(New?!) life

Fábio Bento (31/12/2022)

With the arrival of a new year, we will already be used to that interesting phenomenon that resides in some minds, the renewal of the way we face life. Because some readers will be old enough or mature enough to realize that the specific act of wearing blue or red underpants during New Year's Eve will not have any influence on the way in which this interval of days will pass, which we believe has its own characteristics, unique in relation to all the other 2022 spaces, organization designed by Clauvius and promulgated by Gregory XIII.

We hope for a better life not knowing that quite possibly the best days we are experiencing right now. The affection, the hope to which we cling, the eagerness for what is to come, for what we want to come, is one of the greatest causes of misery and stress today, we do not console ourselves, we think that we can be better, whatever that may be. , we just found it. Advice: inhale, exhale, repeat, live now.

At the same time, and I know this seems counterproductive, we reveal a strange thing, let's call it apathy, in relation to what goes on outside our "bubble", in relation to things that, we think, do not affect us directly because they are behind of the screen, seemingly far away. The levity with which one votes, for example, in an ideal world would be the subject of deep reflection by all of us. Incidentally, recent (or prolonged) scandals of the Portuguese government with an absolute majority prove that, in this country people vote for rhetoric, for what it seems to be. Party ideology is not analysed, political programs are not read, and even less is the voting history of deputies and parties consulted in the AR. Certainly, we revolt a lot, in the cafe, on Facebook, Twitter, (Instagram is for vanities), but we quickly forget, as Saramago said “We are a people that burns a lot, but burns quickly”. Is it a problem of a certain collective dementia?

I don't know. I don't understand, and I don't think it's going to be the one I want to understand either.

Apathy is also transferred to other valences. Like climate change. Excluding the grunts (I apologize to the reader for not having made a “memo” before starting to write these chronicles, but I will not pay special attention not to offend. You will have your right to be offended, with all validity. But I fear not will have, nor will anyone else, the right not to be offended) who will continue to deny the existence of such a process, they claim to say it out of conviction, but deep down we all know that out of interest, no one can say with an unpolluted conscience that nothing is being done pass. Now, are we all doing the best we can to minimize the impact for generations to come? I know not. But the solution, although extremely dependent on an individual effort, cannot rely entirely on it, but cumulatively on government measures. Governments that will have to abandon the temptation to protect large corporations and wealthier individuals from doing whatever they want in the lunch box without thinking about the environmental consequences. Legislation, legislation, legislation. I digress, this to translate into what? Combating climate change without class struggle is nothing but gardening.

Two themes, a chronicle, and little criteria. I hope, dear reader, that this New Year that begins, according to this Gregorian interval, will be better organized than the handful of words you find here.

Good entrances.