Brazil - just happy people?

Around the world, some countries face an inevitable economic crisis, but the economic reality that Brazil is living in might be called a phase of fascination.

Our current economic system is clearly unsustainable, and due to a false monetary situation created by the banks, inevitably promotes differentiation and exclusion. While many people seem to be aware of this fact, here in Brazil there is a progression in the opposite direction where people are becoming even more capitalistic. Considering this, some are still dedicated to a comprehensive understanding of what is unfolding right now and attempting to educate others about the reality of the current global situation.

Brazil is world renowned for a warm and cheerful culture, and the world can see this demonstrated when a catastrophe happens or any situation arises where there is need for people to help each other. There are many reports and videos of people who have been devastated by landslides or floods and lost a lifetime’s worth of possessions, but despite the despair they are be feeling, there is a huge motivation to rebuild and reconstruct what was lost. They remain optimistic in tough times and can count on the support of close people and associations. One could say that the Brazilian people, are an optimistic people.

When I present the ideas and The Venus Project’s design concepts for the first time to a person or group of people, the response I get is amazing. It is very important to appeal to specific values of people that you are speaking to. Talking directly about science can be off-putting, but talking about cooperation and equality motivates and stimulates people. What we see with this is that most people are unaware of what science really is and what science can provide for humans. I always try to make it very clear the concept of science as a tool that exists to help the human being, not as a form of slavery, which is what we have today within our monetary system.

In a country like Brazil, we have abundant natural resources and a growing economy. But we distribute plastic bags in supermarkets and use wasteful packaging. There are no sorted recycling bins outside of the major capitals or urban centers. There are still open dumps in many areas with no system for collection. Environmental education is not taught in enough schools around the country. In this case, Brazilian optimism could be, for the first time, a detriment to the culture.

Recently there seems to be the first awakening to some environmental issues, motivated by the reformulation of forest legislation in the country and the construction of large dams in the North. While some voices were raised, others remained silent so they could take advantage of the situations for their own profit. The Brazilian people are optimistic, but also a people who generally do not realize the consequences of this optimism, that it is based on the concept of abundant resources (almost as if they were to last forever). They assume that in times of difficulty there will always be someone to assist and resolve the situation.

Almost like a some sort of religion, a belief that “everything will work out” functions as a kind of weak support that justifies the omission of the Brazilian to the irresponsible consumption of resources. Brazilians currently live in times of growth, mass consumption, and economic development where the rest of the world is in an economic crisis, which makes them reflect on what is actually the current economic system of our global society.

On other hand, there is a genuine concern with social inequality and the desire to bridge the gap between the social classes in Brazil. Gradually, the importance of education becomes apparent, and many try to break their own barriers and limits to acquire more knowledge and therefore become more capable and conscientious. Right here is where I, as a Brazilian (having grown up and formed myself inside this environment of optimism), put my own optimism – believing that we can truly learn and educate ourselves and change this reality.

There are about 40 small communities in Brazil based on concepts of sustainability and permaculture. There are also several Indian tribes who seek to remain isolated from the economic, political and social systems, which allows them to remain in balance with nature. Here in Brazil there are excellent scientific centers and organizations. There are numerous activities and projects for development of new technologies in a more environmentally responsible way. There are several organizations that seek to support and fund the development of science. But also, there are large individual and political interests behind many of these good projects.

Expanding our horizons through knowledge, I believe that we can recognize and identify the problems and their origins here in Brazil and around the world, making The Venus Project be recognized for what it is – a realistic solution.

Article written by me in www.tvpmagazine.com

Recognize

Our body is not our prison, but a shelter that protects our spirit, the essence of what we really are. As shelter, it is the “material” we have in us, and therefore subject to variations in this physical and material world.

We are one spirit in one body, but not necessarily limited by that body. The fear that often accompanies us is the fear of what can harm us in our “material part”. There aren’t many sensations of fear that really can shake or break our spirit - because our spirit is something much larger and more comprehensive than what we understand.

Our lives here are short, just passages, as parts of a path that must be traveled to our evolution as beings, spirits.

When we allow us the accommodation and be paralyzed by fear, we should assess whether we fear some real damage to what we are or if we fear our own evolution, our own growth.

There's no difference between the man who sleeps on the street, homeless or without food and the man who finds himself surrounded by comfort and luxury - both are superior to what they have around where they are and how they live.

At some point, humanity get now has the priority of "shelter" (body) instead of its own evolution and growth (spirit). The values were being gradually reversed, and today we are much more difficult to break with what we learned during the period we live in this world.

Today, we have so many barriers to break and the concepts that we have, are much more difficult even to recognize ourselves as spirits - we look at the physical and not the essence.

When we'll can give value back to what really value has, we'll still have a long way to go, to break with everything that we allow being our habits, thoughts, desires.

Arrives and we all come to a moment where we have to evaluate and choose those that are and will be our priorities - if it will be our shelter or our "being."

The later we allow this moment to arrive, will cost us more choice, and the greater will be the "losses" with which we must deal with.

If we accumulate more and more comfort, property and possessions, the more we will trapped ourselves, and the harder it will be to us "open the door."

There is no sin in the shelter, the greater sin lies in excess. And the main reason is our fear, we fear "we", ‘cause "having" is much easier.

The time will come for everyone, and there will be no way to strengthen our castles, fortresses and walls - it is our spirit that needs to be strengthened. Unless we have other priority.

Uneasiness

Unrest, uneasiness means “desassossego” in Portuguese.

A constant feeling, when you can’t agree with all the structures and systems around you. When you know, just inside you, we can do more, we can be more, we can be better and live in a better way.

Let me ask a question here. If you right now can have one wish realized, just for yourself, with one will be? What do you want to get right now? Just make your wish before continue reading this.

Do you know that constantly search about who we are, and who we can be? Why we are constantly fighting for more, just to satisfy our ego, our wishes, our needs? What we really need? More money, more space, more “status”? A bigger house, a better car?

This is all our “ego” needs - not our really needs. I don’t know any human who doesn’t need a safe place to live, healthy food and water, some peace, happy and love in their hearts.

So, why we pretend “things” are more important to us then the way we feel? If you feel right, and happy, full of hope and love, you won’t care about money, cars, houses or “things”.

When you are sharing some time with your people, your friends, laughing and talking, you are not worried about problems and situations you may have to solve. You are just “enjoying” your life, your time in this world. In these moments, you are just being yourself.

And it’s so hard “just be yourself” when you are worried… worried about your financial problems, work, health, family, etc. In these times, you try to have a strong and acceptable behavior, to “inspire” others to respect you, accept you, and give to you what you need. Maybe a job promotion, maybe a loan, or just better serve you in a hospital, shop, bank, etc.

You try to “convince” them you worth their trust, to make them get a nice behavior with you. But do you trust them, being exactly who you are? Showing them why you may be worried, why you need them for?

Probably don’t. Why? Why we can’t show we are vulnerable sometimes, our weaknesses, our fears?

We learn in all our lives we have to be competitive, better than the others to deserve more than the others. To get better opportunities, we have to be the best one in our jobs, in our class, in our life.

Recognize that you may not ever get all the answers, shows that you are incompetent in something. Why’s that? Everyone knows it’s impossible to know everything. Everyone knows we can fail sometimes, and we will sooner or later make some mistakes. Everyone knows we aren’t machines, that we have feelings, problems, etc. So, why we can't show all that?

Show us like we really are, like we are really feeling, thinking, wanting?

When you recognize you have some weaknesses, it’s easy to accept the other ones weaknesses too.

When you learn how to love yourself, it’s easier to love the others, and just accept them the way they are.

You stop try to change yourself, and stop trying to change the others around you.

Imagine that… to live like that. Without trying to “convince” anyone that you “deserve” something.

And now, if you can make your wish again, what do you want to ask for?

Information

How are we supposed to search and find in this world full of many kinds of information and news the ones most important to us, when many people don’t know what is really important to them and who they are?

Our society system forces us to live with so many possibilities and also conditioned us to make our choices in a way to survive in this system that makes us almost prisoners inside our brains and preferences.

Inside us we keep sentences like “I have to do that way”, “this is the right choice” or “this will be better”. We forget the most important questions like “Do I really want to do this, this way?”, “Is this right to my purpose, to the person I want to be?” or “Will this make me feel better about myself?”

We live in contradiction, when we should live in a gentle, warm and happy world. Where is the love we feel for other human being?

Our life system forces us to make decisions for our own survival, we have to “fit” inside a model of society against our own nature. We want to do things right, we want to care about others; we want to respect life and freedom and smile with the most simple things. Maybe we even want to feel so happy that we can dance in the rain with a smile on our faces. We want to be happy.

But we can’t.

It’s impossible for us to feel that way when we have to be better than our work partner or we can lose our job. We have to defend ourselves and our work, our money, our wife or husband or we will show that maybe we are not “that good”.

If you stop during your day just to see the clouds moving with the wind, people must say “how silly” you are. And if you stop just to play with some kids, dancing and maybe running around, you probably will end in a hospital with some kind of brain disease diagnosed.

What happened to us?

We want to be happy, don’t we? Do we want to live this way we are living? Do we really want to spend our free time in front a TV or computer when life is happening outside and our time is just passing by?

Let’s say, we had already enough of all this waste of time. Let’s say it’s time for us to be happy now. Enough about wasting time waiting for something better to happen, our life and our choices are in our hands. We can do better. We can be better.

And for sure, we can have a better life than be sitting in our chairs waiting for a kind of cancer (or something similar) to end all our dreams and hopes.

It’s time to be all we want to be. And be happy with the world and ourselves.


www.youtube.com/watch?v=prild_Ga9QE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUvsnIl76yo&feature=youtu.be

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jc_MbNcIIcY&feature=player_embedded

http://www.thezeitgeistmovement.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U&feature=share

Our System

We once were nomads, and come to live according to the availability of resources in a particular location until that does not meet our needs and then we moved to another area most abundant.

Rational beings we are, and following our own evolution, we conclude that in different places had different resources, so, rather we moved constantly back and forth, we could swap goods.

This "trade" was created by us so we get the possibility of having our needs met with as little effort as possible - because our intelligence and evolution has enabled us to such conclusions and measures.

The trading system we create, ideally, work for something that we had excess supply the lack of anyone without this "thing", and in turn, we do lack something in return for what would be in surplus from them.

With the creation of a "currency" that could be exchanged for any property, our life was easier, but it also generated a chronic difficulty in our own system. For the more this "money" we were able to have, the greater our ability to acquire.

It became more interesting "economically" have the money than owning assets of survival, since in the possession of money, we could own everything.

The system created by us worked extremely well for our exchanges were facilitated, so that our lives become easier - in that period of time.

However, we remain capable of reasoning and evolution, and equally able to realize that there are some fatal flaws in our system.

Any way of trade we created by a major reason - so that life could be possible even with a shortage of certain resources in certain areas where there life was harder.

Since in our system happens that people are dying of hunger (though far from the area where we live), our system is no longer efficient.

Not to talk about natural resources that we already know to be finite, or the advancement of technology and progress and makes us want to consume ever more of an issue already ingrained in our culture and our concept of the "own" is a sign of prosperity and thus a greater capacity for survival.

With this our behavior, we leave out the natural instincts of human beings to live in community and in harmony with other human beings (we have real needs of love, understanding, attention - we want and need to be heard, seen and be part of a community).

Now we were (we create the system required) on an individual basis. To survive with our system, we must have money. We have to work. We have (preferably) to have a car so we can work harder and get faster to meet the system requirements, and so on.

We can not afford to be content with public transport, which are not always ideal, because there is a risk of being robbed at gunpoint by people who are victims of the system we create.

We have to have a little money to spare for an emergency, or we are subject to massive queues in public hospitals where care is at least questionable.

The more "money" we have, the better our chances of being treated in the best hospitals, our children have access to better education and our leisure time to be the most enjoyable.

But as we know, we still are rational human beings in evolution, even and while we live this way.

We know that something is "off," or "inadequate."

We are not satisfied.

We breathe polluted air to maintain a functioning system we have created. We are sicker and die more easily from preventable ways in order to keep our system running.

Conveniently for the our government, we forget that we who create the system and what was our goal when we created - the life support.

And it is undeniable that our system has crashed from the moment that there are lives lost due to the system itself.

Can we change anything?

We are the only possibility of change.

http://www.thezeitgeistmovement.com/

Nosso Sistema

Já fomos um dia como nômades, e chegamos a viver de acordo com a disponibilidade de recursos existentes em um determinado local até que esse não suprisse nossas necessidades e então nos deslocávamos para uma outra zona mais abundante.

Seres racionais que somos, e seguindo nossa própria evolução, chegamos à conclusão de que se em diferentes locais haviam diferentes recursos, em vez de nos mudarmos constantemente pra lá e pra cá, poderíamos trocar mercadorias.

Esse “comércio” foi por nós criados a fim de que houvesse a possibilidade de termos nossas necessidades atendidas com o menor esforço possível – pois nossa inteligência e evolução nos possibilitaram tais conclusões e medidas.

O sistema de comércio por nós criado, idealmente, faria com que algo que tivéssemos em excesso atendesse a falta de quem tivesse em escassez nosso “bem comercializável”, e por sua vez, algo que nos fizesse falta teríamos em troca do que nos fosse excedente.

Com a criação de uma “moeda” que pudesse ser trocada por qualquer bem, nossa vida foi facilitada, mas foi também gerada uma dificuldade crônica em nosso próprio sistema. Pois quanto mais dessa “moeda” fôssemos capaz de ter, maior seria nossa possibilidade de adquirir.

Passou a ser mais interessante “economicamente” possuir a moeda do que possuir bens de sobrevivência, uma vez que em posse da moeda, poderia se possuir tudo.

O sistema por nós criado funcionou extremamente bem para que nossas trocas fossem facilitadas, para que nossa vida se tornasse mais fácil.

Porém, continuamos a ser capazes de raciocínio e evolução, e igualmente capazes de perceber que existem algumas falhas fatais em nosso sistema.

Todo e qualquer meio de comércio por nós criado foram por uma razão maior – para que a vida pudesse ser possível ainda que com escassez de determinados recursos em determinadas áreas onde havia vida.

Uma vez que em nosso sistema acontece que pessoas estão a morrer de fome (ainda que muito distante da área em que vivemos), nosso sistema deixou de ser eficiente.

Isso sem falar sobre recursos naturais que já sabemos serem finitos, ou do avanço da tecnologia e progresso que nos faz consumir e querer sempre mais por uma questão já enraizada em nossa cultura e nosso conceito, de que o “possuir” é sinal de prosperidade e portanto, maior capacidade de sobrevivência .

Com esse nosso comportamento, deixamos de lado instintos naturais do ser humano de viver em comunidade e em harmonia com outros seres humanos (temos necessidades reais de amor, compreensão, atenção - queremos e precisamos ser ouvidos, vistos e fazer parte de uma comunidade).

Passamos a viver (obrigados pelo sistema que criamos) de uma forma individualista. Para sobrevivermos com nosso sistema, temos que ter dinheiro. Temos que trabalhar.

Temos (preferencialmente) que ter um carro, pois assim podemos trabalhar mais e chegar mais rápido para atendermos às exigências do sistema, e assim por diante.

Não podemos nos dar ao luxo de nos contentarmos com transportes públicos, que nem sempre são ideais, pois existe também o risco de sermos assaltados à mão armada por pessoas que são vítimas do sistema que criamos.

Temos que ter um pouco de dinheiro de sobra para numa emergência, não estarmos sujeitos às filas gigantescas dos hospitais públicos onde o atendimento é no mínimo, questionável.

Quanto mais “moeda” tivermos, melhores as nossas possibilidades de sermos atendidos nos melhores hospitais, de nossos filhos terem acesso ao melhor ensino e de nosso tempo de lazer ser o mais agradável.

Mas enquanto sabemos de tudo isso, e enquanto vivemos assim, não deixamos de ser seres humanos racionais e em evolução.

Sabemos que algo está “fora de lugar” ou “inadequado”.

Não estamos satisfeitos.

Respiramos um ar poluído para mantermos em funcionamento o sistema que criamos.

Ficamos cada vez mais doentes e morremos cada vez mais de formas facilmente evitáveis para podermos manter em funcionamento o nosso sistema.

Convenientemente para o governo que criamos, esquecemos que fomos nós que criamos o sistema e qual era o nosso objetivo quando o criamos – a sustentação da vida.

E é inegável que nosso sistema deixou de funcionar a partir do momento que existem vidas perdidas devido ao próprio sistema.

É possível mudarmos alguma coisa?

Somos a única possibilidade de mudança.


http://www.thezeitgeistmovement.com/

Culpa

Não quero mais carregar culpa nenhuma, nem das coisas que quero nem das que não quero.

Não quero mais me enquadrar onde não me enquadro, nem ser quem eu não sou.

Não quero mais ter que nada, a não ser fazer sentido para quem sou.

Não quero me obrigar a viver das maneiras com as quais não concordo, nem achar boas as coisas que eu não acho.

Não quero mais vestir sapatos.

Não quero me preocupar com coisas que não me preocupam, nem me sentir obrigada a ter preocupações que não tenho.

Não quero mais vestir sapatos...