It was the end of the afternoon on an ordinary Wednesday in Rio de Janeiro. I was exhausted after an extremely difficult day at work. Problems of every kind were piling up, demanding nervous and urgent solutions. I had the unpleasant feeling of being trapped in a vicious circle. In short, the movements that had helped me reach that existential moment, the way of being and living that had made me who I was, no longer served me. My lifestyle had become obsolete. I am not referring to clothes, profession, or entertainment. The way I understood myself no longer fit inside me. In order to grow, I would have to break the shell of behavioural patterns that kept me stuck, inside and out. Who I was had brought me that far, but to move forward a reconstruction would be necessary. Or a reinvention. We live, out in the world, the reality built within the universe. No more, no less. This defines our range of possibilities, as well as our joys and sorrows. Reality expands or contracts at the limits of perception and sensitivity attained. What is impossible for some is reality for others. I am not talking about financial conditions, but about the movements made possible by the extent of truth understood and the virtues added to one’s personal baggage. This establishes the boundaries of living. The problems I have signal the transformations that await me.
Knowing the theorem does not guarantee the solution. One must work out the equation. No one is what they know, but what they do. When life is bad, change is necessary. Inner changes turn behaviour inside out. We become another person. The problem was that I did not know what was wrong or what to change. I decided to go home. I needed to think. I wrapped up work and called a taxi. On the car radio, Norah Jones was playing. The music transported me to the tables of a pleasant café in Gávea, hidden on a quiet, tree-lined side street. I asked the driver to change the route. With no sign or nameplate on the door, the old house, built in the mid-1950s, seemed enchanted, in the most transcendental sense of the word. Divided into several rooms, it was possible to listen to jazz, blues, or bossa nova without having to raise one’s voice in conversations accompanied by espressos, frappuccinos, and hot or iced mochas. There was a central garden shaded by a centuries-old, leafy mango tree, where comfortable sofas and armchairs made the setting perfect for spending afternoons in the company of books interspersed with cappuccinos.
Bárbara, the barista and owner of the establishment, made the best coffee in the city. Trained in Psychology and a lover of Psychoanalysis, she had given up clinical practice some time ago. Nevertheless, she had never abandoned the mysteries of the psyche. To that end, twice a week, always in the late afternoon, she would climb onto a small pulpit set up in one corner of the main hall to speak about some topic related to the pleasures and pains of the soul. Even without any publicity, the place overflowed with people. With her arms covered by countless tattoos on pale skin, she changed her hair colour according to her mood, moving from red to lilac, from the black wings of the grackle to the golden rays of the sun. At times, Bárbara would ask permission to sit at someone’s table. This happened when her keen sensitivity indicated a disoriented traveller at a crossroads, waiting for guidance. Then she would offer a gaze translated into concise and precise words, capable of revealing passages through the walls of misunderstood events. There was no point in asking for an appointment. It was the guide who chose the traveller. “This is not an office, it’s a café,” she insisted on repeating. Yet it was much more than that.
That day, Bárbara’s hair was blue. I did not know what that colour meant, nor did I ask. I greeted her with a smile. She observed me for a brief yet expressive moment. Then she suggested that I sit at the counter. I said I would like to stay in the garden. I wanted to be alone, drink a coffee, and think. I needed quiet to find myself. The barista remarked: “No doubt, you need this moment. We all do. However, I suspect it might be interesting if today, when you go to the garden, you take with you some different ideas, capable of leading your thoughts to places they have never been”.
I accepted the offer. She brought me my usual double espresso and asked: “What troubles you? I’ve never seen you like this”. I explained that I was entangled in a web of endless problems. I had the feeling they would never end. I said I considered myself a contemporary Sisyphus. I alluded to the mythological character condemned to carry a heavy stone to the top of a mountain. The thing is that, day after day, as he approached the summit, the stone slipped from his arms and rolled back down the mountain, forcing him to endlessly restart the exhausting task. Bárbara smiled and asked: “How do you understand this myth?” I dodged the answer by saying there were a thousand interpretations, all valid. The barista nodded and clarified: “Sisyphus was punished for deceiving death, whose name is Thanatos in the Greek text. Of the many possible interpretations, I like the one that treats death not as the demise of the body, but as a symbol of the closing of evolutionary cycles. We can be born and die many times in a single existence, and this is wonderful, as long as we understand the end of a cycle and are willing to begin a new and unknown existential journey. It is not easy to give up personality traits that, despite the damage caused by restricting important intrinsic movements, are often sources of pride and pleasure. Or to accept the imperfections of twisted reasoning, erected to serve the shallow comfort of a consciousness that refuses to go further. In some cases, a renovation is enough. In others, it will be necessary to demolish the building in order to construct another, with new and different foundations”.
She gave a mischievous smile and explained: “It is easier to deceive Thanatos and deny the need for continuous renewal of evolutionary cycles. Then life repeats itself indefinitely without adding anything. There is no greater punishment than living a life empty of content and usefulness. Even if only for a brief period, it will be a waste. Sisyphus never manages to take the stone, the dead weight of himself, to the top of the mountain because he refuses to free himself from who no longer serves him within himself. Reconciliation with Thanatos is equivalent to accepting the existential challenge of beginning a new journey of learning and transformation”. She shrugged and concluded: “The problem is not the problems. They are merely the messengers of necessary changes. Do not blame the messenger because you dislike, or do not understand, the meaning of the message”.
I asked whether she meant to tell me that the problems I was experiencing were caused by my pattern of behaviour and were therefore my responsibility. Bárbara nodded again and added: “If the problems are yours, the responsibility will be as well”. I argued that I had problems of different kinds. And there were many. Whether with booksellers, printers, authors, illustrators, designers, or employees. The barista reflected: “These are issues you label as commercial or business-related, but which, in essence, are relationship difficulties”. She paused before unsettling me: “Your difficulties, not theirs. That is why you live with so many problems with so many people”.
With my irritation under control, I explained that I was faced with senseless requests, demands, or conditions. People seemed to have lost all sense and judgment. Bárbara fell silent for a few moments, as if weighing the need to go deeper, and then argued: “People are the way they are, with their views, tastes, and interests. They have just as much right to that as we do. When we fail to understand this process, we leave room for problems to arise. This is called conflict”. I was on the verge of being unable to contain my irritation in the face of those arguments. I knew what a conflict was. I didn’t need anyone to explain it to me. For me, the problem lay in the impossibility of agreeing with other people’s senselessness. The barista corrected me immediately: “I didn’t say agree, but respect. They are different behaviours. Confusing one with the other is the cause of many problems”.
I complained that the world was becoming increasingly strange. She corrected me again: “The world changes as people’s needs and aspirations change. It has always been that way, and there is nothing wrong with it. This affects relationships when we refuse to understand social rotations and translations”. She tapped her finger on the counter to emphasize her words and reminded me once more: “Respecting the elements that shape another person’s point of view, even without agreeing, is an act of dignity typical of those who already know the roots of freedom and peace”. I asked her to explain further. She was generous: “We must remain loyal to the convictions that guide us when another person’s stance brings us harm of any kind. That is the moment to give thanks and leave. The departure should happen without suffering, resentment, or bitterness. In this way, emotional balance and freedom of movement are acquired. As in any cycle, partnerships and friendships also come to an end. It is natural. However, at times, we will be offered an unfamiliar truth. That is when it is time to change something within ourselves, to be grateful and stay. Clarity of vision is gained. Reality expands”.
She then added: “We always have the choice to be enchanted by another’s perspective or to move forward with our own perceptions. What matters is never forgetting that no one is obliged to agree with or accompany anyone. Where for many there is a problem, for others it is merely an exercise of autonomy and freedom”. She waited for me to take a sip of coffee and concluded: “A flexible and dynamic mind will always be stronger than a hardened and static one. Rigid mindsets are clouded and slow, never open to the new or to evolution”.
I argued that I was not inflexible. However, I remained loyal to the truth as far as I understood it. The barista explained: “There is nothing wrong with loyalty to your perceptions and convictions. On the contrary, there is great virtue in preserving them when they maintain a harmonious dialogue with conscience. However, there is a subtle boundary between loyalty and stubbornness. There are corners within us that remain misunderstood. Behind excess and rigidity there is much incomprehension and rejection of who we are. Moralism hides acts or desires of immorality; airs of superiority conceal unconfessable feelings of inferiority; nostalgia reveals the difficulty of accepting change. Stubbornness, because it involves an exaggerated attachment to one’s own ideas and, consequently, a rejection of the new and of differences, hardens and hinders the movements of renewal and regeneration that are essential to the evolutionary process and to living well”.
Bárbara continued: “The secret of problems lies in not dealing with them as if they were tragedies. Nor even treating them as something unpleasant or bad. Live them as pedagogical experiences, available to teach something you do not yet know. Not only about things, but above all about yourself. While the problem persists, or repeats itself, it means that the experience is still in progress. It must be worked through in another way, with other elements of reflection, refined truths, and better virtues”. I asked when I would know that a given experience was finished. She replied at once: “When that kind of situation is no longer a problem. The primary purpose of experiences is not to learn how to solve problems, but to discover inner riches. Only these are capable of dissolving them. Everything else is mere postponement”.
I fell silent. I drank the rest of the espresso without haste while Bárbara prepared other coffee orders. I had been over sixty years old for some time. I believed that I should be teaching, not learning from younger people. I mentioned this when she returned. The barista smiled and said: “We learn and teach all the time. Everyone with everyone. The dynamics of life make us students and teachers full time”. She looked at me with compassion and provoked me: “You are still ignorant, my friend”. I found the remark aggressive. She clarified: “I do not mean the pejorative sense of the word, nor schooling, diplomas, or titles. Do not cling to the common prejudice. I am speaking of the philosophical meaning of the term ignorant: one who does not have full awareness of himself and of his infinite possibilities. In this respect, make no mistake, we are all ignorant”.
She was right. I confessed that I would have to revise myself thoroughly. The draft was still far from the final version. There was much within me awaiting change. Despite my advanced age, a new way of being and living had become indispensable. Bárbara was didactic: “Our lifestyle is the result of lived experiences. This creates a behavioural pattern for dealing with the problems and difficulties inherent in daily life. A kind of model of defence or emotional survival that, as long as it generates problems, will signal the need for improvement. To modify the pattern, it is essential to seek new experiences, but from now on, lived and appreciated with bolder perspectives that have never before been tested. Problems reveal the pulsating misunderstandings of the soul”. She ran her hand through her blue hair and reflected: “When business does not go well, often there is nothing wrong with the business. When we are faced with complicated people, sometimes there is nothing complicated about them. Not infrequently, the issue lies in our own misunderstandings and stubbornness”.
She then clarified: “By improving the relationship we have with ourselves, we improve the relationships we maintain with the world. New experiences, when worked through with different elements of understanding, will be of enormous value for reprocessing old ones. By connection and consequence, from resentment will arise learning, from fear will be born courage, guilt will disappear to make way for responsibility and the commitment to do better from then on. Until from bitterness we find honey, from tragedies emerge hidden wonders. It is healing, love, and freedom all at once. An immeasurable conquest translated into joy, peace, and dignity”.
Without my asking, she placed a large mug of brewed coffee on the counter, winked, and joked: “For my adorable ignorant, this one’s on the house”. We laughed. Then she pointed with her chin to an empty armchair in the garden. I had much to think about. Still, that day I carried with me some different ideas, important to help me discover something I did not yet know within myself. It would be an interesting and very valuable journey. Sisyphus was willing to throw away the stone. For that, it was necessary to reconcile with Thanatos: to bring to maturity the changes that could no longer wait. Then others would come, and yet others. I thanked her and went to the garden with a single certainty: the Gávea café really was enchanted. An incredible portal to a fantastic inner dimension.
Translated by: Cazmilian Zórdic
