I started thinking about enemies and obstacles today, while doing 120 squats at the gym, and I realized that this was the most difficult exercise in my set... and that made me wonder: if I do the same number of repetitions lifting 150kg on the leg press, why is the exertion so much greater here?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Surely some stage coach or martial arts master has already capitalized on this, but the truth only hit me when the lactic acid screamed in my quadriceps:<\/p>\n\n\n\n I AM MY OWN BIGGEST OBSTACLE!<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n Since I don't consume this type of content, the closest I'd come to this line of reasoning before must have been in some video game or anime, but never in such a practical and realistic way! Passionate about language and reasoning, I was astonished by this unprecedented development, as I had never considered that these two terms are not even close to being synonyms!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Premise<\/strong>Until I was 13, I studied\u2014paid for with great sacrifice by my "sister-mom"\u2014at a private school, in a mixed class, with people who had been with me since kindergarten, and suddenly, at 14, I went to a preparatory course for military schools, in an exclusively male class (with all the bad things that puberty and its testosterone can bring).<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1987 was a very difficult year: in the morning, from 7:00 AM to 12:00 PM, it was 8th grade; then, with Euz\u00e9bio "Carroceiro" and F\u00e1bio Moreira, I would quickly eat my packed lunch because afterwards, starting at 1:00 PM, Jorge Marques would arrive from Monteiro Lobato and join us for pre-military classes, which lasted until 6:00 PM! One day I hope to have time to write in more detail, perhaps an entire chapter, narrating the misfortunes of our heroic, manly stupidity, but the fact is that\u2014despite all the effort, adaptation, and development I've put in\u2014I ended up defeated in all three competitions. 1988 was another very complicated year, because the only thing that changed from the routine described above was that in the mornings I was taking the first year of high school\u2026 it may seem like little, but it introduced extensions of subjects, mandatory at the high school level, that had nothing to do with the competitive exams I was aiming for, and one in particular filled me with terror \u2014 Literature! \u2014 which would also be taught by the king of phonetic inquisition, the dissector of figures of speech, the master of elliptical phrases\u2026 Professor Ramos!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Apart from that, I remember well, I, a macho teenager without any of the pressure of today's politically correct nonsense, also thought that poetry was for gay men!<\/p>\n\n\n\n And an obstacle had been built that, in my immature teenage vision, would be insurmountable\u2026 until the moment my mother called me aside and gave me her most unforgettable example of wisdom, saying: What?!?!?! Do you know what happened? If my wife\u2014back when I was just a platonic love interest\u2014hadn't treated the sincere and heartfelt poems I dedicated to her as if they were soiled toilet paper\u2026 perhaps I'd still be writing poetry today. Finally, today I believe I am able to express myself better through written language than through spoken language, and I chose to recount this episode because it makes it easy to identify one of the greatest obstacles I have ever faced in my entire life\u2026 and one that today brings a pang to my heart when I remember, filled with longing, my dear Professor Ramos.
But my mind just won't stop, and, extending my reasoning and attempting a syllogism, I formulated the phrase "I am my own worst enemy"... whoops!!!
That's not true!<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Difference Between Enemies and Obstacles<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Of all the teachers, given the purpose of this text, I want to highlight the "terrorist of the Portuguese Language," the dreaded Professor Ramos, who had an extra space for memory on his forehead and would call the student to the board to demand even the minutiae of syntactic and morphological analysis of sentences. According to his own self-definition, he "asked one question, and another, and another... until the student fell!"\u201c<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This concludes the premise.<\/p>\n\n\n\nLearning from the educator Severo<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Pretend you like it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That's right: when you find the whole thing really boring, really fussy... do like the actors do and pretend you're really enjoying it!
\u2014 But Mom, how am I supposed to like this thing full of strange, old-fashioned words, full of rhymes at the end of sentences?!?!
Go ahead, my son, and try... if they're rhyming, go ahead and rhyme too! If they're using complicated words, go ahead and find even more difficult ones to see if they'll understand!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I went... and I did it.
And if you're reading this text, it's because I fell into a trap: I was actually good at Portuguese and already enjoyed reading, but after that "attempt," I quickly stopped pretending and truly began to love writing, whether in prose or verse\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But at least I persevered in writing prose and I have the pride of having been her pedagogical support while she pursued higher education and graduated in Literature!
(At the same time, I have acquired and still hold the firm conviction that a higher education degree is useless in this country!)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
(Damn onion-cutting ninjas!!!)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n