Contemplação Aritmética

Se contemplar por uma dia,

Aquilo que fui há uma hora,

Encontro uma barca vazia,

Onde viajei, outrora.

Se observar por uma hora,

Aquilo que fui há um minuto,

Encontro um nada que chora,

Por um qualquer defunto.

Se reflectir por um minuto,

Naquilo que fui há um segundo,

Encontro um vácuo profundo,

Restos de outro mundo.

Seja qual for o intervalo,

Infinitesimamente existente,

A contemplação irá cortá-lo, 

Até a mudança ser aparente.

Seja que espaço-tempo for,
A reflexão desembainha a espada,
E com um golpe indolor,
A realidade converge em nada.

Change

The "Ship of Theseus" is a thought experiment which raises the question of whether a ship who has been on a journey and got its pieces replaced, one by one, is still the same ship at the end of the journey. Although originally posed as a philosophical dilemma, it beautifully illustrates how we perceive life and change.

If I am on a journey - call it life, our most important (and perhaps only) journey through space and time - and got my cells replaced one by one or my organs and bones morphed into larger ones, am I still the same person after some amount of time? 

Posed this way, it seems obvious that "The Ship of Theseus" can be in the analyzed in a new light - that of a person growing and changing, both physically and psychologically, throughout her life. If Mary takes a picture of herself each second, from birth to death and analyzes them with care, she would probably not notice any difference. To make this less boring, let's take a picture of her personality too (whatever the meaning of it is). Every photo after 1 second has passed looks almost exactly the same to her when compared to the second before. By applying this reasoning to all photos, without ever looking back to photos from seconds past, she would get to the end and notice no different at all - did she never change with time? She knows (and we know) that she must be wrong; when she looks at the photos from birth, its unmistakable that a huge change has occured, both in her physical attributes and in her way of being - all that makes her Her.

Has she done something wrong in her analysis? One could argue that because we are not perceptive enough, we cannot notice the changes that happened during that second. But the fact is, we never could have - if we take this reasoning to the extreme, every electron that moves inside each atom that constitutes each cell that composes Amy will give rise to a change which we could never notice due to quantum nature of matter. We would never be able to see the effect that each electron in an atom produces - only, after some time, the effect of what many, many atoms gave birth to.

So more than being stuck with imperfection, (which, of course, we already knew), it seems inevitable. It appears that if we are constantly looking at ourselves, both physically and mentally, change never happens.

My answer for this apparent dilemma - the ship of theseus or the ship of life - is that in each second Mary looks at herself, she redefines itself in that moment. What we called "Mary" one second before is now updated to "Mary" one second after. Every time a piece of the boat is replaced, we update our concept of "this ship" - even if the change is not noticeable. So the ship is the same in the eyes of a sailor aboard the ship, but not necessarily the same for someone who only got the see the ship leave and then arrive at a later moment.

This is why change is so difficult, or almost impossible, if we are always looking ourselves in the mirror to see our body and personality - it seems that we have not changed at all; that we failed in growing, in evolving, in getting better. On the other extreme, someone who never looks back can never appreciate the beauty of our own perception; can never contemplate how much she sailed through the tides of time.

Every now and then, it's a good thing to look back and dive into the pool of memories of what we were; to look at the night sky and watch the light of a dying star which we know does not exist anymore.

Emotions II: Koi no Yokan

Koi no Yokan - "The sense one can have upon first meeting a person that the two of you are going to fall in love. Differs from "love at first sight" as it does not imply that the feeling of love exists, only the knowledge that a future love is inevitable."

Is this a sentiment? It is clearly different from love. But then again, how would we define love?

As a pure chemical reaction?
As a unique inner, psychological experience?
As a label that we impose after seeing people take certain actions - caring about the well-being of others, hugging, kissing, protecting?

I adopt the last one as the closest to the truth; let me tell you why.

Imagine, for the sake of argument, the first man that ever felt love; he started taking certain actions like caring, protecting and worrying about another human being. Eventually, other people started taking actions similar to those of the first man who felt love; that is how we evolved as a society. With this many people taking certain actions because they felt something inside that compelled them, came the necessity of a word. So love is a word that was created due to the fact that so many people think they experience something similar, precisely because the actions taken on behalf of that feeling are similar. They would never use the same word to describe completely different actions - we do not associate love with murder and torture, for instance. Is the feeling of love exactly the same for all of us? Probably not, given the multiplicity and variety among humans, but, who knows it is similar enough.

However, what happens if no actions are taken on behalf of a feeling, such as Koi no Yokan? Then we get only the individual experience, which we might try to explain to others merely by words. If many people are familiar with the feeling (or think they are), then the necessity comes to use a word - Koi no Yokan. Personally, I have never felt Koi no Yokan. Or did I? If I did, I did not have a word for it, so I did not label it as a feeling. But now I have a word for it, so, in a sense, I am aware of a new feeling which I can freely talk about so that others will understand. This increases my empathy and connection to other people, even if they do not feel exactly what I feel.

This is precisely my point; let me give a final analogy which might help clarify.

Imagine that you are looking at the ocean from above and can see the whole of it. The ocean is one thing, so you use one word for it. However, the ocean does not behave everywhere exactly the same. There are regions of the ocean where waves behave violently - we label such behavior X; there are other regions where storms are very frequent, so we label it Y; there are instances where the sea is generally calm, so we label it Z. What is useful about this process is not that each behavior X is exactly the same at all times in all instances (waves exactly the same size, the same shape, during the same amount of time), but that it help us to communicate efficiently with each other so that we can talk about how the ocean behaves.

I think feelings are exactly like this. They do not exist as unique, universal, exact things; they are aspects of an ocean (an ocean different in each of us) and the real importance is not that they are or not exactly the same, but that by categorizing and labelling these aspects in a unique way we are able to suppose that they are the same, because now they are described uniquely. The use of one word or expression to describe things which we think are similar strenghtens the human bonds, even if they are not the same at all. It might even reinforce the idea that they are the same, when they are not.

In summary, I think that the use of unique words/expressions to describe feelings plays a very important role in social and emotional cohesion, precisely because it is capable of linking aspects of human beings which are not necessarily equal, nonetheless triggering empathy amoung us as if they were equal.

No Shades of Grey

Intelligence is multidimensional - it manifests itself in different ways, colours, sensibilities. It is hard, or some would say impossible, to capture one common characteristic of such a diverse, broad spectrum.

As limited as my experience is, I have found one trait that is generally present in this spectrum called intelligence. That trait is the capability to entertain nuance. That is, I think that intelligent people tend to be able to entertain nuance in their heads; to realize different perspectives of an apparently simple, straightforward issue; to not see everything either black or white. Ironically, the intelligence spectrum is accompanied by the ability to detect spectra, instead of discrete, perspectives on certain issues. They do not generalize too quickly; they do not often adopt binary stances. Per example:

You are either a feminist or a sexist.

This statement might seem reasonable to many people. The definition of feminism is the equal treatment and opportunities for both men and women. So if someone is not a feminist, they are against equality right? Of course not...

Definitions describe usages. 

That is, if I open the dictionary and look for the word feminism, I will find the previous definition I mentioned. But that only describes how people generally use the word. It does not describe the actions taken by the people who adopt the label. As an example, say that I agree with national-socialism. I have read their programme and I know what they purport to do and put in action - nothing includes immoral actions, like killing and torturing. So I declare I am a national-socialist. But after a while, I discover that they take actions that were not included in the programme; they start killing, censorship, segregation. Angry with this, I go talk to the chief and I say What is wrong? This is not national-socialism as originally described!, to which they respond How so?! Just go read our programme! It's all there - that's what we stand for!

There mere fact that definitions exist is irrelevant. The actions and the people that take those actions are what is relevant in reality. Going back to definitions changes nothing - it doesn't magically erase actions. Therefore, I could not care less about definitions; the mere fact that this argument is the most used by feminists to defend themselves each time they are criticized informs me on the weak mentality that some of these people possess. If they had a case, they would talk about actions themselves and not about definitions.

This is a perfect example of people who are incapable of entertaining nuance. In their heads, everything is organized in labels. You label yourself as X? Ok, let me see what my brain says about people with label X (...) Here it is! X people are not Y people and they are evil because they support Z people. Much like the drawers of some obsessively-organized person, they have a label with all the descriptions they need to know about each type of people. They are incapable of accessing individuals individually and thinking deeper on certain issues. In their head it's either hot or cold; feminist or sexist; evil or good.

There are no shades of grey.

The Caustic Ties that Bind Us

As a 24 year-old man, I have been in a total of two love relationships.

One of them was sweet at the beginning and catastrophic at the end. Me and my partner corroded the ties that bound us, much like droplets of acid slowly falling on a metaphoric vein that binds two hearts. In the end, the love that used to travel in the veins leaked out; two damaged human hearts, now severed from each other, were left to heal by themselves.

The other relationship, which I am currently on, is one of my utmost achievements in life, even it isn't meant to last forever. 

Why? What are the differences that make one relationship work while others do not? Well, there are the trivial, boring explanations that everyone knows and can enumerate: people have different personalities, different habits, different backgrounds, different sensibilities and dispositions. You will find the one, many people say. It is, of course, possible to find someone that fits quite well your own lock in this respect; to find a key in a myriad of keys that fits what you think is an exquisite, unique lock; or to find a lock in a myriad of keys, for those who like to think in less egotistical terms. It is not untrue that some people have a stronger glue to their interactions than others.

But locks and keys rust; glue wears out. They oxidize; they degrade. Routine and repetition and distance and time pour acid onto the ties that bind the hearts, onto the metal that is the very scaffold of the relationship. It's not only people's own defects and tastes and personalities that determine the success of insuccess of the relationship; time and experience itself generally tend to corrode human bonds.

The reason as to why I think my current relationship is worth so much is not because my girlfriend is the perfect fit in the lock and key sense I talked about. We have some ideas in common, for sure, but in other respects we are not alike at all and we disagree in several issues. We argue and get mad from time to time. We've had some deep downs which I was not sure we could overcome - we did though. In most respects, we are like every other couple.

The main reason why I value my relationship so much is that each one of us does not depend on the other in any fundamental way. We did not create love between ourselves. We had love and we chose to share it with one another and it grew into a new, ever stronger sentiment. We had confidence and we chose to share it with one another - it grew stronger in each of us. Before our hearts were bound to each other, they were bound to other things as well; to other people, to other desires, other motivations and drives and dreams; but most of all, they were bound to our own personalities through self-awareness and consciousness.

Our own individuality is what made the relationship so good. It is precisely the realization that she can do things without me, that she does not require my approvation or effort, that makes me want to make the effort. She does not require nor wants me to make her a sandwich everyday for her to take to work - but I want to do it. She would be happy to do it herself though. If she needed me more than anything in the world, if I needed her more than anything in the world - it would fall apart. Yet, it is almost paradoxical that this same independence of ours is the fabric that connects us so strongly.

Each time corrosion threatens, each time acid drops, we work against it; we have enough self-love and confidence to do so; we share those with one another. We do not require something from the other that we don't already have; we don't project our own insecurities onto each other; we did not wait for one of us to accept faults in the other. We were never static people; each of us knew that we had faults and that some faults affect both the health of the individual and the lover's. We proceeded to eliminate them, for our betterment. It healed us individuality and, by consequence, it improved the relationship. We also did not and do not care more about our ego than the relationship itself - I'm sorry slides out of the mouth fairly easily, without the strong chains of egoism pushing it down the throat.

This disposition of ours, in my opinion, is exactly what is necessary to counterbalance the eroding waves of time and repetition and boredom. It is not a formula for everlasting love - love does not last forever, because time and death still exist. But, bit by bit, it strives to replace the wasted metal. It maximizes the finite experience. It renews the caustic ties that bind most human relations.