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.