Rio’s Carnival and some deeper thoughts

We call it Carnaval. Probably the most anticipated break of the whole year. As a carioca, I can’t say I don’t love it. Not just because it’s a nice break from work and school but because it is simply the craziest party in the world. Everyone is laughing and wearing ridiculous costumes (yesterday I was a pig-fairy(??)). Everyone talks to everyone. And it isn’t “Excuse me, what time is it?”, it’s like “Hey, your costume is hilarious but please cover your buttcrack dude”. Everyone is sweating(a lot), dancing, laughing, kissing, peeing, vomiting, etc. It is quite an experience to be in the middle of this.

However, this is my first sober Carnaval. And I’ve never been so old and mature as I’m today (lol look at this 22 year old kid). That backed up by the recommendation of Mark Manson on building the habit of writing made me write this article with a more critic view of Carnaval (I’m not sure I can call my first work an article but w/e).

During Carnival people who have nothing to be grateful for find a reason to celebrate, and they do it just as if they won’t have another chance to do it for another year. They do it so hard that I believe if they used all the money from this week’s alcohol sales on education, Brazil would be the next USA in a couple of years.

This ties into a global problem. It feels like we all need excuses to fully be happy and let go of our shells. But what if those people found out that we don’t need an excuse to be happy? What if happiness was mostly dependent on your own attitudes, habits and inner thoughts?

What if the whole world realized that you don’t have to be a man wearing women’s clothes to crack bad jokes? That you don’t have to be drunk to talk to hot girls? That you don’t have to wait until February to fully let your stifled sexuality out? Or that you can actually treat anyone as a friend at anytime, and not just when “baile de favela” suddenly starts playing ?

This year, what Carnival has given me, besides the usual enormous amounts of fun and meeting new people, was some more evidence that our world has some real needs. Needs like more conscience. More empathy and vulnerability. More openness and shamelessness. More instant friendships and kisses. More fulfilling workdays and less TGIFs. Less need for external stimulation and hangovers.