Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro: 26 °C, hot and sunny.
Just a note from yesterday: I do not think my ex-wife and my daughter really appreciate living in the south zone of Rio, or the sacrifices needed to maintain them there.
If you ask them, yes, they will be appreciative, and they know what goes into it.
Yes, living in a poor area of Rio can make a person happy, but the social and cultural penalties are hefty. Even the most basic of things, such as not throwing litter in the street, is rampant in all of Rio, especially the peripheries and the favelas.
Why are places dirtier in poorer areas than in wealthier areas? Is it all to do with education? Does education define us and the society we live in?
I have had the opportunity to teach people who are much wealthier or more academically accomplished than I am. Because of this, I have always been open to learning from them, as they are learning from me if I am intelligent enough, open-minded, and humble enough to learn from them.
I also think that the human being has an enormous capacity to adapt. A person can be of low origin and then suddenly become rich and adjust to this new situation, and vice versa: someone who was once wealthy can then become poor and eventually adapt to that new reality.
Another problem is that if we enter a clean, organised environment, people will act and work to keep it that way.
Again, on the contrary, if we enter a dirty and disorganised environment, we will not care about changing or improving that ambience; we will accept it for what it is. Therefore, it would be challenging to change and improve.
So, if an environment is hostile, it is difficult for a person to go against the nature of that ambience; it is easier to continue in the same way than to change it. And for me, this is a classic representation of Brazil: it is difficult, if not impossible, to change a country with so many negative things against it.
How do you change and try to improve Rio de Janeiro, with more than half its population in slums and eighty per cent of the entire population of Rio living under militia and organised crime?
I don’t like putting Brazil down, but this stronghold, this mould, must be broken and thrown away. It keeps the country in cancerogenic poverty and a stalemate that prevents Brazil from reaching its full potential.
I could have been a man who did not want to pay child support. Unfortunately, many individuals have this attitude, regardless of their wealth or social status. I know of millionaires who separated or divorced from the mothers of their children but refused to pay child support. It is not a question of social or economic level but rather a matter of character, of doing the right thing.
And do my daughter and ex-wife understand that? I do not think so.
Monday was a typical day. It was the first day of the working week, and I intended to proceed with building my sites. I was distracted by Yasmin’s birthday, but now I am steaming ahead.
In bed by 10 pm.
Thank you.
Thanks for reading my blog. Check out my other posts and share your thoughts in the comments.
Richard
