The matuto and a with
Matuto has no mobile phone (mobile phone in Brazil, please). And, there is no need for the bichaRoco – a dictator in the puppy. The Matuto is first of all that reads, than a finger you type. In fact, Matuto believes that books will save the world and not technology. But, below!
By the way, the Matuto read in a chronicle of Maria do Rosário Pedreira that Alberto Manguel, the one who once read to Borges and gathered more books than ants in a car, said it was in a romance that felt, for the first time, the pain that was not yours. That the first coup of compassion came with Heartfrom Edmondo de Amicis. That later, among the pages of Jane Eyre, Anna Karénina, Don Quixote or David CopperfieldHe learned to cry the tears of others, as if they were his own. Now, the matuto – who is not a doctor or scientist, has the heart is still whole – he has agreed to agree. And it didn’t take a palace or a pompous library.
Belinha, the conservative visit of the ‘Casa das Pontes’, came with a curious novelty. It seems that certain scholars – of those who look at the world with microscope and graphics – concluded that after all reading fiction is good for the heart. « Not the muscle that hits your chest, but the one that makes us cross the street to help someone with heavy bags, » said the Belinha. « It is a very serious study (the predilection of Belinha for the Superlatives continues) from the New School of Social Research in the United States. » Marcello, the reactionary visit of the ‘bridges’, coughed. Pavlovian reaction to any reference to Trump’s land. « They swear their feet together, » he elaborated, impact, the Belinha – « that those who read novels have more empathy. » Matuto emphasized with the idea.
Belinha continued: « But the news is wrapped in sadness. Literary fiction sales are in free, in Europe and the United States. The shelves are filled with self-help books, miraculous diets and biographies of influencers twenty-two and a dog called » son. « Romance, really, walks the streets of bitterness. » Marcello agreed enthusiast: “Today, people live in the face of the screenshot luminous little altar. Conversations are made at the touch of thumb, with emojis replacing the words, and the feelings to be dispatched on gifs and stickers. The heat of the gaze turned pixel. The pauses were replaced by the“ digiting… ”whatsapp”. The Matuto has appreciated this analysis.
It is true that the Gaiatics know everything: they identify fifty variations of smiling faces. They know how to distinguish between a sincere « haha » and a sarcastic « kkk ». But if they show them a real face – with wrinkles, dark circles, a corner of their mouth shaking between laughter and despair – they have no idea what it is. The other day a Matuto student asked if there was emoji for « loneliness. » As if loneliness fit into a mobile phone design. As if the heart, to be understood, had to come with a caption. The sincere era. It was real. The girl could no longer express what hurt her. I just knew I wanted to look for the corresponding icon.
Belinha has arranged the question by saying that “we are losing the codes of the soul. As who forgets a language” Marcello told the same tuning fork. (rare these two agree) “And perhaps one day you need a simultaneous translator to recognize a friend to cry.“ Are you crying? Or just sleepy? ”Empathy will be a dead dialect.” The suspicious Matuto is right. In the head of the Matuto there are things that are not learned in the YouTube tutorials. Life happens in the dance and contradiction of the stories told softly, the books full of stories and smelling of the story.
The Matuto has seen the future and he is not brilliant: artificial intelligence, augmented reality, VR glasses, zero empathy. All very hygienic, all very digital. We will be able to ignore the suffering of the other much more efficiently – there will be an app for that. A button to “do not bother me with others’ problems”; another to “respond with motivational phrase”; and a premium version that automatically blocks any appeal to solidarity. Compassion? It will become a museum piece. On display at the extinguished Museum of Emotions. The guides will explain to visitors in a didactic tone: “Here we have compassion, used by humans between the 16th and 21st centuries. It was a kind of echo of the heart, a reaction to the suffering of others. Obsolet, of course. It was successfully discontinued.” There will be workshops. Empathy will be taught in workshops of Soft skillswith Coffee-Break Vegan and Recycled Paper Certificate. Learn how to imitate feelings in three steps: simulated visual contact, automatic smile and prefabricated phrases. And when someone falls to the floor, no one will help. No one will bother. An online poll will be opened: “Do you think you deserve help? Vote now!” And then there will be a crowdfunding to pay the treatment – not out of altruism, but because it gives likes. Which is the new currency of “compassion”.
And it was then that the Matuto thought that perhaps the word compassion would be asking to be read slowly, with hyphen and all: compassion. After all, “Passion” comes from Latin passiowhich means suffering – as in the passion of Christ, and his redeeming suffering. Because those who love with a panel carried the pain of the other as who helps to bring a cross. And perhaps that’s what books still do: they teach you to suffer, to feel with, to live with. In times of Easter, the Matuto believes that the only hope-in the world, souls and eyes-is to relearn to live like this: with palace.
The matuto looks and thinks: perhaps one day, when the last novel is erased from the last e-readerand the last old man who knew how to tell stories to die without anyone hearing his voice, someone says, « Poor, it was a sturdy! » With this, the Matuto felt a crazy urge to reread “the old man who reads novels of love” by the late Luíz Sepúlveda. The book as a usual friend was waiting for the Matuto. Matuto opened the book with the care of those who unfold an old letter. Sepúlveda’s words came to him like whoever returns home-no hurry, no noise, as if they knew the way.
