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    Post Scriptum - English Edition
    Post Scriptum - English Edition
    Post Scriptum - English Edition
    Ebook70 pages1 hour

    Post Scriptum - English Edition

    By João Rosa de Castro

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    About this ebook

    The reflections herein gathered differ from the mental forms of the conventional Brazilian, a meaning in which they exert a pedagogical and therapeutic function: pedagogical because they explicit certain littleness of the Brazilian mental means, exalt values better than the trivial, clarify situation; that is, teach the reader how to interpret a given portion of the world and life with more lucidity. Therapeutic because, as he censures the censurable, he exalts the meritorious, denounces usages; Post Scriptum is virtually capable of inducing its readers to review their values and sub-values, behaviors and sub-behaviors and, therefore, contribute to (if you will pardon the expression) “build a better world”.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBadPress
    Release dateNov 4, 2016
    ISBN9781507161456
    Post Scriptum - English Edition

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      Book preview

      Post Scriptum - English Edition - João Rosa de Castro

      Cover

      Jeferson Barbosa de Freitas

      Preface

      Arthur Virmond de Lacerda Neto

      Translation and Proofreading

      João Rosa de Castro

      Editor

      João Rosa de Castro

      Beauty is the only thing that time cannot harm.

      Oscar Wilde

      PREFACE

      A

      phorisms constitute a prose genre in which the author, an observer of the world, consigns his observations and reflections; publish them, in a collection, in the shape of a book, when its volume justifies the publication. 

      It was the case of the Meditations, by Marco Aurélio Antonino, Roman emperor who bequeathed us stoic wisdom; the Politicians Breviary, by cardinal Mazarino, who exposed his astuteness in the political tract of men; it was also that by Baltazar Gracián, in his Art of Prudence, in which he filed his wisdom, between cynical and self-seeking, in the selfish commerce with society; it was also that by the Brazilian marquis of Maricá, with his Maxims and Reflections, a product of life of an experimented men; before these, it was also that by count Ficquelmont, with his Moral and political thoughts; that by José Saramago, in his Lanzerote’s Notebooks; the one by Vauvenargues; the one by Pascal; the one by la Rochefoucauld; the one by la Bruyère; the one by Nietzsche and not only these.  

      This is also the case of this Post Scriptum, in which, aligned with several and honorable antecedents of the human reflection, João Rosa de Castro compiled 160 reflections, unequal in their extension, dissimilar in their complexity, variegated in their themes and uniform in their observation virtues and critical spirit.

      Observing constitutes an art that transcends the mere contemplation: while the latter is limited to the acritical perception, perhaps apathetic, of the human and physical means in which we find ourselves, the observer takes notice in what he perceives, analyzes it, interprets it, examines its merits and demerits, the social meaning of what happens around him, judges, approves, censures, ponders, that is, exercises the critical spirit, an expression by which I connote the adjective with the capacity of analysis.

      In Post Scriptum, the art of observation and the critical spirit are conjugated: the politics, the behaviors, the rich and poor, the religion, the soap-operas, the teaching, the writers, the musicians, the role of the State, the man of masses, the human vulgarity, the joy, the narcissism, etc., comprise the large spectrum of themes of the Brazilian reality coeval to which its author relied upon and about which he emitted ponderations characterized by the frankness of whom is away from the mass influence of the characters and the boredom of part of the Brazilian ethos.

      The reflections herein gathered differ from the mental forms of the conventional Brazilian, a meaning in which they exert a pedagogical and therapeutic function: pedagogical because they explicit certain littleness of the Brazilian mental means, exalt values better than the trivial, clarify situation; that is, teach the reader how to interpret a given portion of the world and life with more lucidity. Therapeutic because, as he censures the censurable, he exalts the meritorious, denounces usages; Post Scriptum is virtually capable of inducing its readers to review their values and sub-values, behaviors and sub-behaviors and, therefore, contribute to (if you will pardon the expression) build a better world, to revive the reader from some existential marasmus (in which, like the man of masses by Ortega y Gasset, the individuals unify themselves too much) and at least bring about his reflections.

      It’s not about revolutionary or countercultural formulations, hostile, by definition, to the patrician ethos; it compiles ponderations commonly distant (occasionally opposite) to the cultural and behavioral short-sightedness fashionable in the present, and militates into an organic direction: at bottom, it moves and removes. Moves by the preference for the best, in opposition to the modest; and removes the lower part. I hope his readers be able to elevate high.

      Some reflections are laconic, under the form of axioms, other are extensive, in the shape of brief dissertations; whether ironic or almost sibylline; interesting in several levels according to the sensitivity of each reader; what fraternizes them is the loveliness with which João de Castro has expressed them, without mental reserves (at the Jesuitical manner) that would be intended to save from discomfort certain publics and certain people, he nominates. It will presumably suscitate indifferences, oppositions and adhesions; and induce, certainly, to meditations; it tries for patenting facets or forms of sensitivity to which the readers are virtually absentminded.

      As Eça de Queiróz would (almost) say, he used the truth’s crude nudity, without the diaphanic mantle of convenience, or, as Augusto Comte would state, he’s lived clearly in the outsourcing of his understanding and of his beliefs.

      Curitiba, October 06, 2016.

      Arthur Virmond de Lacerda Neto.

      ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

      First of all I would like to thank Léo de Carvalho – poet and friend who stimulated the writing of this book with this cruel speech: João, you are decaying!. From this warning, all that happened was to be forged into written aphorism. He who saw me some time ago articulating ideas, sailing through my thoughts; he suddenly caught me so, counting indigestible days, without any burden on my back, which would be inadmissible for any thinker important like me as he would say.

      Still as a result from the cruel warning, I called those who are closest to me and asked for suggestion of issues I could address

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