The Dreamseller_ The Calling - Augusto Cury [74]
They felt the crazy man who had wanted to commit suicide had become a better debater than the professor they had once known. One of them, Marco Antonio, a professor of sociology who was the most erudite in the department, but whose teaching methods I had always criticized, praised me:
“Julio, I’ve been following your work through the press and through our students. I am truly impressed by the courage it must have taken to break from your life and to reorganize it. Sooner or later everyone should take such a break to try to find himself, to rethink his story.”
I told them about the dreams project. I said that it wasn’t a motivational, self-help project, but one of forming humane thinkers. It was a project to mold “a man without borders.”
Professor Marco Antonio thought for a long time and confessed that he was bored with social conformity and weary of the pernicious paradox of “personal isolation versus mass interaction.” I asked him to explain the paradox, as I didn’t understand the full extent of his idea.
“Human beings choose to live on islands when they should be on continents. And other times, they are on continents, when they should be on islands. In other words, they should be sharing ideas and experiences to help everyone overcome frustrations. But we should be islands—individuals—when it comes to taste, lifestyle, art and culture. Television, fast food, the fashion industry all have served to homogenize our tastes and styles. We’ve lost our sense of individuality.”
I thought to myself, “This professor’s thoughts are very close to the dreamseller’s.” Then, he asked us how he could get acquainted with the sociological experiment of being a person without borders. And I was happy to tell him.
All the pairs returned flushed with enthusiasm. They had encountered unforeseeable tribulations but had experienced notable deeds. Deeds that did nothing to increase our bank account or our social standing but brought us back to our origins.
Some of the pairs brought with them friends whom they’d met along the way. Monica brought five model friends of hers. They were excited about parading on unfamiliar runways. Jurema and I brought two professors and two students. Dimas brought Dr. Lucas and his wife. Solomon brought his old psychiatrist, who specialized in anxiety disorders but was constantly depressed. He had been infected by his patient’s happiness and wanted a dose of this social antidepressant.
Everyone spoke to each other about their simple but meaningful experiences. They spoke euphorically about the joy it had brought them to really know people who might otherwise have been just anonymous extras in the movie of life. They discovered the indescribable pleasure of contributing to someone else’s story and the anonymous solidarity that came with it.
All told, thirty-eight new “strangers” were added to the group. Among them, two Orthodox Jews and two Muslims. Suddenly we noticed the absence of the most vibrant person in our group, Bartholomew. Dimas told us he was with his friend and would be along shortly.
We were so excited that we improvised the first of the project’s many festivities to come. There, rich and poor, intellectuals and illiterates, Christians, Muslims, Jews and Buddhists ate, danced and spoke free of the world’s prejudice. Our only goal was to share a bit of each other.
Not even Robespierre in his philosophical delirium could have imagined that the three pillars of the French Revolution—Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood—would be lived so richly by people who were so different from one another. The dreamseller, seeing our joy, told us:
“We are all different at our core: in the intrinsic fabric of our personalities, in the way we think, act,