The Blue Planet

When I saw this photograph for the first time, I could not believe that that could be true. I wondered about the veracity of that image and what it really meant. Not too long ago I was coming across a text published by NASA scientists telling about the thousands of objects left randomly in space such as fragments of rockets, lost tools by astronauts, fuel and old satellites that caused threat to space projects. And not only that, we are quite vulnerable down here on the surface of earth as we can have one of those objects falling over our rooftops. Our blue planet, as Gagarin described the earth floating in space, is peppered with debris in its blue aura. What a pity of our beautiful home, so battered this way. When are people finally going to wake up from this generalized sleepwalking

I have a great fascination for newstands.That may be due to the graphic design,colors,creativity and other things that estimulate me. I always wonder (just like Caetano Veloso sang in one of his songs:"Who reads all those pieces of news?" about the people who, just like myself are addicted to reading about five newspapers, either on-line or the print format. I learned this from my father who devoured the newspaper form one end to the other, and still found time to re-read one or two pieces of news. Anyway, there is always something at the newstand that capture my eyes. Last thursday, on the 13th of August, one little book made me very curious about it. The title read "99 ways to be happy". I wondered right away why not 100 ways to round it out? For all many authors who have already written about "personal development", 99 ways can be seen as as too limiting number, for in their perspective, happiness is infinite. Maybe the crisis we have been living recently has something to do with this quote adjusted to our reality. On the othe hand I may find there a tight recipe I never had never thought before on being happy. My own concept, on being happy, nevertheless, is quite spartan. I live by two options when I start my day. I have two options: either I decide to live a pleasant and a happy day or be cranky, develop stomach ache, migraine and be totally miserable. Since I am quite impatient for feeling sour during my day, I find the last choice to spend the day so stupid that I rewind the whole first scenes (well, since the video cassetes are no longer in use, the CD's option have come to help me even better). Just to sum up: I have decided not to get this "99 ways to be happy". I'd rather spend my money buying a book on Japanese cuisine, which is my favorite, instead.

The "Sudden Death" Syndrome

Another young athlete, 26 years old, has just ended his promising career due to heart failure. How many have so young people ended their lives prematurely in the last years? Businessmen who drop dead at age 30 or even younger...Will it be the insanely fast life? Does the pressure that we live by these days of the super sucess at all cost? I did not use to hear about this when I was young, but now, unfortunetely it is common to see this kind of news on papers often shocking us. The physical being has become more frail in more athletic and beautiful bodies, how paradoxal...The so-called "sudden death" is a scientific way to explain the fact, however, the term "sudden life" does not fit in as an antonym. The sense of flabberghasting gets frozen in the air like a congealed scream.