Três épocas

 

Há três épocas na memória,

E ontem mesmo, me parece, uma delas

Ocorreu.*

* Minha tradução de:

There are three epochs in the memory,

And only yesterday, it seems, the first

Ocorred. – translation by D.M. Thomas 

(Anna Akhmatova Selected Poems – Vintage Books, 2009 - "The Sixth", 78) 

Amor a todas elas

Dos jardins que poderia fazer crescer, se esquece às vezes.

Ressuscitada do avesso. Avariada. Não se podia consumir sempre.

E pausa para fazer nada. A mulher.

A dieta dos deuses é sustentá-las e desvirtuando o espaço.

Medidas de uma erosão.

O espírito de um fóton sem tempo -- volva tempo. Volta, amor.

Seus dedos esticam junto com a luz

depois que já passou.

A dedicatória de todo um mito esquecido

a elas. Fica, por favor. Em uma foto.

de K. Alves G.

O valor da voz

Cuida do

T Tempo

A velha abre a boca --

Calem-se todos: É

Um sopro sem ouro. Dura pesada

Para o sempre.

Um entre-mundos.

de Karinna Alves Gulias

On the judgement of loopholes

There has been a time when we spent our free time in our bedrooms together with our journals, writing and thinking about the meaning of life in quiet, comfortable boredom. When we experienced our subjectivity to great extent, explored in its highest form either from reading poetry and its ambiguities or from not understanding something.

Loopholes. Let’s read this word without its pejorative meaning. Rethink it. What does it mean? A hole though which we may see light coming in and that permits eyes to observe. An ambiguity or omission that allows for escaping something. Could it be the unquestionable objectivity we are escaping from? Our rational thoughts? Or reality as we know?

Loopholes. What can someone NOT say and consequently make us feel it is about us, always? The silence of subjectivity. Always present. Loopholes.

Before the advent of internet, when we met ourselves alone, quietly, with a book, we found those moments of subjectivity in the silence of poetic metaphors. Who has ever read a poem and found not themselves there? Always in the silence of the loopholes. I will find I there, in the cracks of the text. From that moment onwards, even though with sane skepticism, I will believe the author knows me better than my mother. Or do I know myself better than my mother?

In the age of online social network, however, the loopholes are in everyday written social interactions. It is very hard, although a superficial window of interaction. What an acquaintance says indirectly on his or her wall, may they know or not, will affect absolutely everyone that reads it. Every single day, when we log in to the written reality of social life and see a  judgemental message thrown onto their wall to no one and, at the same time, to everyone, how many will suffer by finding in it their superficial I being judged? How can I not find myself in it? It is a loophole! It is like asking humans to go against their nature, by avoiding finding their subjectivity while dealing with the unknown.

But what kind of silence do you think we humans should be focusing our selves to reading or listening to? Superficial judgements sent out into the air by acquaintances or deeply thought metaphors from a poem or poetic prose?

We hardly talk to each other anymore, as in debating and exchanging ideas. We now throw superficial ideas, (judgements, stereotypes or citations) and react. Still, our generation and the ones before and after are not equipped to deal with a written reality. And if we can't deal with the ambiguities of written text, without suffering with our subjectivity, how can we deal even further with the ambiguity of reality itself? Now that we can have AI generated videos that easily pass for recordings of facts and phenomena. 

I think this is time for us to rethink our educational system and the way we interact with each other and reality. Interpretation has been and will always be key to human development and personal happiness. And so our understanding of how the silence of words affects our subjectivity and the way it helps us construct our identities.
 
 
by Karinna Alves Gulias
 

The colonizer mindset - The Eurocentric (and North-American centric) view of everything.

I am a woman who was born in Brazil, an extremely social and friendly country, I possess a white skin complexion, even though I'm incredibly mixed, (to my personal pride,) as all of us Brazilians are, which is something that anyone can see just by walking in the streets of Rio de Janeiro, for example. However, only in the decades I have been living as an emigrant/immigrant have I really come to grasp the reality that I lived and live as part of a somewhat privileged group. I say somewhat because I am not living in my motherland anymore, and even though I have skin on the lighter range, I too experience the oppressing airs of the active xenophobia and colonial mentality in Europe. 

 I believe that the biggest mistake of a person, be that a common or clearly erudite one, who comes from a privileged group or powerful "first world" country is to think that racism or xenophobia are ideals that come from an individual perspective. I will give examples of this way of thinking: 

 - I don't think I'm racist. (Therefore, racism is not a thing). 

 - I have black friends. (Therefore, I don't practice racism). 

 Or even more individualist ways of portraying racism: 

 - Racists are evil. (And because I'm not evil, I cannot be racist). 

The biggest problem about conceiving "racism" in the third way mentioned above is that it makes people believe that being racist is an act that does not come from society in general, but from individuals who actively choose to do bad things towards others. When, in reality, racism, sexism, or xenophobia are culturally, socially, and historically built in the foundations and structures of society, especially the oppressor's society.

Everybody practices racism, both the ones who do not belong to the lesser group and the ones who do. Simply because it is a cultural reality, not an individual choice. I am sure most people nowadays do not want to belong to either group: the oppressor or the oppressed. Both groups dehumanize us, but they are a thing and it is here in our daily rituals, without us realizing.

It is hard to hear this, but any interest a person who belongs to the privileged group may have in treating the minority, which means the historically oppressed, groups with kindness or equality, without opening themselves up to accept our play in this non-equal, non-meritocratic reality, will be but superficial generosity. A vertical charity either to fulfill a personal emptiness or an individual conflictive self-image. 

If you want to be seen as good but do not want to venture into losing your romantic ideals of Patria or your properties to include others, who have been dehumanized and violated for centuries, if not millennia, then it means you chose to live a false reality: a capitalist, individualist fairy tale of a supposedly meritocratic reality, built by the oppressors to pretend they live fairly in a fair world.

Karinna A. Gulias