Amor, ordem e progresso

A couple of days ago it was summer and I was in love with everything that caught my eye. I thought it was impossible to be awestruck as an adult but I was proven wrong. The magnificent nature breaths unimaginable exotic fruits and aromatic coffees with its tropical ecological diversity. This richness has invited immigrants from every corner of the world creating the most hospitable and generous men and the most beautiful and diversified of women that dance nonstop to any tune hinting to samba music from an audible distance. My good friend Deivison and I had witnessed and framed (see ALAgrApHY for daily pics) fabulous sunsets and beautiful people between Ipanema (with Marjory Lulu Julia ...) Copa Cabana Itacoatiara Saquarema São Pedro da Aldeia Arraial do Cabo Cabo Frio and finally in Búzios where we met Alfredo's family in a paradise that is in a paradise... There is much more and many more people to thank for making this trip memorable but much is owed to traveling with an open mind and a huge heart that Deivison and I had from the very beginning -- perhaps Portuguese is a must. We have found bliss even in the poorest of neighborhoods, in the most chaotic of places Lapa where some carnival rehearsals took place, in a scientific conversation and a future collaboration in data mining on the ipanema beach, in the sinful yet indulging self-service buffets....I am home sick where home is Brazil. I am a Carioca citizen of the world where Carioca is a state of mind.

Agora fico com muita saudade do que vi e do que nem tive tempo para descobrir, e para matar esta saudade, gente, se ter uma festinha de samba, uma capirinha com o 51, um acai o um suco da manga com laranja o maracuja, gente em paris, por favor, tou cheio de saudade! 

 — in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Le NeoSpleen de Paris

I have yet to meet a person who has not suffered a major/minor depression after having lived two years in Paris! Paris, the city of love, promises to many way more than it can offer sometimes creating in individuals a delusional acute state known as the  Paris Syndrome. Japanese tourists, dreamers, cinephiles, wanderers are only few amongst many susceptible to the Paris Syndrome. However, people that are destined to Paris for more than a couple of years experience the city and its people differently. At the beginning, Paris' inhabitants may experience an overwhelming child-like appreciation of the beauty of every street, cafe, or park, sometimes to the point of experiencing a Stendhal Syndrome. With time, however, this beauty fades as we cement our images of Paris,  even of the Paris we have not explored. We assume many places are reincarnations of others and we are so convinced that our perception is biased to prove our intuition right regardless of what new places might offer. This slowly leads to anhedonia, the loss of pleasure, and perhaps existentially and morally towards nihilism.  And based on our genetic and environmental predisposition to depression, this eventually leads to mild and long depressions, such as dysthima or major acute depressions that are all vicious and bottomless circles that are only curable with enough will power and support from family and friends. I shall call this last phase "le mal de Paris" which hints to Baudelair's "fleurs de mal" and almost every poet's and artist's "mal de vivre" althought perhaps I could just update Baudelair's "Spleen de Paris" by calling it  "le NeoSpleen de Paris" such that it accommodates a century of human progress or regress.

Le NeoSpleen de Paris, is contagious! You might get it in the metro when nobody is smiling, not even musicians as they play or kids as they don't. You might get it on the streets whether from the homeless beggars or from fellow inhabitants that have so much convinced themselves of being busy to avoid the void, or you might as well get it in restaurants when your waiter does not expect to be tipped or rewarded and has been already suffering that NeoSpleen for years!

It is only after the second year that you become aware of the NeoSpleen epidemic and the options to cure it are expensive and limited:

- You are suddenly convincing yourself that alcohol/drugs are inevitable to calm you and many of your alcoholic/drug-addict "friends".
- Your friends have talked you into medication for depression or seeing a shrink
- You decide that Paris is not for you and pack your bags and try to settle elsewhere
- You spend the money you would have spent on alcohol, drugs, medication, or shrinks, traveling back and forth to always see Paris as a child sees candy, and I am talking about forbidden and rare candy!

I am guessing you have already made up your mind. If you happen to have chosen the last one, I might see you tomorrow in RIO de JANEIRO!