The big city

This week, Rita and I had to take Helena Iara to the US Consulate in Rio de Janeiro in order to register her as an American citizen and to get her a passport; we also had to finish up a long project that we have been doing with community pre-schools there.  Helena was fascinated by the big city (Rio has 8,000,000 people, and the rush and confusion of the place rivals any city I know), but not necessarily for the reasons that most tourists love the place.  She liked sitting in the Parque do Aterro and watching people on the Praia do Flamengo, with the classic horizon of Pão de Açucar in the background, but what she really loved was the movement, the lights of the cars, the rush of people, the view from the hotel, the smiles on the subway and in buses...

Sunday evening, we went to the French Cultural Center downtown, where Helena was fascinated by some outdoor art that mixed graffiti with abstract impressionism, the sort of art most people will say that you have to "learn to appreciate".  Helena didn't have to learn: she just loved it.  Though she is at that point where she shows her boredom very quickly, she was happy to stare at each of the five large paintings for more than a minute each, and a minute is a long time for a baby.  She thought the art was wonderful.  Picasso famously said that he "spent his whole life learning to paint like a child," but I wonder if one shouldn't also put a lot of work into learning to see art like a child.

I didn't use the word "wonderful" by chance: the great thing about taking the trip with Helena was her constant sense of wonder, her willingness to be thrilled, to show how elated she was by the simplest of experiences.  It gave me a lot of insight into why babies are so happy: adults learn to hide that excitement and wonder, because it says that we didn't "already know," that we aren't urban sophisticates.  Adults have to be blasé, but babies can express wonder.

"Blasé" brings me to the other philosophical talk that Helena and I had in Rio de Janeiro, about the sociologist Georg Simmel, who used that word to describe the subjectivity of human beings in the modern city.  To be blasé means that you can say "been there, done that" or simply "whatever" to any experience, and that such an attitude buys you prestige among others.  It's pretty much the opposite of Helena's way of seeing the city, and something I have long tried to ignore (except, of course, as a teenager, when blasé is obligatory).

None the less, four days in the big city with a baby helped me to understand why people become blasé.  Yes, Helena wondered at the city.  It thrilled and elated her, and simply watching her enjoy the place gave Rita and me a lot of joy.  However, the constant agitation and stimulation was simply too much: Helena had to either sleep or break down crying after fifteen minutes on the street, and by the final day, Rita and I were completely exhausted.  Being blasé might have been the filter we (or Helena) needed to be able to survive the city.  It would have been a much easier trip, if all three of us had that attitude.

On the other hand, it would also have been much less joyful.