It is possible to say that when we look around us that in the dispute over public space, people lost ugly their naco from ground
Some say they are the stage of democracy. It is there that the relationship between space and between citizens happens. The place where theoretically People are entitled to the enjoyment of public life. Our tours – commonly known as sidewalks – when they exist, they are narrow, as if they were a statement that this is too small for people and. It is possible to say that when we look around us that in the dispute over public space, people lost ugly their naco from floor.
To the passers-by-also called pedestrians, eventually citizens-there are some “safe” land crumbs, where a daily battle is fought where a simple crossing over ranges is transformed daily battle where a simple crossing on tracks becomes the spectacle of life or death, worthy of a wildlife documentary. After all, sidewalks – these dirt, bumpy ceramic or concrete ceramics are invaded by cars as if they were natural extensions of garages. “I’m just there in the pharmacy!”, Justifies the driver, while his SUV claims 80% of the space for the elderly, wheelchair users and dreamers who still believe in the right to walk.
We remain small asphalt refuges, where we play an unusual version of the urban twister or even dancing an “lambada of the metropolis”: we divert from “artistic” poops deposited by pets whose owners are masters of illusionism (look to sky + accelerated walk = evaporated dirt!). They deserved to be in Las Vegas shows.
There are also the poles, which appear as traps to the most unsuspecting, walking on the street with their headphones in volumes that would be able to say to be shared music. And umbrellas, oh, the umbrellas, so well handled by clumsy swords-those who, distracted, turn the object into a white gun, testing our deviation reflexes into a “sidewalk MMA” in which the prize is going out with both eyes and with no bruising.
And what about modern heralds? Those people endowed with such an extraordinary voice and subjects so urgent that they need to share them loudly at a point of the bus crowded with exhausted people? “And then I told her that I was no longer going to stand that boring boss and …” – While fifty -three strangers are involuntarily dragged into that person’s private drama. A real -time soap opera broadcast with twists, a thousand and drama characters, a lot of drama. Waiting at the point becomes a big plot update (that is, if you are lucky to catch the same person, at the same point, a few days in sequence).
In addition to the daily war for our sidewalk, research warns that our focus time shrunk more than jeans on the drying machine. It is the fault of the apps that kidnap 60 seconds of attention in exchange for tons of dopamine – the 21st century currency. Result? We made ourselves into Brás Cubas 2.0 or even digital zombies that, as Machado would say with a hint of modern irony, “We guinens right and left, we grumble, stumbling into curbs”. Who has never bumped into a staggering young man, headphones in the ears, hyperactive, stressed, exhausted and aimlessly, singing “Evidence” In the middle of Tuesday afternoon? If Cosme Velho wizard saw this scene, you might update your famous phrase: “Humanity is not a misunderstanding… it is a badly edited Tiktok”. Would he be presenting the future?
The stagger, worthy of the floor without the attention of the 21st century, is a threat to the mental health of the already troubled urban collective coexistence. How many people haven’t gone into a pole planted in the middle of the sidewalk? How many have no longer stumbled in a curb detonated by the lack of public maintenance? The city becomes a board of Detectiveand the next victim can be anyone, including you, reader.
The most fascinating of this daily spectacle is how, gradually, these small violence normalized. What should be extraordinary becomes common, commonplace. Empathy is being eroded in homeopathic doses, so subtle that we barely realize: We are naturally incorporated naturally and thus, the city becomes a stage where each one defends its small territory, its tiny comfort, without realizing that we are all socially connected, interacting in the sea and enduring the disadvantage of those who look at the world from their interests. The other does not exist. Or it is there to meet my needs.
Perhaps the true test of civilization is not in the great heroic deeds, but precisely in the microgestos of everyday life. In kindness of parking without blocking the passage of others. In the proper volume of conversations in public spaces. In the simple act of collecting what the pet left behind, without turning the world into a private trash. In holding the umbrella with awareness that space is shared-amazing! – For a collective that also exists.
Maybe one day the city is no longer a battlefield where everyday micromalities disappear to finally become space for coexistence. Until then, we keep turning on poops, stumbling into poles and, with luck, seeing each other – even if only by the corner of the eye, between a notification and one of the cell phone.
GAME RULES
In the Urban Twister Game: Those who step into poop lose points, those who divert an umbrella comes to life and boss in the end is the driver who park on the sidewalk.
*The chronicle was written with the collaboration of Victor Massao, coordinator and teacher of the Arts and Crafts Atelier of the São Paulo Jockey Club (Elysium Cultural Society), photographer, documentary filmmaker, archivist and soon, architect and urban planner.
*This text does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the young Pan.
