of 180 degrees (if I don’t miss the math that always failure) and talk about all the bad things politics has brought to my life. And I can even bet a few cents: for yours too. And here I am obliged to expose some of the unconfessable thoughts that I mention in the first paragraph.
Fear, for example. The hopelessness. And, consequently, the loss of something that is very important to me: faith. “How is it possible that we have normalized this guy as a presidential candidate?” I find myself asking-thinking. So that there is no doubt: I am referring to Lula. I feel a chill that’s more hopelessness than fear, though it’s hard to tell one from the other. And, when I realize it, I find myself resorting to the fearful man’s favorite crutch: arrogance.
In fact, if I allow myself to take a look at the past, I come across a frightened young man and, not for chance, with a zillion political certainties. He fixes the hair that is already starting to lack and, with a slightly shaky voice, asks with undisguised pride: “What do you mean you don’t see the obvious?!”. And there goes hope, courage, humility, etc.
Politics is cruel to us and we don’t even realize it. She treats us like citizens, not human beings. (And if you asked “is there a difference?” it’s because the thing is serious). Worse still is politics deeply contaminated by socialism, like ours. She treats us as superficial citizens with homogeneous interests, all paying due reference to the demigod of fashion, be it education, health or safety. Or the GDP, the exchange rate, the reforms. Or, or, or.
Not that I continue to defend the political alienation that I defended so much in my libertarian phase. On the contrary. It was precisely because I saw the damage that politics can do to my soul and the souls of the people around me that I abandoned the sweet libertarian utopia and became what I am today: someone who watches a debate between two candidates for the Presidency and does not more questions “What do you mean you don’t see the obvious?”, but “Why don’t you see the obvious?”.
For you maybe this is a change, well, obvious. For me (did I mention that I’m a geek?), however, she is surprising. Because it presupposes an ability to try to understand the other, which I honestly don’t know if I have, although I try hard. But look at me here contradicting myself again and coming across something good that politics, through crooked ways, brought me.
Moral of the story: never say never nor never use taxing phrases. In the end, either one thing or the other will only serve to expose yourinability to deviate from the trappings of ordinary politics to contemplate the life that fills and surrounds him.
180
