The Write Thing

Once again, my dear non-reader, you find me revisiting the idea of fate, karma and life psychology in general. I wrote yesterday (yes, two days in a row by now seem almost like I could really keep a blog) about life in sunny and crime-ridden Houston, and the almost technical aspects involved in getting a door glass replaced and a decent internet connection activated in the fourth largest city in the US.

Of course I have not expanded on the Kafkaesque developments that today brought me almost to the brink of despair (exasperation by now is a given for me in this country), and I will not unless you have serious insomnia issues, in which case you can send me an email and I will gladly walk you through the process of not finding things here even when everybody tells you they have them – oh, well, there I go again trying to explain…I apologize.

The fact that I have not expanded on my tribulations does not mean they are not potentially clear to you, or at least imaginable, by now. So let me focus on the feelings instead, the depth of the impotence, the rage, the worn-out patience, the repetition and, eventually, oblivion…I know in the not-so-faraway future I will remember the gist of everything that is going on around me now, but I will forget the reason. Just because that is what life is all about, and sooner or later we all forget.

Prometheus

THERE ARE four legends concerning Prometheus:

According to the first he was clamped to a rock in the Caucasus for betraying the secrets of the gods to men, and the gods sent eagles to feed on his liver, which was perpetually renewed.

According to the second Prometheus, goaded by the pain of the tearing beaks, pressed himself deeper and deeper into the rock until he became one with it.

According to the third his treachery was forgotten in the course of thousands of years, forgotten by the gods, the eagles, forgotten by himself.

According to the fourth everyone grew weary of the meaningless affair. The gods grew weary, the eagles grew weary, the wound closed wearily.

There remained the inexplicable mass of rock. The legend tried to explain the inexplicable. As it came out of a substratum of truth it had in turn to end in the inexplicable.

I think that the so-called Influenza A (H1N1) should be a good vehicle for revising the age groups to which we connect. I have long heard the chant claiming that nobody cares about the elderly and they do not deserve such poor treatment, having done all they have for us, younger folks.

Well, my dear readers, let me break the news. You now have a golden opportunity to change the course of ungratefulness toward senior citizens. How? Follow me as I go through my reasoning.

There is not a lot of information on the H1N1 virus that is causing uncertainty and wreaking havoc with Argentine health authorities (well, it does not take much to wreak havoc with them anyway, but a virus is always a good excuse). However, a little bit of online research will reassure you about the most common prevention measures. These include boring stuff such as washing your hands a hundred times a day, staying away from potentially sick people, keeping your house clean, etc. Now, if you start reading about the way the disease is developing, you will learn that the tranche of the population above 65 years old or so have shown considerable resistance to the virus. Here is where the prevention guidelines could be expanded.

We live in a society that goes all soft on children and gives a little less than a damn about the elderly, even if some look good in pension funds commercials. The H1N1 pandemic now calls this preference into question. What are you thinking of staying anywhere near noisy infants with snots running down their noses and coughing on you every thirty seconds? No matter how charming those short versions of an adult may seem to you, my friend, you have to stay away from them. I know the temptation to play with the devilish creatures will be strong, but consider what sort of hands will soon be touching yours as you help them across the street, how dirty and full of viruses and bacteria they will be. You are in danger, and you have to face the fact.

Instead, reconsider your views on older people. I know some may bore you by telling you the same story over and over again, or even by speaking about recipes for hours on end. Their life seems uneventful to you? Dispel those thoughts…think how safe they are to be around. Who knows? There may be even some way of developing immunity by proximity…science evolves by the hour. Moreover, how many times have you been told you should slow down and calm your stress? Now you can do it by crossing the street in fifteen minutes instead of two, discussing the good old times as if they were still around, and a myriad other things that flailing memories allow. Think again, the elderly are not contagious.

My dear reader, you can do it. There is still time before H1N1 condemns you to a probable death in Argentina and a very difficult flu almost elsewhere. Go find an elderly person and make a new friend. You will not regret it.

If I could put words to my music, tonight would certainly involve Adriana Calcanhotto’s Mulher sem Razão. There is a lot of sense in that song, in many ways. My favorite lines are definitely the following:

Parta, pegue um avião, reparta
Sonhar só não tá com nada
É uma festa na prisão

Isn’t it the cruelest and truest of facts to actually accept that “dreaming alone does not mean anything, it is a party held in prison”? I guess it is, and that sometimes you do not know better than to have your party in prison. Why not? First of all, it is safer. Second…it still feels like a party.

Tonight, as I play the track from Maré in the background, I would say it is good to accept the fear, the risk of winning and losing (please let us face there are only very few win-win situations in life…somebody sooner or later pays for lunch). It is liberating in a way, it humanizes you. Admitting that fear is sometimes all you have is good enough to help you plod along and still cross the scary waters that separate you from your dream, whatever that is.

In this month of June, in a cold and H1N1-ridden Buenos Aires, only a few days after another commercial plane crashed with no real explanation, the uncomfortable question hangs in the air. We can have the party in prison and delude ourselves into thinking there will be a reason why we will not develop the fatal flu or our plane will not be buried in the cold waters of an unfathomable sea. We can have that limited range of security to build for ourselves…the cause why, regardless of how implausible it sounds. Yet, at the end of the day, we will still have a party in prison and there…we already know the guests.