Your move, chief.

What makes us

I thought my next entry would be about the most recent story I've read, The machine stops. But a facebook friend of mine made me change my mind.

So I have this facebook friend who could never be my friend in real life, ever. The way we think, our points of view, the morals from which we judge things, are incompatible and inconciliable.
We went to kindergarten together for 3 years. Then we never saw each other again, though we lived in the same neighborhood and he went to the same primary, secondary and high school as my cousin. And then one day, after more than 20 years not having talked or thought about each other, he found me on facebook and we started talking about our lives, what we were doing, the things we liked, music, movies... A quick catch up for a few days, which I believe both of us found interesting and nice. We even talked about meeting in person some day. Then after some time we forgot about each other again - but we stayed friends on facebook.

But for some time now, every time I log in, facebook shows me around 4 or 5 articles he's posted and every time I am so happy that we never got to meet again.

If I had to define him, from the limited information I get from what he posts, I would say he's a radical christian, islam hater, ultraconservative, fascist, racist, homophobic. He believes he has the moral authority to opine on how the rest of the people choose to live their lives (or die their deaths). He likes playing the rol of the christian victim, prosecuted for his faith. He sees life as "the world VS christians". He doesn't like the spanish Popular Party because it's not conservative enough. He doesn't like the new Pope because the way he observes christian principles is too loose and he's too permissive.

If he had to define me in return, he'd probably say I (me!!) am immoral, a babykiller, a terrorism supporter, a pervert, a sinner, a trouble maker. He'd reproach that I protest against bullfights but not against abortion and on this basis he would call me a hypocrite. The same way, he'd reproach that I protest about muslims but not about christians prosecution - again, hypocrite. And many other things he'd say about me, which would be probably as true as what I just said about him.

Anyway, one after another, sometimes I comment on his posts, sometimes I think it's not worth it. Sometimes he replies, sometimes I guess he thinks I'm not worth it. But the last straw was yesterday when he posted a link to an article based on the spanish version of this site ("Homosexuality and pedophilia"), calling attention on how pedophilia was much more prevalent among homosexuals than heterosexuals and therefore homosexuality equals immorality. I added "hypocrite" to the list of characteristics to define him, and I couldn't help mentioning the prevalence of pedophilia among christian priests so now I guess he added "pedophile" to his list of characteristics to define me (if he even cares about me at all, which I doubt).

The thing is, in my feverish state, I started thinking how he and I, two people with a similar background, educated in similar schools, according to similar ethics, have grown up to be so radically different. To what extent are we responsible for our thoughts?

During our childhood, it's our family that provides us the moral principles from which we will continue to see the world as we grow up. They are the first to tell us this is right and this is wrong. We don't get to choose our family. Had I been educated by this guy's family or he by mine, today I might be a fascist or he a pervert.
Then our parents decide what school to take us. At this point there are many factors intervening, none of them we control. Similar ideology between the school and our parents, quality of academic education, proximity, cost, references. I still don't know why my parents took me to a religious school, I don't know how much a religious education mattered to them, and I suspect, at that moment, it was one of the pluses. But at the same time they managed to counteract the school religious strictness with statements like "But no one really knows for sure", "It's not exactly like that", and such.
By our adolescence our moral principles are probably already set but still subject to shaping. From this point on, what matters most is the people we interact with, and these are either family determined or completely random (life determined). In any case, nothing we can do about it. But we already have a working definition of what is right and what is wrong, we already have a fixed level of indulgency beyond which we won't doubt to call something unacceptable, we have a permissible flexibility to establish a certain interval of doubt inside which we are able to admit that someone else's way might be as valid (or more valid) as ours. I guess my threshold for wrongness was higher than my facebook guy's, and I always recall my friend Santi as the first person who proved to me that one can be both a smart student and a heavy metal lover. I know it sounds lame, but that summer was a before and after in my conception of right and wrong, and it definitely widened my interval of doubt. My meeting him was completely random and it could have never happened as much as it did happen.
So life goes on, and we either do or do not meet people who are different or come from different backgrounds, and we either do or do not admit that it doesn't make them any worse (if anything, considering this guy's and my fortunate background, it makes them better). But we don't choose the people we meet. We only get to choose how we judge them. And that has already been conditioned for us before.

With all this I mean, if we don't control the people and events that shape our morality, who are we to judge how other people think?
Is my facebook friend to blame for his repudiation to homosexuals when god's existence for him is as real (and as provable) as god's inexistence is for me, and his god says homosexuality is a sin?
Am I to blame for not being sure about the ethics -or unethics- of abortion? Or for supporting euthanasia, after all the suffering I've seen (which he has not) and I've not been able to ease?

Is anybody qualified to judge anybody else?

It's what she does to him

I woke up this morning humming this song.
I'm having lunch at Wendy's, and BAM!

  Sorry that my last entries are not too deep...

Today

When only this explains.

Embrace mediocrity

After a while, here's another thing worth writing about.

This is one of those TEDx talks. This one is called "Average is awesome: embrace mediocrity as the key to success". I recommend that you watch it because it's very interesting, but in case you're too lazy I will try to summarize it for you.


So this guy says:
- He was bored, home alone, checking his facebook and thinking of how one of his friends' life was so much better than his.
- Today's society sets our minds in a way that we think "the top" is an achievement on itself, regardless what it implies.
- What matters is not the achievement on itself, but our interpretation of it.
- People who have a few options are generally happier with their choices than people who have many options, and apparently there are studies that support this statement.
- When making a choice (he talks about getting the best sweater in a mall), there are the maximisers, who compare all possible choices and take their time to make sure that they pick the best one; this guys pick better options. And then there are the satisfisers (am I spelling it right?), who look at possible choices one by one until they come to one that is good enough for them, and then they stop looking; this guys are happier with their choices, even when they are objectively not as good as those of a maximiser.
- If we could be just ok with our own mediocrity instead of aspiring to excellence, we would be more satisfied with what we have.

Now, my thoughts:

First I thought when I read the title, if this guy really believed what he's preaching, he probably wouldn't be giving a TEDx talk.
But anyway.
I agree with many of the things he says. I agree that working for the number 1 company won't necessarily make you happy, even if it's objectively better than the number 10 company, which is not as bad either. It all depends on how much you care about what others think of you and how important it is for you to impress people. It depends on whether you are able or not to admit that even if neurosurgery sounds sooooo cool, pathology just works better for you.
On the other hand, I don't think embracing mediocrity without aspiring to anything better than what we have is the best approach. Like I said some other day, life is a succession of decisions and achievements. It is true that achievements on themselves won't necessarily make us happy, but the fact that we were able to fight for something we wanted and eventually get it does. Because even if after a while we realise that we don't really like it that much, we feel proud of ourselves, and that is some sort of happiness. If we limit ourselves to the comfort of our mediocrity we won't keep growing as individuals. As long as we don't loose perspective. As long as we are able to admit our mistakes without shame, as long as we are able to admit that we prefer number 10 over number 1, without fearing what others will think. Without fearing the word "looser". Knowing that what we loose going a few numbers down, doesn't matter to us as much as what we can win, and keeping in mind that different things are differently important to different people.
He gives this example with chocolates. People who pick the best out of six possible kinds of chocolate are happier with their chocolate than people who pick the best out of thirty. Ok, good. But these poor people were only given a very limited number of options. They don't know what they're missing and this ignorance makes them happy. It's only when they find out that other random people (not better than themselves in any other way) were given way more options, that they start feeling cheated. Knowledge is power, they say, but with great power comes great responsibility. And once you come to know that there were actually thirty different kinds of chocolate and you're given the possibility to try them all, and you believe you can find one that is better than the one you got, then why not? Unless you decide that you have better things to do with two hours of your life than finding an awesome fucking sweater. But in any case, it's only up to you to decide whether you want to sacrifice your time or your sweater's quality, and this is where you have to be honest to yourself and find out what you really care about the most.
In the same line of thoughts, since every choice implies the possibility of being wrong as well as the need to give up every other option, the more options you have, the harder it will be for you to decide. First, because it is more likely that you will not make the best possible decision, as the best is only one out of thirty. And second, because giving up five different kinds of chocolate is better than giving up twenty nine, especially if they let you try them only to then take them away from you. However, that doesn't mean you should deliberately limit your options or content with mediocrity when you can aspire to something better. Otherwise, we should have never come outside the cave.
So, the real problem comes when you go to facebook and you compare your otherwise satisfying life to the apparently much better life that you think your friends (facebook friends) have according to the awesome photos they are publishing. The problem comes when you see someone who grew up with you, or who went to school with you, or who shared with you a significant part of their, let's say, development as citizens of the world, someone who started from the same starting point and under the same starting conditions as you did, and you realise that, objectively, either personally, socially or laborally, they are doing better. And you wonder what you did wrong that they did right.
Honestly, I'm still looking for an answer to that question.

Not here nor there

Here I am again after one whole month, to bring you some news: I am not happy.
One of the last times I visited NY, or maybe even the last time, I had a rebelation that I don´t think I shared here. Or maybe I did. Anyways. I was cleaning the dishes after lunch and I don´t remember if I had already started my residency or was about to start it, but I still had the idea that I would be able to work and study at the same time, and I had it very clear that my new residency would only be a temporary thing while I got ready to apply for a US residency. And I remember I thought, I know exactly where I wanna be, and it´s not where I am right now, but I need to be where I am right now in order to get there, so I wanna be right where I am right now. Yes, my thinking doesn´t care about correction in its speech, but don´t judge it.
The thing is I concluded that, in order to be "happy", or let´s say satisfied, I need to feel that I wanna be where I am, which is not the same as saying that I am where I wanna be. I might not be where I wanna be, but I choose to be there because that will take me where I wanna be. As long as I know where I wanna be, it should be fine.
Well that feeling is gone now. I still know where I wanna be, and I really can´t say that I dislike where I am, but I know it´s not taking me there anymore.
So... I guess I will just go to bed.

Spot the difference (or when Charlie keeps silence)

Back in the day when people were Charlie, three months ago today, everybody spoke a word in defence of freedom of expression. Good times, those days. Good people.

Well, in case you haven´t heard, there was a terrorist attack in a university in Kenya last week. Kenya, by the way, is a country in Africa. 147 people, mostly students, were killed.

Like it happened with Charlie, I would have expected some facebook comments like "I plan to go to the university tomorrow, and you won´t stop me", or maybe some photos of defiant people actually going to the university. 

But nope.

One of my facebook friends said "I am Kenya". 

Another one posted the news from Le Monde and changed his profile pic to show this photo:

A third one posted this article in Spanish ("When not every death from terrorism hurts the same").

And that has been all, so far.

After the attacks in France, I said I was not Charlie. That did not mean I wasn´t horrified, angry and sad about the killings just like everybody else.

And I´m sure this doesn´t mean people are not horrified, angry and sad about this attack in Kenya. But then why aren´t we posting about it like we did about Charlie?

Let me translate some lines from the article. "As young as the university students from here, with the same hopes as the students from here, with so much life ahead of them as the students from here." Talking about terrorism, "It´s a global threat that does not cause a global pain. Kenya´s dead are not our dead, even when the terrorists are the same." "Unfortunately, we still see death in black and white."

Well, I´m not sure about that last line. I don´t think it has anything to do with black or white. But I do think, sadly, we are so used to hearing about poor people dying in the third world, that a few more deaths among millions don´t cause as much shock as a bunch of french guys killed. The killings in France make us, the first world, realize that the threat is real and is here, much more than whatever happens in Kenya or any other developing country. (I hate the expression "developing country", btw. It´s just a way to say "really poor people" without having to feel awful about it.)

Anyway, my point again, we protest, but we keep focusing on the wrong reasons. This is not white people not caring about black lives. This is not terrorists versus freedom of expression, muslims versus jews or the IS versus kenyan university students. This is humans versus humans. And that´s what we should speak up about.

Of muslims and men

Ok, this is not fresh news, but I haven´t had much time to blog about it, so...
A couple of weeks ago I read this news on BBC about the three muslims that were killed in North Carolina. The headline went something like "Three muslims killed in North Carolina". Other news websites had similar headlines too. The news talked about some three muslim students that had been killed, supposedly after a fight over a parking place, though there was a possibility that it would have been a hate crime.
Well, here is something that would not have annoyed me two years ago. Even more, I wouldn´t even have noticed it. But the headlines did say "Three muslims". "Three muslims", or "Three muslim students", or "Three young muslims", everywhere I checked. Also in the NY Times.
Quoting directly from the latter: "The victims’ families described it as a hate crime. The police said that the shooting appeared to have been motivated by “an ongoing neighbor dispute over parking,” but that they were investigating whether religious hatred had contributed to the killings."
So, as I was saying, two years ago I wouldn´t even have noticed they were saying "Three muslims", instead of "Three people". In Spain, for some reason, we always specify if the person we´re talking about is south american, or black, or asian (and actually, we use "chinese" for asian). But now it sounds weird to me. The headlines should have read three "people", and then the text should have mentioned that a hate crime was suspected because these three people happened to be muslims and the killer happened not to be. Otherwise, we´re making assumptions we shouldn´t make. We´re actually turning a crime into a hate crime.

Speaking about hate crimes... This whole thing is getting crazy. The day after the killings in France, I survived a fake bomb alert when I was trying to go back home after work. It was about 7pm and I took the Metro to Chamartín station, where I would transfer to the RENFE train. When I got to the station, they were shutting down all RENFE lines running to Atocha, which happens to be my last stop. They were announcing trains wouldn´t run because of government orders.
After the previous day events, people were nervous. Even I was nervous. Of course I imagined something like a bomb alert, and I didn´t want to stay in a big station like Chamartín. I thought of an alternative route to get home, but then they announced some Metro lines were being shut down too. Finally, I decided it would be easier to avoid the main train and metro lines, and go to my parents´ house instead. On my way, I got a message about the bomb alert in Nuevos Ministerios station, and I texted  my family not to go there.
At the end, of course, it was a fake alert. Someone had forgotten a package with the word "STORM" at the station. But I have to admit it, I was scared. And I felt stupid after.
The last few weeks, when I got off the train in Chamartín every morning, there were three cops at the entrance, wearing bulletproof vests and carrying a huge machine gun. Actually, I´m not sure if I can say "huge", because I don´t know how big a regular machine gun is, but it does look huge to me. The cops stood there and did nothing. Sometimes they took a few steps to the left, a few to the right... I wondered why they were there.
Last week the cops disappeared, and I wondered why they were gone.
And today, I saw four of them in Atocha station. Dispersed, this time. Standing with their vests and their machine guns and taking a few steps from time to time. And I wonder why they are here. They look pretty intimidating, sure, but they won´t stop me if I carry a bomb in my backpack. I could kill all these hundreds of little ants heading to work if I wanted to. And their sole presence there makes me feel insecure.

It would all be so much easier if we realized how unimportant it is whatever each one of us thinks comes after... We all are nothing but (bio)chemistry.

Disrupted

Ok, this posting has nothing to do with me feeling disrupted, or with disruption, or with anything starting with "disrupt-" or remotely related. But, because it´s my blog and I can do as I please, I want to use the title to inform you that yes, I feel disrupted, and that word, in English, just like that, popped up in my mind on my way to work this morning, and the only reason why I´m telling you about how disrupted I feel is to notice that I haven´t been able to find a word that better expresses how I feel in Spanish. Weird?

And now, let´s move on to the real subject of this posting which is, again, Catch-22. Let me give you the real title for the posting: "A stupid masterpiece".
As I keep reading, I wander about how incredibly stupidly brilliant the book is. From page 62 now, I still doubt that I will be able to finish it, but every single paragraph I read, I want to share in the blog. Even whole pages I want to share. It´s amazing. The language is absolutely not correct, neither it is the content of it, and no general plot has really started to unfold so far. It´s all about some Col. Something, Lt. Someone, names and more names and nicknames and short anecdotes and more anecdotes that lead one to the next and so on, in the middle of a war that puts the most insane of people together and makes them even more insane.
I will try to be very, very picky and restrictive about the fragments I share, but here´s a few of them that I hope you enjoy.

[“It was a godsend,” Doc Daneeka confessed solemnly. “Most of the other doctors were soon in the service, and things picked up overnight. The corner location really started paying off, and I soon found myself handling more patients than I could handle competently. I upped my kickback fee with those two drugstores. The beauty parlors were good for two, three abortions a week. Things couldn’t have been better, and then look what happened. They had to send a guy from the draft board around to look me over. I was Four-F. I had examined myself pretty thoroughly and discovered that I was unfit for military service. You’d think my word would be enough, wouldn’t you, since I was a doctor in good standing with my county medical society and with my local Better Business Bureau. But no, it wasn’t, and they sent this guy around just to make sure I really did have one leg amputated at the hip and was helplessly bedridden with incurable rheumatoid arthritis. Yossarian, we live in an age of distrust and deteriorating spiritual values. It’s a terrible thing,” Doc Daneeka protested in a voice quavering with strong emotion. “It’s a terrible thing when even the word of a licensed physician is suspected by the country he loves.”]

[“Every time another White Halfoat was born,” he continued, “the stock market turned bullish. Soon whole drilling crews were following us around with all their equipment just to get the jump on each other. Companies began to merge just so they could cut down on the number of people they had to assign to us. But the crowd in back of us kept growing. We never got a good night’s sleep. When we stopped, they stopped. When we moved, they moved, chuckwagons, bulldozers, derricks, generators. We were a walking business boom, and we began to receive invitations from some of the best hotels just for the amount of business we would drag into town with us. Some of those invitations were might generous, but we couldn’t accept any because we were Indians and all the best hotels that were inviting us wouldn’t accept Indians as guests. Racial prejudice is a terrible thing, Yossarian. It really is. It’s a terrible thing to treat a decent, loyal Indian like a nigger, kike, wop or spic.” Chief White Halfoat nodded slowly with conviction.]

[The nightmares appeared to Hungry Joe with celestial punctuality every single night he spent in the squadron throughout the whole harrowing ordeal when he was not flying combat missions and was waiting once again for the orders sending him home that never came. Impressionable men in the squadron like Dobbs and Captain Flume were so deeply disturbed by Hungry Joe’s shrieking nightmares that they would begin to have shrieking nightmares of their own, and the piercing obscenities they flung into the air every night from their separate places in the squadron rang against each other in the darkness romantically like the mating calls of songbirds with filthy minds.]

[It was a night of surprises for Appleby, who was as large as Yossarian and as strong and who swung at Yossarian as hard as he could with a punch that flooded Chief White Halfoat with such joyous excitement that he turned and busted Colonel Moodus in the nose with a punch that filled General Dreedle with such mellow gratification that he had Colonel Cathcart throw the chaplain out of the officers’ club and ordered Chief White Halfoat moved into Doc Daneeka’s tent, where he could be under a doctor’s care twenty-four hours a day and be kept in good enough physical condition to bust Colonel Moodus in the nose again whenever General Dreedle wanted him to. Sometimes General Dreedle made special trips down from Wing Headquarters with Colonel Moodus and his nurse just to have Chief White Halfoat bust his son-in-law in the nose.]


Now, to finish, a brief reflection that occured to me while I was waiting for the train this morning, and after I shook the word "disrupted" off my mind: Why do I keep saying "One day I will write something good" but that day never seems to come? I could come up with a lot of fair excuses, all of which could be contained in the very reasonable and honest statement "I don´t have the time right now". But the truth (the other truth) is, I might just not be a good witer after all. It might happen that I start writing and I turn to be a bad (even a crappy) writer. Whereas, as long as I haven´t tried yet, I´m a potential good writer.
So at the end it´s all about cats in boxes.

Caught!

I'm reading a new book. New for me, I mean. And I want to share something.
I usually don't share parts of a book before finishing it, but with this one, Catch-22, I don't know... I'm liking it a lot, some paragraphs are just amazing, but it's not easy reading for me and I hate it but I'm afraid I might not finish it. And I'm telling you from page 36..., so yes, there's a real chance!
But I want to make this clear, if I don't finish it, it won't be because the book is not good enough, but because the reader isn't.

And now, the excerpts.


"In a way the C.I.D. man was pretty lucky, because outside the hospital the war was still going on. Men went mad and were rewarded with medals. All over the world, boys on every side of the bomb line were laying down their lives for what they had been told was their country, and no one seemed to mind, least of all the boys who were laying down their young lives."

"Actually, there were many officers' clubs that Yossarian had not helped build, but he was proudest of the one on Pianosa. It was a sturdy and complex monument to his powers of determination. Yossarian never went there to help until it was finished; then he went there often, so pleased was he with the large, fine, rambling shingled building. It was truly a splendid structure, and Yossarian throbbed with a mighty sense of accomplishment each time he gazed at it and reflected that none of the work that had gone into it was his."

"But there was no enthusiasm in Yossarian's group. In Yossarian's group there was only a mounting number of enlisted men and officers who found their way solemnly to Sergeant Towser several times a day to ask if the orders sending them home had come in. They were men who had finished their fifty missions. There were more of them now than when Yossarian had gone into the hospital, and they were still waiting. They worried and bit their nails. They were grostesque, like useless young men in a depression. They moved sideways, like crabs. They were waiting for the orders sending them home to safety to return from Twenty-seventh Air Force Headquarters in Italy, and while they waited they had nothing to do but worry and bite their nails and find their way solemnly to Sergeant Towser several times a day to ask if the order sending them home to safety had come."

I must say, not too often have I found so brilliant lines condensed in so very few pages!
So I really, really hope to have the strength, time and patience to finish it. I will let you know how it goes...

For my right to complain

Like I said some postings ago, I would like to write in defense of my right to complain.

Objectively, I am actually not the happiest person these days (or these months). But whenever someone asks how I am, I will say "I'm fine", "Not bad", "I can't complain".

I can't complain because I have a nice job, a nice family, good health, some very good friends and a comfortable life. I can waste a bit of money from time to time and still have enough to pay the rent, go out for dinner, go to the theater, travel, get some chocolate... I have literally no responsibilities other than myself, and even if I couldn't take care of myself, I would have good social support. I am relatively well educated, enjoy reading and even studying, which is great because both are things that don't require much physical effort or other people's intervention. I speak english, so I could potentially get along with many people from all over the world, and also travel to most destinations fairly safely. Comparatively, my life has always been easy. I have never known war or hunger. Even when my parents didn't have enough money to buy us new clothes when we were kids, they managed so that I never had a perception of scarcity. And economy is pretty good right now. Again, comparatively.
I can't complain because, if we draw a horizontal line that divided the world's population into the fortunate and the unfortunate, I would be, comparatively, scraping the top.

So, if I complain, it doesn't mean that I'm not grateful for the life I have. But it means that I know things could be even better. It means that I am aware of the aspects in my life that are not, comparatively, as good. And I am just pointing them out so I can make them better. Because, like I said, life is a succession of goals and achievements.

A few days ago someone thought I might use a self-help book. It's called "The glasses of happiness". I have only a few pages left.
In this book, the author tries to give me (because I'm the one reading it) a few tips on how to be happy. One of his main points is, "In order to be fine, all you need is food and drink. Everything else is bonus."
Well, I see how this maxim can work, but I don't exactly agree with it. Rather, I do, only I don't think that is the key for a happy life, but for a comfortable one. Which is quite a different thing. A comfortable life is the kind of life that passes by unnoticed while you content yourself with what it puts before you. And I'm reading the book, supposedly, because I want to be happy, and not just fine. Otherwise I would go for "The glasses of fineness".
Each person could probably give us a different definition of "happiness", while such thing most certainly does not exist as a permanent condition or state of mind. I wouldn't know how to define it, but if I had to, I would say it probably involves some effort from my side. Because, in order to be happy, I need to believe that I can, in some way, be better. And make it a goal. Otherwise, if I'm just fine with what I already got, what's the point of going on? I could just die right now, and I would die happy.

So, after all, maybe it's a good thing that happiness is not achievable.
Because unhappiness is precisely what allows us to hope and makes us keep moving towards something better.
Therefore I will keep complaining, from time to time.

* NOTE: "Happiness" is just a fake concept created by a society that had already achieved the goal of "surviving". So it all depends on your glasses.
Like Machado said, "The sea and the mountain change, as does the eye that beholds them."

Je suis pas Charlie

Ok, first of all, I think what happened in Charlie Hebdo's building is absolutely unjustifiable and I am not even remotely suggesting otherwise.

But.

I am not Charlie. Charlie was extremely irrespectful to muslim community, as it is probably to so many other collectives I'm unaware of (because it has not transcended and i didn't research). The images they published were really offensive. I've seen some of them. And they had the right to publish them, of course, because of this thing we call freedom of expression.

But let's not be cynical now.

Two years ago, a french television showed a program mocking spanish sportsmen, making it look like every single one of them took drugs before a game/race/competition. Spain didn't care about freedom of expression then. We were offended and we demanded an apology from France. I don't see any differences between that case and Charlie's, apart from the fact that Rafa Nadal and the Gasol brothers didn't massacre the anchors.

So I'm not saying we should not protest, I'm saying we should protest for the right reason. And the reason here is not one of freedom of expression, but one of religious tolerance. Not one of broken pencils, but one of broken brotherhood. (Btw, religions are a fallacy anyways, and they are doomed to extintion sooner or later - freedom of expression!).

I've seen a lot of people these days "taking revenge" on the terrorist acts in France by posting Charlie's images on facebook, along with comments such as "You won't silence us" and that sort of things. I think we are confusing the terms here. Just because two (or three) crazy fanatics killed these innocent people who didn't believe in their god, we should not respond by offending the majority of muslims who have nothing to do with that and most likely condemn the killing as well. Let's say that an offended crazy woman kills a comedian who told sexist jokes. We would not hate women and publish sexist jokes on facebook. And even if most women would feel insulted by the comedian, also most would not get a kalashnikov or wish him dead.

In the last years, or since I have political consciousness - which is not so long ago -, partly promoted by the US and mostly promoted by islamic fanatics there's been an increasing hate/fear from the so called occidental society to muslims and everything related to islamic religion. Whenever we think of muslims we see fanatics, killers, suicide bombers. That is also what we learn from Holliwood movies. Muslims are always the enemy. Thank god the United States of America always defeat them.

So I want to share this, even if you already know. I'm sure you know about the cop that was killed at the street right outside Charlie's building. You might know as well that his name was Ahmed Merabet and he was muslim. You might have heard or read "Je suis Ahmed". "Je suis Ahmed. Le policier mort. Charlie s’est moqué de ma culture et à ridiculisé ma religion et je suis mort parce que j’ai voulu défendre son droit de le faire." "I am Ahmed. The dead cop. Charlie mocked my culture and ridiculed my faith and I am dead because I wanted to defend his right to do so."

This is the real hero. Charlie's editor and columnists and cartoonists are just victims, no less, but no more. So in case we choose to "be" somebody, somebody who truly represents the ideals we think we are fighting for,  we should at least choose wisely.
Even if that means choosing a muslim.

I won't extend my thoughts any longer. There's already a lot of debate out there to reflect on.

Saint Francis the Good

This is no news, but I happened to read it today. On facebook, I must admit. Some friend of mine posted it.
So it turns out that Pope Francis said in October that the theories of evolution and the Big Bang are real, and this is perfectly compatible with the existence of God, moreover, this "requires" the existence of God.



I guess Unamuno happened to be not too far away from my thinking when I saw this, and the Pope´s speech reminded me of San Manuel Bueno, Mártir (Saint Emmanuel the Good, Martyr). This is a novel written by Miguel de Unamuno in 1930. It tells about the life of a priest in a small Spanish village.

Now, spoiler alert. This will be a real spoiler.

I warned you.

So the novel starts with Manuel, a catholic priest, arriving to the village. The three main characters are Manuel, Ángela (a local) and Lázaro (Ángela´s brother, recently arrived from America). The story presents Manuel as the perfect, merciful, calmed, conciliatory, righteous, virtuous priest whom everybody in the village loves and admires and even venerates.
Until -and here comes the spoiler- Lázaro raises doubts on whether the priest is actually a believer. In his words, "He is too intelligent to believe everything he teaches." So finally, it turns out that Manuel, the perfect priest, in fact does not believe in God or an afterlife. But he´s doing what he´s doing because he thinks the simple people in the village need to have hope and consolement in the promise of eternal life. At the end, Unamuno even suggests that Christ himself didn´t believe in God.

So I read this news -old news- about the Pope and I couldn´t help thinking of "Saint Emmanuel". I don´t know what this man believes or not. I am not in any way suggesting he´s an atheist. But I do think the guy is smart. Smart enough to foresee that, if the catholic church doesn´t change its doctrines, there´s no way the institution, and the religion with it, can survive. Everything he´s done so far goes in the way to cleaning the image of the christian church: he apologized for the church´s "mistakes" during the middle ages, for the rejection of homosexuality, for the opulent lives of many priests. He had a word on the use of condoms. He´s trying to make peace with society, which is probably the only way to go, but something his predecessors didn´t know how to do, He´s being brave enough to confront the most conservative sectors of the church. He, believer or not, understands that religion, as opposed to science, cannot compete with science. And he´s trying to make religion evolve along with science, so that sheeps don´t miss the right path.
Don´t take me wrong, I don´t consider myself better than most sheeps. But I am a lost cause, I don´t have hope and I never will. And what is worse, I hope I never will, because, the way I see it now, that would mean embracing a lie. The biggest of lies. The cruelest, maybe, as it is the fake promise for something that will never happen. Just imagine you´re dying, meh, it´s ok, no biggie, will see you all on the other side. And then you die. And fuck you, there´s no other side! Game over.
So I´d rather live my life knowing that it is what it is, and everything I want to do, I must do here. And everything I didn´t do will stay undone. But I do understand how sheeps feel and why they need hope. So I think, for those who hope, keeping that hope alive is a good thing to do.

Therefore, I like this pope.

I could go on and on, arguing about how ridiculously important religious ideas are to society, how stupid it is that you must pretend to believe in the christian god if you ever want to become the president of the US, just as stupid as if you´d have to swear that your favorite pizza is ham and mushrooms. May the mushroom pizza be with you. I swear on mushroom pizza. Religions are just ideas, shared and very rigid but ideas, and they should not matter at all, for anything, as long as they are respectful between them. I could, like I said, go on and on.
But I will not.