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In my wanderings looking for a apiary to buy, I met Seu Dejair, who is getting rid of his farm and his hives because his children, a sociologist, a journalist and a lawyer, are more interested in transforming the world than producing honey. All dressed up and happy as I heard the buzzing of the bees around me, I was talking to Seu Dejair when, out of nowhere, he mentioned the flat Earth theory.
28174940And immediately burst out laughing. Having nothing better to say, he laughs too. Belly-aches of laughter, you know? “Mah, see if you can make such a barrrrrrrrbarbarity!” he said in a thick accent, as soon as he managed to catch his breath. As a fool, I only have the face and the way I walk, so I took it upon myself to see what came out of that unusual dialogue (“the flat earth discussed to the sound of bees & other tales”). And that’s when Seu Dejair surprised me, saying that he liked to think about these absurdities. “It helps to exercise the head, you know?”.
Yes, you knew , Your Dejair. Oh, if you knew! The beekeeper’s reaction, compared to the angry reaction of sociologists, journalists and lawyers who are part of the bubble I inhabit until I buy my apiary, was fundamental for me, after years of sporadic reflections (I’m not that crazy) about the subject, understand what leads some people to claim that the Earth is flat.
Because you know that when a bully comes up with that story, it’s a God-help-us. Anyone who takes the theory seriously sees it as a major civilizational threat. As if it were a barbaric crusade to paint the columns of the Roman Senate. Between us, and don’t spread it to anyone: is it that those who foam at the mouth and use the “belief” of others in the flat Earth as an argument have all this certainty about the sphericity (I always wanted to write that) of the planet? Or is all this anger born precisely from the fear of the person being unmasked in such an obvious thing?
For me, the claim that the Earth is flat has absolutely nothing to do with the flatness of our dear blue geoid. Flat-Earthers are just an intellectual provocation that leads to the ultimate consequences (hence its ridiculous character) the defense of the inalienable and even primitive right to question the most obvious aspects of reality. Therefore, the masterstroke of flat earth is to show the innate desire for submission of those who do not hesitate to repeat that the grass is red if someone they consider authority says so.
28174940In times of identity and “normative reality” (the one that is in the Constitution, but not in everyday life), flat earth has the advantage additional aspect of revealing all the hypocrisy of who, despite the “real reality”, says that a man can give birth, for example. Can not. Obviously you can’t. Everyone knows you can’t. Just as it cannot, it is obvious and everyone knows that the Earth is a beautiful blue geoid that hovers in the void of the Universe circling the Sun every 365 days.
In addition to tying the knot in the very simple head of these people who are sure of everything and who are magically always right, flat earth has a certain artistic beauty – unfortunately still unexplored. Whenever the term “Earth-planism” comes up, even incredibly in the midst of political discussions, I think of Jorge Luis Borges and, consequently, of the generations who read Jorge Luís Borges knowing that everything there is a delicious deception. Do you know Plato’s myth of the cave? Then. It’s as if Borges put mirrors and tigers and knives in that cave, just to see what would happen.
I still think of the fun spy books I read as a teenager. In the hands of a Le Carré or Forsyth, the Flat Earth theory would yield wonderful plots, full of twists and ambiguous characters and clever dialogue and apotheoretical endings, perhaps with an evil Dr. Flammarion falling from the edge of the planet. But that, of course, only makes sense in a world with artists brave and crazy enough to create exploring the absurd and with readers brave and crazy enough to doubt their most solid convictions.
28174940Your Dejair (and I, you, Flamengo fans and even flat-Earthers!) knows that the Earth is not flat. He also knows that the grass is green. That 2+2=4. And that only women can give birth. But, a free man who considers himself and is, Seu Dejair likes to keep chewing the idea that everything is nothing but a deception in which his senses have believed throughout 77 years lived under this Sun that insists on rising in the east and setting in the west.
28174940Already deprived of the beekeeper’s clothes, after drinking a perfect coffee with milk and gorging myself on the warm bread that Mr. Dejair’s wife baked for We take a small piece of comb, put it in our mouth, suck the honey and also chew the wax and ideas. Free people, really free, are those who fear no tyranny. Not even the tyranny of common sense. (In time: I didn’t close the deal).
