The account of my nightmare with the Old Warrior stirred a whirlwind of memories. The image of the seven women, striking me in my groin and offering me as a sacrifice in the Ancestral Studies, deeply affected my subjectivity. So I decided to write these memoirs with the pen of jest, dipped in the ink of melancholy. They are to this author what the goad is to cattle…
In his Praise of Folly , Erasmus of Rotterdam, addressing his friend Thomas More and dedicating the small book to him, justifies it as a kind of conversation with himself. Not being a serious dissertation, but neither trivial fables, it is an encomium, a genre abundantly practiced by scholars. Far be it from me to compare myself to these people, but every author, despite their attributes, knows the dangers they run. As the Tremendão said: "There will be no shortage of slanderers who will cast the first stone, accusing us of being frivolous or biting chroniclers."
Some may frown at the memoirs that follow; others, with a slight grimace. Uncertainty is rich in opportunities. As G.C. Lichtenberg (1742–1799) once said, “opportunity makes not only thieves, but also great men.” There must be a middle ground, one that is not mediocre ( to be continued in January ).
This text does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Unicamp.
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