We get used, but we shouldn't...

Have you ever 'stuck' a queue? Or have asked to someone to save a room in an event? Have you ever 'cut' one or more traffic lanes to make a conversion? Or arrived late in a bank and tried to talk the porter into a “please, let me in?”

This underlines one of the most striking features of the human being: individualism. "My need is more important than others, so I have to cut right through a left turn in traffic, and the others must understand". "My reasons for delay are real and fair, more than the others."

We all feed corruption with small gestures, with our actions, with our bad example; we always forget that we live in a society.
Why so many people throw garbage on the floor? Is it due to poor education? Do we throw garbage in the living room of our house? Do we throw garbage in our own bed? I don’t think so! And why we do it on the ground, in parks, in seas, at the beach?
Why not devote some care and love to nature? Why waist water or energy?
Why do we vote in politicians if we know about their dirty actions in the past? Corruption is not only the politics nor the politicians; we make part of it, perhaps more than they do.
What is the difference between stealing a million of dollars from public saves and steal a penny from a friend? What is the difference between defrauding your nation and defrauding your employer?

Picture this: You go to work and see that box of staples just lying on the table, than you remember that your son asked you to buy some staples for his school work. At once the box disappears from the table and appears in your child's backpack. That could not be considered a robbery?
How can we wish a society free from corruption if in our actions of day to day we practice them at all times. Corruption is more comprehensive than the acts of politicians. It's a choice we make all the time, in small gestures such as offering a sweet in return of a favor... It is the feeling that arises in the heart that causes our actions. If there is corruption in the society it must have been born first in each one of us. And it's not easy to escape the web of corruption, because once we refuse to participate in certain procedures, a revolt is formed around us as if we were meant to fit into the relative truth of each person.
Thus, our conduct should be honest at all times, in every way, even if it means personal loss.

Here I open a parenthesis to reproduce a text from Colassanti Marina who says:

I know we get used to. But we should not ...
We get used to living in apartments in funds that have no other view than the windows around. And because it doesn’t have another view, we get used to not look out anymore. And because we do not look outside, we get used to not open all the curtains. And because we do not open the curtains, we get used to turn on the light sooner. And as we get into it, we forget the sun, we forget the air and we forget the vastness.


We get used to waking up in the morning, startling because it's time; to take coffee quickly because it is running late; reading the newspaper on the bus because we can not miss the travel time; to have sandwiches for lunch because we do not have time to cook; to leave our work because it's night; to take a nap on the bus because we are tired; to go to the bed early and have heavy sleep without having lived the day.


We get used to open the newspaper and read about the war. And accepting the war we accept the deaths and accepting death we accept that there are numbers for the dead; in accepting the numbers we agree in not believing in peace negotiations and by not accepting the peace negotiations we accept reading every day, of war, of the numbers of dead, of long duration of wars.


We get used to wait all day for a phone call and at the end the calling says:”I can not go today”

We get used to smile at people without getting a smile back; to be ignored when both needed to be seen.
We get used to walking on the street and see posters; opening the magazine and see ads, turn on the television and watch commercials; going to the cinema watching advertising and we swallow them all. We get used to be instigated, led, bewildered, and released on an endless waterfall of products.


We get used to pay for everything we want and need; and we fight for winning the money to pay for that; and to earn less than we need; and lining up in a long queue to pay; and to pay more than things are worth; and know that increasingly we pay more and more; and go for more work to earn more money with which to pay on the queues.


We get used to pollution; in artificial light that slightly twinkle; to the shocking that the eyes get in natural light; to the Bacteria from drinking water, to the contamination of sea water, to the slow death of the rivers. We get used to not hear birds, to not to have roosters at dawn, to the fear of water from dogs, not to reap fruit from the tree, not even having a plant.


We get used to so many things in order not to suffer. In small doses, trying not to notice goes away a pain here, resentment there, and a riot over there. If cinema is full, we sit in the front row and twist a little the neck. If the beach is polluted, we just wet our feet and sweat the rest of the body; If the work is hard, we go for console over the weekend; and if the weekend is empty too we go to bed early and still get satisfied because there's always sleep to catch up.


We get used in order to preserve the skin not to suffer in roughness ; once we get used to avoid wounds, bleeding, dodging  the knife and bayonet to protect the heart. We get used to everything in order to save our lives which gradually wear out, and because we get used to life, it loses itself.

wisdom means not to get attached to material things

During a life time there are so many things to be done. So many duties must be accomplished. That slowly we forget that we must care for our souls. The most important thing to remember is that, in life, everything passes but our souls are eternal.

If we just could keep our souls safe from our materialistic needs… How a million of dollars can fulfill a dream? If the dream is the capability of humans to imagine; when we get that million we will need another million to accomplish the next dream; because dreams comes from heart and soul not from flesh.

One can dream being the richest person in the world and dream help thousands with this amount, but what will make him happy will be the feeling of making a dream coming true and not the amount of money spent. It is possible to help thousands without spending a cent. It is possible to feel happiness of giving when we think we have nothing to offer, but ourselves. At this moment we are devoting what no material stuffs could offer. As sacred we are everything that come from us is sacred and will make everything else sacred as well. Our body is like a temple where the holy is kept. Our thoughts are like the window from where it reaches the others and our words are the doors from where it changes the outside.

We speak from what is in our hearts. So let’s pay attention to what we say. Let’s pay attention to where our hearts are. Are they on things that will pass one day? Are they on sorrows? Are they on punishments from dead feelings or actions long ago lived?

Let’s fill our hearts with love. Love for humanity, love for our families, love for our friends. Let’s be that hand that helps, the ears that listen and the look that understands.

Let’s turn dark into light, negativity into harmony, shadows into bright. Where your heart is, there is your soul. Save it! Let’s bring peace to our lives by feeling the nature around us, by listening to the bird’s songs and the wind blows. Check the flow of the rivers never stopping…going and going and going to the sea!

Let’s not trap our souls into the cage of materialistic. What’s the difference between being close and being inside? Two bodies can be at same place at same time when their souls are connected and this experience is definitely out of this world! And also two bodies can be closed but never inside if their souls are not connected, generating an emptiness within the hearts that for its turn generates a searching for materialistic stuffs that will never fulfill our souls. Let’s break this cycle! Connect yourself with your soul and then connect your soul to the others. They will feed from it, from this strength and they will become stronger.

Where your treasure is, there is your heart and where your heart is, there is your soul.

Far beyond the words...

"If we were asked to teach to the sands and to the ices how spring is, would it be possible?

A great poetess started one of her poems just like this. Ice and sand do not know about spring ... So would we be able to teach solidarity to those who know nothing about it? The world would be better.But how to teach it? Is it possible to teach the beauty of a Mozart sonata to a deaf? How? - If he does not listen. And can we teach the beauty of Vincent Van Gogh's paintings to a blind?

Will pedagogy avail us to communicate colors and shapes to those who do not see?

There are things that can not be taught in words. There are things that are beyond words. Scientists, philosophers and teachers are those who dedicate themselves to teach the things that can be taught. About the solidarity many things can be said.

It is possible to develop a psychology of solidarity. It is possible to develop a sociology of solidarity. And, philosophically, an ethics of solidarity ... But the scientific knowledge and the philosophical solidarity can not teach the feeling of solidarity, just as critics of music and painting does not teach people the beauty of music and painting. The beauty is ineffable, beyond words.Words that teach are ​​bird cages. Knowledge, all of them are caged birds. But solidarity is a bird that can not be caged. It can not be said. Solidarity belongs to a class of birds that exist only in flight. Caged these birds die.Beauty is one of those birds. The beauty is beyond words. Walt Whitman knew this when he said: "Sermons and logic never convincing. The weight of the silent night go deeper into my soul ... He knew the limits of his own words. And another poet knows that the words he wants to communicate do not lay in the words he says, it appears in the empty spaces that open between them, the words. In this empty space we can hear a song. But this song - from where it comes, hadn't the poet played it?

We can not make a test of the beauty at school because it is not knowledge. Nor is it possible to control the emotion facing beauty. Only actions can be controlled. Ordinary! March! ", The sergeant ordered. The recruits follow. March. In order to follow the act. But feelings can not be commanded. I can not order someone to feel the beauty of what I feel.What can be taught are things that live in the outside world: astronomy, physics, chemistry, grammar, anatomy, numbers, letters, words. But there are things that are not on the outside.Things that live inside the body. Buried in the flesh, like seeds awaiting ...

Imagine this: the body as a big patch! In it are, asleep in a state of latency, the most diverse seeds. They may agree to sprout. But it may also not grow. It all will depend ... Seeds do not sprout if up on them there is a stone. And it can happen that, after budding, they are torn ... In fact, many plants need to be uprooted before they grow. In the gardens there are plagues .One of these seeds has the name "solidarity". Solidarity is not an entity of the outside world, alongside stars, stones, goods, money, contracts. If it were an entity of the outside world it could be taught. Solidarity is an entity of the inner world. Solidarity is not taught, nor is ordered, nor occurs. Solidarity, is a seed that has been born. Check ipe tree flowers: They were born from a seed; after growing up they will require no technique, no stimulation, no trick for them to flourish. Angelus Silesius, an ancient mystic, has a verse that says: "A rose has no whys. It flourishes because it flourishes. "The ipe flourishes because it flourishes. Its bloom is a natural overflow of its simple truth. Solidarity is like the ipe tree it is born and flourishes. But not because of religious or ethical commandments. You can not sort: "Be united!" It happens as a simple overflow. Just as the poem is an overflow of the poet's soul and the song is the overflow of the composer's soul. .it's said that solidarity is a feeling. That it is the feeling that makes us human. It's a strange feeling - it disrupts our own feelings. Solidarity makes me feel feelings that are not mine, they are from another. It happens like this: I see a kid selling candy at a traffic light. He asks me to buy a packet of his bullets. the child and me - two separate and distinct bodies. But by looking at him, I shudder, something in me makes me wonder what he is feeling. And then, for an inexplicable magic, this feeling creeps pictured next to my own feelings. In fact, dislodges my feelings because I was coming in my car, feeling light and happy, and now this new feeling arises in place of those. What I feel are not my feelings. Gone is the lightness and joy that made me sing. Now, are the feelings of that boy who's into me. My body undergoes a transformation: it is no longer limited by the skin covering it. Expands. He is now connected to another body which is now part of himself. This does not happen even for rational decision, not by religious conviction and not by an ethical commandment. It is the natural way of being my own body, moved by solidarity. I think this is the meaning of the saying of Jesus that we must love our neighbor as we love ourselves. By the magic of the feeling of solidarity my body becomes address of another. It so happens goodness. But it is pending the original question: how to teach the spring to ice and sand?

For this, the words of knowledge are useless. It would be necessary to give birth to Ipe trees in the middle of the ice and sands. And I only know one word that has that power: the word of a poet. Teaching solidarity? Let's make be heard the words of poets in churches, in schools, in businesses, in houses, on television, in bars, in political meetings, and especially in lonelyness ...

There was a boy who looked at me with pleading eyes. And suddenly, I was the boy who was looking with pleading eyes ...

based on post of Rubem Alves.