Luciana Ribeiro dos Santos : Weblog

Neither heroes nor villains

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 04:15:01 GMT

We may not obfuscate a person by some of its actions. If someone acts badly, it mustn’t overshadow the significance of its good actions. Similarly, positive attitudes may not affranchise anyone from criticism to all its others.
I can reliably tell I don’t know good or bad people, only good and bad behavior performed by people I know. Even so, my opinion is the result of a logic which varies according to my affairs and my level of understanding about what is at stake.

I can’t deny that huge imbalances of good and bad attitudes make me judge people; but focus on actions is believe in human complexity, and strive to analyze and communicate well is a demonstration of concern about individual and collective growth.

I hope we success polishing our attitudes. And I take as “attitudes” choices, postures and various interferences in the world as by sabotage, by actions, by silence and by speech. Each of these movements produces chain reactions, and though we don’t control the chain as a whole, we may take responsibility for what we provoke directly.

But how to react when we are called to choose people to govern us, to assume functions, to provide services or establish a relationship?
Our subjectivity comes into play. If we understand the difference between persons and attitudes we will contribute much more when reacting to good or bad habits. But more than elect persons, it’s necessary that we constantly position ourselves in relation to what they cause.

Reclaim policies to our political leaders, propose adjustments to the work of employees, suggest and criticize provided services and show our feelings to those we relate to.

Otherwise we will always be victims of heroes and villains, that don’t actually exist.

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 19:12:52 GMT

Refer to think

Yesterday we celebrated Women’s Day. On this day I had the opportunity to face many questionable conceptions of women remaining to this day, which were used even as a basis of messages that were supposedly celebrating us. On the radio, flyers and e-mail messages I noticed stereotypes from what I wish I get free; messages highlighting positions that should not be linked only to women, messages extolling the suffering women and complacency. We have a long way ahead still.

Examples of one of the messages:
"Nothing more contradictory than a woman" – aren’t men contradictory?
"A woman thinks with the heart, act with emotion" - This is not characteristic of every woman, and can be found in many men under the name "impulse". Moreover, it is not necessarily a positive behavior.
"Lives giving excuses for the mistakes of those whom she loves " - this is not the posture of a person who stands up for justice and the moral evolution of those they love.
"That graces and perfumes the bed, even if her love no more notices such details." - This is not the role of women. Efforts to keep a relationship healthy should be the role of the two, and when it’s not noticed, that’s a problem, not something to be proud of.
"As a witch, transforms into light and smiles her pain in her soul, for others not to notice it- Self-repression? Is it virtue?

Not to say that I have not received a beautiful message, had one:

"Congratulations on Women's Day!

I do not know how to praise you appropriately about it - I do not think of you as "a woman" but as "a person".

I'm fascinated by the fact that you have been at the mercy of a society – hell, of a planet – sexist your whole life, and yet you do not submit to stereotypes, like depreciating or to taking advantage of it.

Your femininity is spontaneous and disinterested. No "games", or lies - you are yourself, and not an actress who acts in a feminine role.

And you spend your energy, your time, your life on noble and difficult goals - even living in a country of ignorant people who accept the ideology of consumerism.

You have more decency than any big man out there! : D

Or maybe it's more appropriate to say that we must seek is to be a great woman.

I think this is so: I want to learn to be a little more like you.

Many kisses! Congratulations and always deepen your nobility!
Re. "

subtleties

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 02:01:52 GMT

By subtleties we can build concepts, crystallize values, educate.
In addition to speech, attitudes and choices express and can give examples. Repeatedly, they can transform or perpetuate a kind of thought.

That’s why we have to be careful when we listen to some music and start to hum it without realizing what it means. That's why we have to reflect whether it is worth disseminating songs as Reinventar, from Belo, whose lyric contains the idea "behind a dictator is a great love."

Who accepts and repeats this kind of reference?
Who puts love in the same line as dictatorship?
Faced with numerous cases of violence, a world that offers various alternatives of relationship, self-development, a world in which even the less educated can read on self-help books notions of self-esteem, to find it normal that an innuendo like this is written, put in tune, tested, repeated and reproduced is to co-opt with violence'

I reject it.

Life's simple! Be happy!

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 01:32:14 GMT

So many beautiful, easy and dumb associations... So much detachment from the complexity of the world by the illusion of an easy understanding… Why? Is it so hard to question? What kind of harm can one do to the intellect by realizing that things aren’t disposed in a beautiful logic, like a Hollywood movie, that provides the satisfaction of having well paid actors doing what we were expecting during two wasted hours?

How big must be an ego to not stand that life around isn’t so charming as the poetries we make up to disguise the tragedy taking place during a dance in careless steps?

Is there any need to charge for thinking? Or maybe we’ll always let it for those who earn more money, because they earn more money; for those who speak well, to correspond to it; for those who do not speak, to compensate… always for someone that we can charge sufficiently to move on to another history, different, exciting, illusory.

Advice

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 13:18:22 GMT

If you like to label I suggest you befriend jelly jars.

Thayumanavar’s poem - Autobiography of a Yogi

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 00:06:14 GMT

You can control a mad elephant;

You can shut the mouth of the bear and the tiger;

You can ride a lion;

You can play with the cobra;

By alchemy you can eke out your livelihood;

You can wander through the universe incognito;

You can make vassals of the gods;

You can be ever youthful;

You can walk on water and live in fire;

But control of the mind is better and more difficult.

Forbidden fruit

Thu, 31 Dec 2009 03:14:42 GMT

Each passion is worthwhile if we cultivate the art of its distillation.

When blossoming, it rocks old structures that could be growing invisible rusts.

By transmuting into love, it teaches, in a practical and conjoint experiment what is, more than what would, to be human.

In case of delusion, a little of almost culinary ability can make the bitter essence ferment and result in the truest sort of poetry.

words

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 02:30:35 GMT

Words are “multimodulated”, they carry reverberations from other meanings, which they set in motion, despite our best efforts to contain the meaning. (Hall, 2006, p. 41).

Delicacy

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 01:10:55 GMT

“Capitalism is the lord of time. But time isn’t money.

This is a monstrosity. Time is the fabric of our lives.” –Antonio Candido

(...) We are unkind to the time: since the beginning of the industrial age, men have been shredding this fragile and precious fabric of existence. Hence, delicacy is a conquer, an ethical value, an esthetic parameter. (…) The brutality we do with time, the fabric of our lives, consists in transforming it in profitable matter. Life is not a safe investment in the market.

Maria Rita Kehl –Delicadeza

Cycles of conferences – Mutações - A Condição Humana

Quote from Autobiography of a Yogi

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 04:04:19 GMT

“Knowledge cannot spring up by any other means than inquiry.”