Journalled on Tuesday, 18 July 2023 | Flamengo, Rio de Janeiro: 23 degrees, warm, sunny, and slightly overcast.

Today, I woke up stiff from yesterday’s hour of skipping.

It feels very good to know that you did a lot of exercise and that you and your body are receiving the rewards.

At the moment, Tuesdays and Thursdays are my busiest days. I have classes from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. and the presential in Copacabana with Dona Vera. I am morally in debt to Dona Vera for continuing to pay me throughout the pandemic despite not receiving classes.

She did not want to have online classes but still wanted to pay; I, in return, would go to her flat twice a week to try and repay her kindness.

In some ways, I am losing money because one presential class is equivalent to three online classes in terms of time, but I don’t mind. The same way I gained during the pandemic, I am losing now, but it is all part of life’s balance.

In the same way, we receive or take; we have to give, return or repay.

Why am I mentioning this? Because I am trying to say that I am a good person, and when I die, I will go to heaven. No, of course not. This has nothing to do with it at all. What has to do with it is that we should always try to do the right thing.

I am not referring to being obsessed with a superficial notion of being good, proper, or correct. Instead, I mean striving to do the right thing for yourself and those around you in a genuine, thoughtful manner.

I may not have explained myself adequately, but justice is a scale that can tip to either side. We live in a world where everything is so complex and complicated. Good common sense is often forgotten, ignored, abandoned, or just out of the problem.

I live in Brazil, and something wrong here now has an excuse to be more or less correct.

Men of power in high places do not have one cell of wisdom or compassion running through their bodies but are obsessed with winning, stealing, and deceiving at all costs, forgetting the people who elected them with total contempt.

It is surprising to me that in a country like Brazil, which has significant social and economic problems and high poverty rates, there are still slums, homelessness, and a large, impoverished population.

If Brazil were a wealthy country without these issues, it might be understandable, but it does not make sense to me in this context.

Which is worse? People who are ignorant of the social needs of the people, or people who use the poverty and disgrace of others for their own use and personal benefit. People who already have a perfect financial situation want more and more, and yet cannot quench their thirst for power and wealth.

I am also addressing this because of my father. I had minimal contact with him as a child, and when I was fourteen, he stopped seeing us and disappeared to start a new family and life. The circumstances surrounding his actions have only become clearer over the last couple of years.

However, what I want to say is that, despite the little contact, he always showed me to be a pillar of honesty, balance, wisdom, and good common sense, a man who served in the Second World War.

Being in a war would change anyone. However, he always taught me to be honest and true to what is right.

What I do and how I do it is connected to my father’s influence and his everlasting presence in my thoughts; he is with me all the time, and the bar is high, very high.

It is frustrating when I see powerful, corrupt politicians who only try to pass meaningless laws instead of proposing real, meaningful work to improve people’s lives.

They fight among themselves like spoiled children without a care in the world, and the heavily taxed population ends up paying the price with their hard-earned money, which is ultimately their time and their lives.