Fear of the unknown has always terrified humanity

Courage, Neil Young, The Shining, Heart of Darkness and Munch

Hello, hello!!! Save yourself if you can.

The fear of the unknown has terrified humanity ever since Adam decided to take Eve for a walk near that apple tree. Many people get stuck on all fours and retreat to a crossroads. Don’t decide and let Life take you, without course, direction or destiny.

Sometimes it is temporary: a change of city, job, children’s school or even a new relationship.

Penalty takers, politicians, musicians, businessmen, drivers, street vendors, middlemen and ordinary people like you and me, we all suffer to a greater or lesser extent in the decision-making process.

Soundtrack: Neil Young, the musician whose songs are mostly enigmatic, mysterious and the actual themes sung are unknown.

The album is “On the beach” recorded in 1974, but rejected by the musician himself. It went out of print shortly after its release and was only re-released on CD in 2003. It is one of the best of his career.

Facing our fears is not easy

My oldest son changed schools this semester. On Monday the little ones will also start in another kindergarten. We moved from a house in the countryside to an apartment in the capital. Logistics is different, simpler and faster, everything is close by and without complications.

We walk more and use public transport. The car is no longer necessary, only for weekend trips. Life happens every day, fast, busy, selfish and independent. Shoes and bags pass by in a rush. I’ve walked 10,000 steps almost every day this week.

It’s all grand, grand, full of people, wants, desires, rushes and goals. Outside comes the green and grass, inside comes the concrete and grey. The river is right there, but the lake was calmer, more comfortable, invigorating.

We lost our feet in the grass, the clouds forming, the rain announcing its arrival, the crickets chirping, the birds walking in the garden, the kind and helpful neighbors, the squirrels and hedgehogs, the slowness and simplicity of the interior.

The fear of the unknown, especially the first day, the first week, the first month, can turn into a monster.

From Monday to Friday the major’s emotions, tensions and anxieties fluctuated greatly. He speaks fluent German, but now everything is in English. The small school became a large school full of classrooms, spaces and people from all over the world. He doesn’t know anyone! But soon you will get to know each other and adapt.

I still remember my first day at my new school after leaving a small kindergarten. Those huge fields of sand looked like the Sahara. I, with my toy cars under a tree, alone, was just waiting for the moment to leave and thinking about where I had ended up.

How will I meet everyone? Will I be accepted? Will you like me? What if they don’t respect me for who I am? Will I be loved? Will I be able to defend myself? Will I be able to learn?

These are fundamental questions we ask ourselves, consciously or unconsciously, with every change in life. Whether it’s a new school, job, home, relationship, city or even country.

The courage to change is essential. Facing the unknown and the fear of not knowing how to deal with that new situation too. Many people do not change and stop living the dream of living abroad, of moving house and/or husband/wife for fear of the unknown.

But as João Guimarães Rosa said through Riobaldo in “Grande Sertão: Veredas”: Life is like this: it heats up and cools down, it tightens and then loosens, it calms down and then becomes restless. What he wants from us is courage.

The enigmatic songs of the Canadian rocker

Neil Young has a 58-year career that began in 1966 with Buffalo Springfield. Then there was Crazy Horse, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and a lot of solo music. He’s a special boy.

They say Canadians have a very strong indigenous side. This would be the inspiration for most of his song lyrics which seemingly mean one thing but can actually be interpreted in very different ways.

Songs like “Cortez the Killer,” “Pocahontas,” and “Like an Inca” fuel this theory in addition to various album covers like Zuma (1975), Harvest Moon (1992), and Broken Arrow (1996), named after his ranch. All with clear indigenous motifs.

Journalist Jimmy McDonough wrote the biography “Shakey” about Neil Young. I have the book, but haven’t read it yet. It is a catalog of almost 800 pages. The author received permission to write the book in a 1991 agreement and has complied with the agreement. Young is so crazy and unpredictable that he banned the publication of his biography, repudiating the agreement with the author and publisher, but without officially declaring himself against the contents of the book.

Had Young talked or exposed himself more than he should have? Were you afraid of people’s judgement? Or fear of still unknown reactions, beyond your control?

We will never know.

FILM: The Shining – Stanley Kubrick (1980)

Towards the terror of isolation.

It took me years to watch this movie. I kept imagining what it would be like, how scared I would feel, and how I would react to it all. The classic fear of the unknown.

One of Stanley Kubrick’s masterpieces, The Shining surpasses all expectations created. Suspense and terror in the right measure that grow as the plot develops. The screenplay is based on a novel of the same name by none other than Stephen King, who else?

During the winter, a man named Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) is hired as a lookout at the isolated Overlook Hotel in the Colorado Rockies and travels there with his wife, Wendy Torrance (Shelley Duvall), and their son, Danny Torrance (Danny Lloyd ). However, the continued isolation begins to cause him serious mental problems and he becomes increasingly aggressive and dangerous, at the same time that his son begins to have visions of events that occurred in the past, also caused by the excessive isolation.

Additionally, Jack is an aspiring writer and a recovering alcoholic, and his son has psychic abilities that allow him to see into the hotel’s terrible past. The restaurant’s chef, Dick Hallorann (Crothers), also has this ability and communicates telepathically with Danny!

How can we forget that terrifying scene of the girls in the hotel corridor? Every time I enter a hotel with these endless corridors I wait for them to appear.

BOOK: Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad (1899)

The classic jungle adventure.

If you are a fan of Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now”, you should know that it is based on Joseph Conrad’s no less classic book, Heart of Darkness (in the original English). Even the name of the character played by Marlon Brando is the same, a certain Kurtz. Replace the Belgian Congo of the late 19th century with the Vietnam of the 1960s and 1970s and we have a blockbuster.

Conrad himself (1857-1924) was an officer in the Merchant Navy and traveled to the Belgian Congo in 1899, the year my grandfather Pedro was born. Belgian colonialism was brutal even compared to what other nations did in Africa. Many protested at the time, but Conrad decided to tell a frank story without focusing on the atrocities of the Europeans.

Captain Maslow penetrates the interior of Africa by navigating winding rivers, avoiding treacherous floating logs aboard a decrepit steamboat leading a motley crew, with the presence of some cannibals on board, in search of a certain Kurtz. An extraordinary and brilliant boy, praised by all, charismatic and good at public speeches, Kurtz was in charge of the exploration of ivory on the borders of Mother Earth, but suddenly he stopped giving news.

Satanic cults, barbaric tribes, Maslow’s moral and mental dilemmas during the journey, the struggle for survival and the personal commitment to accomplish Kurtz’s rescue mission make this book a classic that I have always wanted to read.

There is also a documentary called Heart of Darkness that shows the making of “Apocalypse Now” made by the director’s wife, Eleanor, with behind the scenes and all the difficulties experienced by Coppola and his team. The director literally committed suicide during filming and the lead actor, Martin Sheen, had a heart attack on set. Over budget, eleven months of recording, tropical rains in the Philippines where it was filmed, hellish heat and humidity, pressure from the studio and many other difficulties in filming this masterpiece.

Read this book as soon as possible. It’s short, deep and powerful. Fear is bush!

This review was originally posted on my Instagram @pedro_livros.

“The Scream” of fear, desperation or anguish?

I have already had the privilege of visiting the Munch Museum in Norway. Opened in May 1963 and located at Tøyengata 53 in Oslo, the museum houses, among many other works by the painter, his masterpiece “The Scream”, or Skrik in Norwegian.

“The Scream” is a series of four paintings created by Munch in 1893 which represent an androgynous figure in apparent anguish and desperation. With his hands raised to his face and his mouth open, as if he were screaming, the painting expresses a feeling that perhaps the painter himself felt.

Most of Munch’s works reveal tragedy, illness and death. These were recurring themes in the childhood of the artist, who lost his mother and sisters in his youth. Therefore, loneliness, melancholy, anguish, desperation and depression frequently appear in the artist’s works.

Pedro Silva is a mechanical engineer, PhD in Materials, faces the unknown with pride and courage, and writes the newsletterAlea Iacta Est

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Source: Terra

Ben

Ben Stock is a lifestyle journalist and author at Gossipify. He writes about topics such as health, wellness, travel, food and home decor. He provides practical advice and inspiration to improve well-being, keeps readers up to date with latest lifestyle news and trends, known for his engaging writing style, in-depth analysis and unique perspectives.