Cultura e Conhecimento: Livros

PAULUZ
BODMER

DESERT
OF
IDEAS

Social
Meditations

2001

ÍNDICE

1. The Fountains
2. Anguish
3. Tomorrow
4. Flood
5. The Progress
6. Hurry
7. Dismissal
8. Social Mobility
9. Crumbs
10. Plantation
11. Isolation
12. Hugs
13. Race
14. Valorization
15. Rear
16. Captivity
17. Ascension
18. Study
19. Labour

20. Authority
21. Over-population
22. Begging
23. Fun
24. Fate
25. Fatuous
26. Robotics
27. Stab
28. Disillusionment
29. Apprehension
30. Guinea Pig
31. Judgment
32. Castaway
33. Running
34. Seasons
35. Pursuit
36. Voiceless
37. Paradise
38. Illusory

39. Power
40. Christmas
41. Escalation
42. Fallaciousness
43. Harvest
44. Quotation
45. Illumination
46. Spring
47. Existence
48. Disappointment
49. Fancies
50. Aspiration
51. Astronomy
52. Medium Class
53. Destiny
54. Vanitas Vanitatem
55. Utopians
56. Blossoming
57. Fraudulent

58. Burning
59. Salaries
60. Slippery
61. New Year
62. Stroll
63.Slaughter
64. Duration
65. Self Defense
66. Mutation
67. Investment
68. Fears
69. Country of the Magicians
70. Comparison
71. Carousel
72. Postponing
73. Regimen
74. Horse Race
75. Appraisal
76. Capitalism

1. THE FOUNTAINS As theu were crossing the bid desert, they stopped at the oasis and drank of their fountains. But the desert consisted of ideas, and the fountains they found were the ones of envy, of money and of vanities. They drank of this water and got intoxicated. In the oasis of life, each day more more deserts are found and empty souls.	2. ANGUISH They asked the echo if life had a meaning and it then replied: there is no meaning, there is no meaning, there is no meaning ... One only searches the meaning of life those who are with their senses disturbed ...
3. TOMORROW Modernity. Globalization. Neoliberalism and so forth. All means the same. Blá, blá, blá, Blá, blá, blá Blá, blá, blá Who believes in those things will get even.	4. FLOOD There is no Noah’s Ark for the slummed who are drawn by the floods together with their windows and their dreams. The strong rain, when it comes through, leaves a taste of wet land of blood in the dawn dust ...

5. THE PROGRESS They bought a machine and fired 150 employees. Afterwards they bought another one, more modern, and fired 500. And the progress is it, it does only thinks of profit. You overreached yourself ...	6. HURRY Time passes and leaves us behind. Although there are people running against the time. Who knows a little of life knows that it is better to be let go by time as if you were in an enchanted coach. Running against time, here is what I call the fool’s marathon.
7. DISMISSAL Nobody shoots life saver buoys for those who are shipwrecked in this society! Unemployment is an island. You remain alone and abandoned in the middle of an ocean of wild waves.	8. SOCIAL MOBILITY The social pyramid keeps on splaying. Yesterday, the dream of the poors were to become rich and some even reached their goal. Nowadays, the poors keep on dreaming even knowing that the poor does not become a rich person anymore. Today, the social pyramid even looks like a straight line.

9. CRUMBS The die is cast: for the majority of people there is almost nothing left. The marathon of capitalism is always the same: a gang of fools running towards money without reaching it.	10. PLANTATION He hid several golden coins under the ground and got surprised that after 30 days not a single flower had grown. In the civilization of money we see a lot of idiots that have more coins in their brains than encephalic mass.
11. ISOLATION Many are constructors of the emptiness: they build walls and barriers not to let love get inside. Though, as time goes by they discover that in the human loneliness no flowers grow, except coloured thorns.	12. HUGS The big Capitalist Civilization open its arms: Billions of ravenous and maladjusted and no hope at dawn...

13. RACE The Fifth Cavalier of the Apocalypse is the profit which handles with invisible hands the foolish human marionettes that live searching towards it. In this marathon of greed and ambition many fall on the race track when then they are humiliated and kicked by those who come after them.	14. VALORIZATION People are deceived as they think they are worthy. In the society of classes the market tells your value which converts everyone into merchandise.
15. REAR The human being, who looks favorably, thinking that he is seeing a lot of things, actually, he sees almost nothing. Things happen without your acknowledgment .	16. CAPTIVITY In the world of business, the businessmen’s tie looks like a collar for dogs. We scream for freedom because we live in an immense prison: we do not even know on which side of the jail we are.

17. ASCENSION We are a battle field to arrive at any better place in this society. We are on a war footing: to climb in this world only humiliating the remainders.	18. STUDY The gardens are surrounded. Iron jails and furious dogs look after them. Those are the gardens of knowledge where each flower is a theory cultivated by the elites. One must break the fence and extract from there some seeds to plant in life and create new theories. Without knowledge, you are an empty soul.
19. LABOUR The hands, who plant, are the same who pick for the owners of the plantation. Hands full of land and of blood, your spring is of spines...	20. AUTHORITY Have you noticed that power always speaks on behalf of the population? Thus, the people is voiceless, is always silenced. Power is not eternal, but it is enough to guarantee the rest of the existence with a comfortable. “The people gets overreached themselves”

21. OVER-POPULATION They speak about economic growing although we see the growth of misery and of waste. Everywhere, the excluded that come closer to beg for alms are increasing. Little by little, the alms get smaller. And the rich, which are few, waste enormously diminishing the chances of survival of the impoverished human being.	22. BEGGING It was the sound of a saxophone which came from a distant place blown by the wind. I came closer till I saw a musician playing in the corner of the block. His hat was on the ground and denunciated the drama: each one asks for alms the way they know.
23. FUN Galloping without a destiny, many are escaping restlessly. They do not know their destiny, though riding on winged dreams, the majority of them tries to escape from reality. The world in which they live is an amusement park where one needs to pay to have fun. Who is broken can not even get in this park.	24. FATE They have not learned with King Midas’ history, the one that whatever he touched turned into gold. There are people that believe that money is more important than life. They think they can suborn life with money.

25. FATUOUS The castle of lie and of ambition, which is up in the hills, for everybody shining with its coloured lamps is sponsored by the deceiving advertising. Many get illuded with the neon shines.	26. ROBOTICS The alarm clock rings and some people still wake up saying they will go to work. The majority of those people who wake up will go to work for other people They scarcely get to know that they have become robots and already are not able to think.
27. STAB If you are one of those people who believes that the words mean something, then, watch out, because, depending on the way they are expressed thw words injury more than the edge of the daggers.	28. DISILLUSIONMENT For the middle class the promised land has many promises and few lands. In the country of “whenever you plant you harvest”, the majority of people does not have a land to plant. They wake up without knowing if they are going to have lunch.

29. APPREHENSION

The human being
is an island surrounded
through all sides,
of laws and words.
As if it was not enough
they want to restrict
our frugal thoughts.
It happens that,
in the society of hypocrisy,
the concepts appear distorted;
For instance,
between the lie and the truth,
which one is the most interesting?

30. GUINEA PIG

In the name of science
millions of animals were killed
as guinea pigs.
Now,
in the name of the profit
men are testing
the limit of half of the population
starving to death.

31. JUDGMENT

Where is
Brazilian justice,
where is it?
In a 50 million
people’s country
of miserables
there is more hunger
than justice ...
In the world of poverty
and miserables,
the war has not gone through.
Whether it is day or night,
they pour it on
for a piece of bread.
In the world of rich,
while the riches get multiplied
the laws guarantee the enrichment.
Let alone laws, less justice ...

32. CASTAWAY

This society
is an ocean of problems
where the majority
fights to
remain dry.
They live the present monent,
thinking about the future,
when suddenly they find out,
that for the majority of the people
the future will only bring
more problems.

33. RUNNING I am Downtown and am doubtful of what I am seeing: people in great profusion running like a mass of people milling about. Whle the ants know their way, the majority of people is here only surviving. It is the marathon of exploration. To live is another thing.	34. SEASONS On the season of life the flowers wilt in people’s heart. The autumn fruits are not for everybody. We are still maturing. The autumn of life only arrives for a few people.
35. PURSUIT In the gimming society, each day that passes it becomes harder to find human steps on the ways. The spoor, that we find, are from wild animals ready to attack. Every body wants to extort money from you, getting on the bandwagon.	36. VOICELESS In the society of ambition there are a lot of circus and little bread. After asking for alms, misery became voiceless. That is why noone listens anymore to their cries of pain.

37. PARADISE

Paradise is here,
but only for some people.
The majority knows only hell
and the sadness of the soul.
In the “land of the palm trees
where the thrush Sabiá sings”
remains the paradise of lie
where truth does not get inside.

38. ILLUSORY

The ones who work for money
are deceived.

Speaking spiritually,
the more they work,
the poorer they get.

Poverty of spirit
is when you start to find
that to win money
and have no time to do anything
is considered as wisdom.

39. POWER

The governments are such like that,
they always speak on behalf of the population
who consists of you, myself and other millions of people,
who does not allow anyone
to speak on their behalf,
but do not let us participate in a single decision.
Government always speak on behalf of people but when it comes the time to make up their minds,
they end up against the population,
as they do not commit themselves with
the population.

40. CHRISTMAS

Gimme is the key word
of the wild capitalism;
here the fools gimme
and the smart make profit with it.

The time when Santa Claus
let the toys on the windows.
is over.

Nowadays they are the malls,
screaming uninterruptedly:
gits onfor those
who can afford it.

41. ESCALATION In the society of classes to succeed one must get inside one’s self. While the medium class dreams awaken the oligarchy sleeps quietly. In the society of classes, the medium class walks on the wire, which remains stretched, awaiting your steps...	42. FALLACIOUSNESS The progress that they speak about is more connected to the technology, rather than to the employment, which only exists in the governamental advertising. And technology is this, you can watch two channels at the same time on the TV. Progress without jobs is double cheating.
43. HARVEST In the autumn of life we give bitter fruits, which fall off and rot at the edge of the road. Life is a great illusion, which plays a trick on everybody: on the fools think they are stepping on steady grounds.	44. QUOTATION Here one can find two kinds of cattle in this society: a fat ox, which lives in the fields eating grass and quoted in a strong currency, and the human ox, who lives in the cities, thin and hungry and worthless.

45. ILLUMINATION I knew a lot of people who shone on several occasions. I can even say that one could see their shine. But when the time of hard times arrived the shine faded. Thus we discovered that they were neither stars nor simple lightning bugs, they only shone imitating someone, as they did not have a light of their own.	46. SPRING The more men try to explain the world, the more the world laugh of mankind. We open the window and get astonished unable to do anything, we see the time going by. But little by little we get out of the fantasy and step onto reality, which always has a door waiting for us with a crown of flowers.
47. EXISTENCE There comes the night and the stars Watch our steps. We are only questions and no answer. What is the meaning of life? As time goes by we become aware that all signs of the roads are false.	48. DISAPPOINTMENT After spending their whole life working for others, waking UP with an alarm clock And getting to sleep with a tranquilizer, Thus having their life turned into Solitude and tedium, the medium class founds out that to live is not a gimme dream but a coloured nightmare.

49. FANCIES

One is cheated thinking that
this society
will lead him somewhere!

All that is done has only one purpose:
feed the capital
and make you starve to death.

50. AMBITION

Each day is a false
slaughterhouse!
We get inside it
without becoming aware
that each moment we get extorted.
Still there are people
who think they are superior to others.
Oh, flame of vanity,
your silver smoke
is dissipated in the wind of illusion.

51. ASTRONOMY

Now they look at the stars
with potent telescopes
and the stars are more distant
than ever.

We cannot understand
the message
of the lights that shine in the space.

Abandoned in the universe,
our world began to appear slandered
of meaningless words.

52. MEDIUM CLASS

Straw bugaboo,
with streched arms,
motionless,
hopeful,
we are also like this
the great herd of cattle,
waiting for the dawn.

53. FUTURE I hear people speak about the future and I realize that they know nothing about time. How long? – Nobody knows. We exist though we do not mean anything.	54. VANITAS VANITATEM Those who spend their whole lives full of vanity, do everything, to be admired by their couples. However one day, unexpectedly they learn that every cocky is a puppet marionette self manipulated.
55. UTOPISTS We are nothing more than that: animals which dream, and one day wake up to reality. Our wings of illusion, blown by the winds, are taken by the waves and thrown at the cliffs. A soft melody follows this movement.	56. BLOSSOMING The flowers bouquet hides more than what it says. Fflower makes men chase women they have several names and several colours. The smell of these flowers is the one that makes the difference: roses parfum, of orchids and of hidden money...

57. FRAUDULENT In the sea of life, do not get misunderstood with the music of the waves and the song of the mermaids. For the experienced man, this song is a trap. But the fools keep on joining the party.	58. BURNING All truths are kept by dragons which spits fire through their noses. That is why people are afraid of coming too close to the truths.
59. SALÁRIES Throughout the world the wages are squelched. Here in this little land people fight for the minimum wage which must be slightly higher or slightly lower. Homeric discussions regarding this issue, on one side the human misery and on the other side the poverty of spirit! People say that this miserable wage increases the economy’s costs...	60. SLIPPERY Blown by the wind, she dances and twirls... Blown by the wind she flies on the wings of fantasy. As a result of it life goes by as a coloured soap bubble ...

61. NEW YEAR The New Year spectacle lasts only one night one night is nothing. likewise a year that is over in a blink of the eyes. But when one opens his eyes will see that the bills arrive uninterruptdely One after the other, the bills now come increased in value. The New Year come, new debts , here is the drama of the medium class.	62. STROLL Truth is around many places. Lie is direct and reaches its goal. However people like to wander about places where truth is.
63. SLAUGHTER It was an odd butchery, instead of meat, human souls were sold. In the Christian civilization of the profit the human soul is cheaper than the ox meat.	64. DURATION We are part of the night, not as stars blinking, but as simple glow worms taken by the winds. The light inside ourselves hardly illuminates our way. Life is too short. We only live a few minutes but it cheat on us telling us that we live for years.

65. SELF DEFENSE If you sing a peaceful song get ready, as the song of the streets is of war. If you are one of those that spread “Love one another” watch out, because on the streets the order now is: “Get armed”.	66. MUTATION Metamorphosis means not only the one of the bollworm which turns into a butterfly, but of men who depending on the circumstances becomes an animal, fox, small scorpion, wild dog and so forth.
67. INVESTMENT In this life only the fools struggle with their jobs to save money on their banking accounts. They have not learned that dying full of money in a bank account is the most stupid thing. Money at the bank is poverty of spirit and the road of the fools.	68. FEARS The Medium Class is afraid; the checks have no funds and the dreams are more far away. The population fears not the night with stars but the dawn of debts.

69. COUNTRY OF THE MAGICIANS At the theatre stage, the magician does everything to show the rabbit getting out of the top hat. In the stage of life, the government does everything to hide its acts.	70. COMPARISON Compared with other animals the human being is a monster. While animals kills to become satisfied men kill for the sake of money and even for the same of some coins. Men kill other animals as well as other human beings. And some people at that say we are rational.
71. CAROUSEL People say that opportunity makes thief. As this is a surrealist country they try to finish with the opportunity leaving the thiefs behind. Except that, unexpectedly a new opportunity arrives and the thieves attack again.	72. POSTPONING Here the mills of God grind slowly. But you must be lucky to live a long life and attain something. Here the mills of God grind so slowly that when it arrives it is too late .

73. REGIMEN In the surrealism country they say that economy is developing and millions of jobs have been created. Though, everybody knows that the Brazilian economy generates social exclusion. In the country where everything grows, mainly misery grows in a deranged rhythm.	74. HORSE RACE Lie is the plant that grows anywhere. Truth is difficult to plant. In the society in which we live, truth comes quickly but lie is the Cavalier.
75. APPRAISAL They say and repeat in English that “time is money” and a pack of fools, who dream awaken with silver rains, believes on that. Time is only money for the large global machine which manufactures profit. For us, time is life, And this is all we have; selling, for those who sell their time life is worthless.	76. CAPITALISM Here your dream is free but you will, pay a high price. If you want to make your dream become true.

[Deserto de Idéias]