The biggest conspiracy of our time went unnoticed in the media agendas. This time, for once, a positive and absolutely powerful conspiracy. A force of good that offered us a sign that, to my regret, although without surprise, we threatened not to understand in its very strong transcendentality.
On February 18th, we celebrated the beginning of Lent, Ash Wednesday celebrated by Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant Christians. What is extraordinary is the coincidence that this year, Ramadan and the Buddhist Year, the year of the Iron Horse, began precisely on the same day. To accentuate the curiosity, Chinese New Year was celebrated the day before, Tuesday, February 17th. And Catholic and Jewish Easter this year are celebrated on the same day. Such overlapping of dates between religions and antagonistic models of civilization and power is not common… therefore, by believing in the signs, I hope it is a cry of hope from the universe, an appeal in favor of union, concord and a new time.
This made me remember, and salute, men who offered their lives because they believed in the power of the question, in the scientific spirit, in curiosity without dogma. Giordano Bruno burned at the stake for telling us that the Universe was infinite and continually expanding. Men like Copernicus and Galileo risked going against conventions and, if only for that reason, we have a duty to do justice to them and look for signs that arouse our curiosity. We have a responsibility to look at the stars, to observe them to better see the interior of life down here and our own interior. It was when our sailors looked and saw the stars that we made ourselves into the world and enlarged it.
Sometimes, so often, we forget to lift our heads. And we lose the possibility of understanding when the universe conspires in our favor. To recognize the work of so many researchers who do not give up looking at the stars knowing that time does not reward them with honors and public applause. I read about the work of the brilliant Brazilian scientist Tatiana Sampaio, revolutionary in the use of a protein, polylaminin, which she is using, with very encouraging results, in the recovery of patients with spinal cord injuries. It is believed that quadriplegias of the future may, after all, not be fatal and incurable.
The universe is infinite, the chances are infinite, as are the unanswered questions and those that we haven’t even been able to formulate yet.
Luís Portela, owner of Bial, knows this well.
His teams invented medicines that improved the quality of life of epileptic and Alzheimer’s patients, but that did not stop him from returning, at the end of his life, to the spiritual. His books make you think of the same proportion of phrases that stick in your head, like that of the unsuspecting Keynes who spoke of an invisible thread in the Economy. It is not by chance that Economics is one of the scientific areas in which experts, no matter how many doctorates and Nobel Prizes they obtain, almost always get their predictions wrong.
This is all a call to hope, a cry for hope. The power of hope is also a cooperative force. Against contrary winds and tides. The tide of intolerance, distraction and ignorance that forgets those who feed Humanity, but which highlights and offers media – and followers – to those who alienate Humanity.
The Brazilian scientist, who threatens to go down in history, has a few hundred followers, while irrelevant and structurally empty figures have millions of people watching their every step.
Strange world this, magnificent world this. May there be more curious and humble people because, let us have no doubt, the universe expands and is there for us to read, in all its signs.
manuel.guerreiro@ccamtv.pt
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