Sunday, May 6, 2012

Grown up kids.


I was writting a review of an ipad game in the bus when my head drifted to watch around on my colleagues. I caught a glance of an engineer colleague of mine, probably on his 40s watching in his laptop an episode of Thundercats. I had to stop my trail of thoughts to write about it at that very instant.

Some time ago, i met another aeronautical engineer, a respectable and hard working colleague which whom i shared some time in the company. Once, he gave me a ride on his elite-salary-can-buy car, and when i was to seat on the back seat i almost landed on a set of famous brazilian child comics ("Turma da Monica"). He told me "beware my daughter's comics back there".

He went on explaining on how he loved those comics as a kid. He even had a huge collection, until his wife bullied him out of it. Now, his daughter has provided him his escape route. "i must confess that i read them more than she does, now at least i have an excuse to buy them again".

Every brazilian has read one of this at least once during his life.
I´ve always been a kid. I'll be on my thirties in a few years and my favourite passtimes include watching anime and playing videogames. My room in Barcelona was full of anime figures of girls in skimpy dresses and manly anime guys in heroic poses. I spent a lot of time drawing and painting wargame figures and everytime i got asked why i did want to become an aeronautical engineer my answer has always been: "to have time and money to spend drawing, which is my true passion"

The kind of things you can find back at my home.

However, on high tech or corporative enviroments a level of seriousness and commitment is expected, making it look like this kind of behaviours are something to be ashamed of. For this reason I admire those who are not afraid to show themselves as they are in this situation.

Let's face it, we all love the series of our childhood, and those friends with children confessed that they steal their kids videogames to play all night long. It's alright to play poker, but not to play Magic? It's alright to play chess but not warhammer? It's okay to lose your life in front of the stupid box of propaganda that is the Tv but not to spend an evening with your friends fragging zerglings or spartans?

The kind of father's we'll be.
Get over it! We're children still inside and we love it! People who live just for work are just tossing her life away. It's no use to overwork yourself to get extra pays if you dont have a way to make that money useful to you, and by that i mean profit from it for your own happiness, not for bare necessities.

Colorful things are not just children territory. Colorful things just spell FUN in capital leters, and as humans we tend to gravitate toward them. Remember that day where your mom tossed out all your toys. Do you recall the sadness of losing something that was treasured to you. Remember that day the college kids made fun of you becuse you still played Pokemon on your DS. Do you remember how you were bullied by doing publicly what all the others did in hiding?

"Don't you dare mock my childhood!"
There's a saying in spanish that goes something like: "Be I warm, and let them laugh"
This means: as long as you are happy/safe/confortable with something you shouldn't be ashamed. I say, go there and grab back your life, the things you treasured, and if someone ever has a pointy comment or disaproving look, stare him dead in the eyes and say: "At least I haven't forgot who I really am."





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