WEBVTT 00:00:06.991 --> 00:00:10.051 Do you know when you ask a child what her future will be like 00:00:10.051 --> 00:00:14.361 and she answers that she wants to have super powers or just be big? 00:00:14.361 --> 00:00:18.831 If you asked the younger me what my life would be like by the age of 16 00:00:18.831 --> 00:00:21.841 I would probably answer that I'll be taller than my father 00:00:21.841 --> 00:00:24.061 have a lot of friends, walk alone in the city, 00:00:24.061 --> 00:00:28.721 be completely independent and have a long, long hair. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:28.721 --> 00:00:32.762 I always had a lot of imagination and I always loved to read. 00:00:32.762 --> 00:00:35.382 Translating the letters into images and sound, 00:00:35.382 --> 00:00:37.752 though everything was religiously silent, 00:00:37.752 --> 00:00:43.542 was a way for a kid, human and muggle, to become special. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:43.542 --> 00:00:45.467 All stories made me really believe that 00:00:45.467 --> 00:00:50.277 the material normal life wasn’t the only one and that magic existed. 00:00:50.277 --> 00:00:54.477 By a certain age I started to see black, 00:00:54.477 --> 00:00:57.227 my vision would start to get dark on the peripheral area, 00:00:57.227 --> 00:01:00.667 until everything became black and I would get a little dizzy, 00:01:00.667 --> 00:01:02.287 but my imagination was so fertile, 00:01:02.287 --> 00:01:05.287 that I thought it was something magical that was happening to me 00:01:05.287 --> 00:01:09.387 or that I was getting secret information from the universe. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:09.387 --> 00:01:11.107 I always wanted to be special 00:01:11.107 --> 00:01:14.317 but while I was growing up I had to deal with the fact that 00:01:14.317 --> 00:01:17.447 the magic world was getting each day more distant from me. 00:01:17.447 --> 00:01:19.397 I would get inside the closet in my house 00:01:19.397 --> 00:01:22.557 and I thought that if I really forgot about the panel at the back, 00:01:22.557 --> 00:01:25.867 it would disintegrate and I would be able to reach Nárnia. 00:01:25.867 --> 00:01:29.767 But I didn't discover a magic wardrobe at 8, 00:01:29.767 --> 00:01:32.677 and I didn't receive my Hogwarts letter at 11, 00:01:32.677 --> 00:01:35.757 and a satyr didn't tell me I was a demigod by 12. 00:01:35.757 --> 00:01:42.717 So my last hope was that Gandalf would take me on adventure by the age of 50. 00:01:42.717 --> 00:01:48.217 But, on the mean time, by the age of 13, 00:01:48.217 --> 00:01:50.697 I suddenly became someone special, 00:01:50.697 --> 00:01:54.637 though it really wasn’t the way I ask it for. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:54.637 --> 00:01:57.902 Actually the universe wasn't giving me secret information, 00:01:57.902 --> 00:02:01.182 but it was dragging me into a black hole. 00:02:01.182 --> 00:02:06.532 By the day of September 23rd, of 2015, at 7:35 in the morning, 00:02:06.532 --> 00:02:09.481 I got late to my old school, as always, 00:02:09.481 --> 00:02:14.261 because the city bus took too much time to get to my house, as always. 00:02:14.261 --> 00:02:16.851 I walked in class and fell. 00:02:16.851 --> 00:02:20.091 In the middle of the class, in front of everyone. 00:02:20.091 --> 00:02:23.101 I didn’t see a backpack that was on the floor. 00:02:23.101 --> 00:02:27.861 I got to my seat and I realized I couldn’t see the letters on the chalkboard. 00:02:27.861 --> 00:02:30.136 I couldn’t read. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:30.136 --> 00:02:34.426 So I called my mom and later that day I went to the hospital, 00:02:34.426 --> 00:02:38.095 thinking about how cool it would be to have a nice pair of glasses. 00:02:38.095 --> 00:02:44.895 But I didn’t get them, I didn’t even leave the hospital that day. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:44.895 --> 00:02:47.868 I was diagnosed with hydrocephalus, 00:02:47.868 --> 00:02:51.818 not a very creative word that means you have too much liquid in your brain, 00:02:51.818 --> 00:02:53.478 and I’ll tell you a spoiler, 00:02:53.478 --> 00:02:57.130 in my case it was because a glioma was formed in the passage 00:02:57.130 --> 00:02:59.470 between the first and third ventricle, 00:02:59.470 --> 00:03:01.260 on the base of my head. 00:03:01.260 --> 00:03:03.610 This wouldn’t let the liquid in my brain flow, 00:03:03.610 --> 00:03:06.170 it would get in and couldn’t leave, 00:03:06.170 --> 00:03:08.280 what made my intracranial pressure very high 00:03:08.280 --> 00:03:11.360 and it was damaging my optical nerves. 00:03:11.360 --> 00:03:14.080 But the doctors didn’t realize that. 00:03:14.080 --> 00:03:19.330 I underwent one surgery, then another, then another and another. 00:03:19.330 --> 00:03:23.584 I was in a spiral, a cycle that every time me and my parents were starting to get up, 00:03:23.584 --> 00:03:26.064 life would hit us and we would fall, 00:03:26.064 --> 00:03:27.634 and again and again. 00:03:27.634 --> 00:03:32.184 My world turned upside down and we were all anesthetized by the situation. 00:03:32.184 --> 00:03:36.254 My magic thoughts were suddenly replaced by a cascade of saints and entities, 00:03:36.254 --> 00:03:39.324 that were just as immaterial as my hope on Gandalf. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:39.324 --> 00:03:43.534 The problem was that the doctor felt certain he knew what was wrong with me. 00:03:43.534 --> 00:03:46.884 But since my problem was caused by a completely different thing, 00:03:46.884 --> 00:03:48.364 too much liquid was drained 00:03:48.364 --> 00:03:51.624 so they transformed my problem from high intracranial pressure 00:03:51.624 --> 00:03:53.554 to extremely low pressure. 00:03:53.554 --> 00:03:58.104 In 8 months, I underwent 4 surgeries with this procedure 00:03:58.104 --> 00:04:02.704 and 3 other ones to try to fix the mess this doctor made. 00:04:02.704 --> 00:04:05.674 But the damage was done. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:05.674 --> 00:04:08.494 Then I could finally come back to school, 00:04:08.494 --> 00:04:10.484 but I wasn’t the same anymore. 00:04:10.484 --> 00:04:15.344 Life continued for normal people and I had lost many of the classic events 00:04:15.344 --> 00:04:19.404 and teenage crisis which, honestly, I don’t miss. 00:04:21.545 --> 00:04:23.335 I basically spent one year sleeping, 00:04:23.335 --> 00:04:26.295 because since literature was taken away from me 00:04:26.295 --> 00:04:30.605 this was the only way to sink in another reality in the moment I most needed. 00:04:30.605 --> 00:04:34.278 But hey, I’m here today. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:34.278 --> 00:04:39.048 There's a sentence that says: I fell in a hole, came out as a giant. 00:04:39.048 --> 00:04:40.545 That’s really how I feel, 00:04:40.545 --> 00:04:44.875 because every time something hard happens to you, there’s a force, 00:04:44.875 --> 00:04:47.621 even if it’s almost unnoticeable, 00:04:47.621 --> 00:04:49.821 that will bring you up again, 00:04:49.821 --> 00:04:52.944 and this time you will be much wiser. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:52.944 --> 00:04:56.694 I can concentrate and have much more focus on one thing now. 00:04:56.694 --> 00:05:00.694 And eating, that's a completely different experience. 00:05:00.694 --> 00:05:02.864 Everytime I eat “bolinho de chuva” 00:05:02.864 --> 00:05:04.934 raindrop cakes 00:05:04.934 --> 00:05:08.954 I’m immediately transported to a good and safe place where there are clouds of sugar 00:05:08.954 --> 00:05:10.794 and cinnamon. 00:05:10.794 --> 00:05:13.504 And also, when I hear or play music 00:05:13.504 --> 00:05:17.504 that’s a way to escape from the difficulties I pass in my life. 00:05:17.504 --> 00:05:20.114 And now I can remember complete Bob Dylan’s lyrics, 00:05:20.114 --> 00:05:22.944 which is quite crazy. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:22.944 --> 00:05:26.084 My imagination is more intense than ever 00:05:26.084 --> 00:05:29.514 because now I use it as one of the most important senses. 00:05:29.514 --> 00:05:32.651 It’s the one who allows me to build a completely new world 00:05:32.651 --> 00:05:36.290 based on what I have seen and on other sensorial channels. 00:05:36.290 --> 00:05:39.684 I have to use imagination as a creative and logical instrument 00:05:39.684 --> 00:05:44.894 to survive in this reality that relies too much on visual stimulation. 00:05:44.894 --> 00:05:50.074 And I can do that because there’s a difference between looking and seeing 00:05:50.074 --> 00:05:53.244 as there is between hearing and listening. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:53.244 --> 00:05:58.694 Seeing and listening aren't about an accurate capacity of your senses, 00:05:58.694 --> 00:06:00.366 but they mean sensibility, 00:06:00.366 --> 00:06:03.416 to understand things and have empathy with others, 00:06:03.416 --> 00:06:07.176 so for this I think I can see better now than before. 00:06:07.176 --> 00:06:13.256 For an example, I can see you’re paying attention. 00:06:13.256 --> 00:06:19.276 In Greek mythology, the most famous seer, Tiresias, was blind, 00:06:19.276 --> 00:06:25.626 because he wasn’t fooled with the traps of appearance and the visual world, you see? NOTE Paragraph 00:06:25.626 --> 00:06:28.946 I’m definitely not the 16 year old person I thought I would be, 00:06:28.946 --> 00:06:31.126 and I don’t have the life I thought I would, 00:06:31.126 --> 00:06:33.806 but if you ask me, would I want to go back in time 00:06:33.806 --> 00:06:35.986 and prevent this all from happening, 00:06:35.986 --> 00:06:39.616 I learnt so much that I don’t want to miss who I am now, the answer's no. 00:06:39.616 --> 00:06:41.196 Thank you.