Desserviço Público

Quando eu tinha 3 anos, eu queria ser motorista de ônibus. Aos 5, eu queria ser o Rambo. Em 1989, eu queria ser Presidente da República. Maiorzinho, eu já queria ser engenheiro (só não sabia ainda qual especialidade). Nenhuma dessas quatro profissões requer curso superior tampouco alguma prova eliminatória. (talvez pra ser Rambo precise de algum teste de atuação, mas se o Stallone conseguiu, eu também consigo, oras!)

Mamãe só queria que eu fosse feliz e ganhasse o suficiente para propiciar aos meus filhos todo aquele conforto e aquelas coisas bem classe média que eu sempre quis ter, mas nunca tive oportunidade, tipo aulas de música, de esportes, cursos sobre coisas variadas, viagens, intercâmbios, escola particular (apesar que eu não precisei dela) e quaisquer outras coisas que contribuam para o desenvolvimento dos pimpolhos. (incluindo videogames, obviamente)

Mas daí veio a realidade. Não dá pra por duas (ou três) crianças numa escola decente sendo motorista de ônibus. O Rambo já saiu de moda faz mais de 15 anos (embora haja uma seqüência sendo rodada). E pra ser Presidente, eu teria que desistir dos meus princípios e ceder às pressões de partidos, "aliados" e todo tipo de interferência destrutiva externa, uma vez que no nosso país há um parlamentarismo branco, de fato.

Sobrou a engenharia então, coisa que vem perturbando a minha cabeça desde 1992. As pessoas diziam que eu levava jeito pra coisa. EU achava que levava jeito pra coisa. Os testes vocacionais também gritavam na minha orelha que eu levava jeito pra coisa. E hoje, 14 anos depois, as pessoas continuam a dizer que eu levo jeito pra coisa, exceto as do setor de RH.

E se as coisas não seguem o seu caminho natural, é sinal de que há alguma coisa muito errada. Talvez eu esteja procurando as coisas no lugar errado, talvez eu não conheça as pessoas certas, talvez o pessoal do RH tenha algum tipo de preconceito contra gente que sofra de TOC, ou ainda, os testes vocacionais e as pessoas tenham mentido pra mim.

Então, cheguei a uma conclusão: enquanto as coisas dependerem única e exclusivamente de meu próprio esforço e capacidade, tudo dá certo. E ela, mamãe, que sempre quis que eu tivesse uma vida tranqüila e sem grandes males contra os quais lutar, sempre dizia que eu devia fazer um daqueles concursos mais "porrada", daqueles que requerem uma formação específica na área e pagam qualquer coisa entre 3 e 8 mil reais. Sei lá eu, Polícia Federal, Banco Central, Petrobras, coisa assim.

Talvez ainda, podia fazer só aqueles concursos tipo INSS, Receita Federal, Ministério Público, ou qualquer coisa que não me faça sentir que estou com a cabeça a prêmio a todo instante, ou que me deixe tempo para me dedicar a atividades extras que contribuam para o meu crescimento enquanto pessoa e que me permitam ser o pai e o marido participativo que eu sempre sonhei ser.

E o sucesso profissional, como que fica? Pra mim, sucesso profissional é atingir o ponto de equilíbrio, encontrar o balanço ideal entre renda, estresse e tempo para cuidar de si, de forma a transformar a vida em algo mais interessante de se viver.

Nem tudo na nossa vida acontece do jeito que a gente quer, por mais que tentemos. Ou a gente se conforma com o que deu pra conseguir, ou mudamos nossos planos. É difícil, eu sei, mas dá-se um jeito.

Mãe, quando eu crescer eu quero ser sábio, sereno e infalível como você.

How Are You?

That's one of scariest questions one could ask, and the one that's always asked, it seems like a protocol:

Person A: "Hello!" (Used to initiate conversation)
Person B: "Hello!" (An acknowledgement, used to show that you're a polite person, even though you don't want to engage in actual conversation with A)
Person A: "How are you?" (An almost mandatory question, it can only be skipped if you already met B very recently, and it's used no matter if you're interested or not on B's feelings)

Now, the most difficult part is to answer it. If one wants to avoid trouble, just say "Fine", even if you aren't.

Person B: "I'm fine, and you?" (Again, B is talking "defensively" and just trying to be polite)
Person A: "I'm fine too, thanks for asking." (Why say thanks? B didn't do you a favour, he/she is just trying to be polite)

But no one is fine all the time, so the answer wouldn't be correct and you'd be lying. So you think of answering something along the lines "Not so good", "I'm so-so" or some other expression meaning you're about 50% okay and 50% not okay. So, let's roll our convo back:

Person B: "I'm so-so, and you?"
Person A: "Oh, why?" (Not that A is interested, he/she just need to keep on talking in order to find a actual subject to start an actual conversation)

That's why that question is scary. If you say you're fine, then that's okay, but if you say you're not, an avalanche of other questions start, including several you don't know the answers or you don't want to talk about. It's a bit evil, if you ask me. People don't "care" when you say you're happy (even if you visibly aren't), but they do "care" when you don't.

In any given moment, we have many reasons to feeling either good or bad, and it'd be simply be so damn annoying to make an exhaustive list:

Person B: "I'm feeling terribly sad."
Person A: "Why?"
Person B: "Because I can't find a job, I broke up with my girlfriend, I had a fight with my family, it's raining, it's obscenely hot for this time of the year, somebody stole my car, my team lost the match last night, there's a war ongoing on Lebanon, there are children starving in Ethiopia and I have a headache."

This is equally annoying, but never happens in real life:

Person B: "I'm okay."
Person A: "Why?"
Person B: "I got a promotion, my girlfriend is pregnant, my family came to visit me, there's a beautiful sun shining outside, I bought a new convertible car and my team won the national championship.

So, next time you ask me how I am, be prepared to listen whatever you don't want to! (Or I could just go the easy way and say "fine")

Soundtrack: Garotos Podres - Oi, Tudo Bem?

Com todo o gás

Pessoa A: "Já reparou que só falta gás quando a gente tá cozinhando alguma coisa?"
Gui: "É, né? Se faltar gás enquanto a gente NÃO tá cozinhando, é um mau sinal."

Há coisas nesse mundo que são tão óbvias que a gente até se espanta quando alguém tenta raciocinar sobre elas.

From Now To Eternity

Syd Barrett passed away last Friday. To me, it was quite a shock: I thought he was dead long before I was born. Maybe because he hasn't made any public appearances in the last 30 years or because he left Pink Floyd back in 1968 due to his drug problems and hard to deal persona.
But now I come to think of how some people doesn't need much time to engrave their names on history. Syd was a member of Pink Floyd for less than 3 years, yet some folks still light candles in his honours and wacky musicians attribute to him the inspirations to create the oddliest sounds imaginable. Another Sid, the Vicious, had a career even shorter than Barrett's, yet he's still celebrated by millions of punks or people who think they're punk, or just a bunch a random people, anyway. And well, we had plenty of Morrisons, Hendrixes, Elvises, and etc.
And now I wonder, how things would be if those folks were still around? Probably the aura around them would be disrupted, or maybe we would realize they aren't the geniuses we always believed they were.
But anyway, that makes me think we don't need to be perfect forever, we don't need to be heroes...we can just draw a couple of good lines before retreating back to the obscurity of a normal life.

Enjoy The Silence!

Blank Minds Think Alike

I usually complain to myself that I lose too much time thinking about useless things, or think too much about something important to the point I can't decide how to act. Now I'm feeling something weird...I just can't think about anything, no matter how hard I try.

Can't evaluate my problems, nor think of a solution to them. Can't think about my future, nor think about my past. Can't make plans for today, nor tomorrow. I think I just attained my lifelong goal of being able to completely turn my mind off for a while. I just hope I can remember to turn it on later.

Break's over, mates!

Finally, Brazil got kicked off the World Cup. Honestly, I was wishing for them to fail for several reasons:

• It wouldn't be funny. They got enough titles. It'd be just like Formula One was a couple of years ago, when no one could threat Michael Schumacher.
• The team was playing quite bad. But we can't appoint a single cause for that. The players wanted just to break their personal records, the coach was stubborn and folks like Ronaldinho and Kaká were thinking they could do exactly the same thing they do on commercials.
• The team didn't had a great retrospect either. Except for the matches against Argentina in the Confederation Cup Finals and Paraguay for the World Cup Qualifying Rounds, the team didn't prove it could go very far.
• One would be very naïve to believe we had a "Superteam". A machine needs several different complimentary types of parts, and it's simply unconceivable in modern football sending a side to the field where only 3 players were active markers and the rest would just stay stopped on the field until growing roots.
  
• It'd be a shame if Zidane just retired playing so gracefully against such a feeble team.
  
• I placed a bet on France, they were paying 18:1.

But anyway, at least now we, as a country, can focus on what really matters. We got presidential elections coming, and we must take a little more active stance, and work for our future. We must get rid of the "pervert white elite" and the "comrades". We must tell them we ain't peons and make them do what we actually need, even if it means we will have to resort to "unlawful" means.

We have a World Cup only every four years, but we need to make huge efforts to put this country on its tracks everyday, and winning the World Cup won't feed none of us.