1 00:00:06,991 --> 00:00:10,051 Do you know when you ask a child what her future will be like 2 00:00:10,051 --> 00:00:14,361 and she answers that she wants to have super powers or just be big? 3 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 4 00:00:18,831 --> 00:00:21,841 I would probably answer that I'll be taller than my father 5 00:00:21,841 --> 00:00:24,061 have a lot of friends, walk alone in the city, 6 00:00:24,061 --> 00:00:28,721 be completely independent and have a long, long hair. 7 00:00:28,721 --> 00:00:32,762 I always had a lot of imagination and I always loved to read. 8 00:00:32,762 --> 00:00:35,382 Translating the letters into images and sound, 9 00:00:35,382 --> 00:00:37,752 though everything was religiously silent, 10 00:00:37,752 --> 00:00:43,542 was a way for a kid, human and muggle, to become special. 11 00:00:43,542 --> 00:00:45,467 All stories made me really believe that 12 00:00:45,467 --> 00:00:50,277 the material normal life wasn’t the only one and that magic existed. 13 00:00:50,277 --> 00:00:54,477 By a certain age I started to see black, 14 00:00:54,477 --> 00:00:57,227 my vision would start to get dark on the peripheral area, 15 00:00:57,227 --> 00:01:00,667 until everything became black and I would get a little dizzy, 16 00:01:00,667 --> 00:01:02,287 but my imagination was so fertile, 17 00:01:02,287 --> 00:01:05,287 that I thought it was something magical that was happening to me 18 00:01:05,287 --> 00:01:09,387 or that I was getting secret information from the universe. 19 00:01:09,387 --> 00:01:11,107 I always wanted to be special 20 00:01:11,107 --> 00:01:14,317 but while I was growing up I had to deal with the fact that 21 00:01:14,317 --> 00:01:17,447 the magic world was getting each day more distant from me. 22 00:01:17,447 --> 00:01:19,397 I would get inside the closet in my house 23 00:01:19,397 --> 00:01:22,557 and I thought that if I really forgot about the panel at the back, 24 00:01:22,557 --> 00:01:25,867 it would disintegrate and I would be able to reach Nárnia. 25 00:01:25,867 --> 00:01:29,767 But I didn't discover a magic wardrobe at 8, 26 00:01:29,767 --> 00:01:32,677 and I didn't receive my Hogwarts letter at 11, 27 00:01:32,677 --> 00:01:35,757 and a satyr didn't tell me I was a demigod by 12. 28 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. 29 00:01:42,717 --> 00:01:48,217 But, on the mean time, by the age of 13, 30 00:01:48,217 --> 00:01:50,697 I suddenly became someone special, 31 00:01:50,697 --> 00:01:54,637 though it really wasn’t the way I ask it for. 32 00:01:54,637 --> 00:01:57,902 Actually the universe wasn't giving me secret information, 33 00:01:57,902 --> 00:02:01,182 but it was dragging me into a black hole. 34 00:02:01,182 --> 00:02:06,532 By the day of September 23rd, of 2015, at 7:35 in the morning, 35 00:02:06,532 --> 00:02:09,481 I got late to my old school, as always, 36 00:02:09,481 --> 00:02:14,261 because the city bus took too much time to get to my house, as always. 37 00:02:14,261 --> 00:02:16,851 I walked in class and fell. 38 00:02:16,851 --> 00:02:20,091 In the middle of the class, in front of everyone. 39 00:02:20,091 --> 00:02:23,101 I didn’t see a backpack that was on the floor. 40 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. 41 00:02:27,861 --> 00:02:30,136 I couldn’t read. 42 00:02:30,136 --> 00:02:34,426 So I called my mom and later that day I went to the hospital, 43 00:02:34,426 --> 00:02:38,095 thinking about how cool it would be to have a nice pair of glasses. 44 00:02:38,095 --> 00:02:44,895 But I didn’t get them, I didn’t even leave the hospital that day. 45 00:02:44,895 --> 00:02:47,868 I was diagnosed with hydrocephalus, 46 00:02:47,868 --> 00:02:51,818 not a very creative word that means you have too much liquid in your brain, 47 00:02:51,818 --> 00:02:53,478 and I’ll tell you a spoiler, 48 00:02:53,478 --> 00:02:57,130 in my case it was because a glioma was formed in the passage 49 00:02:57,130 --> 00:02:59,470 between the first and third ventricle, 50 00:02:59,470 --> 00:03:01,260 on the base of my head. 51 00:03:01,260 --> 00:03:03,610 This wouldn’t let the liquid in my brain flow, 52 00:03:03,610 --> 00:03:06,170 it would get in and couldn’t leave, 53 00:03:06,170 --> 00:03:08,280 what made my intracranial pressure very high 54 00:03:08,280 --> 00:03:11,360 and it was damaging my optical nerves. 55 00:03:11,360 --> 00:03:14,080 But the doctors didn’t realize that. 56 00:03:14,080 --> 00:03:19,330 I underwent one surgery, then another, then another and another. 57 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, 58 00:03:23,584 --> 00:03:26,064 life would hit us and we would fall, 59 00:03:26,064 --> 00:03:27,634 and again and again. 60 00:03:27,634 --> 00:03:32,184 My world turned upside down and we were all anesthetized by the situation. 61 00:03:32,184 --> 00:03:36,254 My magic thoughts were suddenly replaced by a cascade of saints and entities, 62 00:03:36,254 --> 00:03:39,324 that were just as immaterial as my hope on Gandalf. 63 00:03:39,324 --> 00:03:43,534 The problem was that the doctor felt certain he knew what was wrong with me. 64 00:03:43,534 --> 00:03:46,884 But since my problem was caused by a completely different thing, 65 00:03:46,884 --> 00:03:48,364 too much liquid was drained 66 00:03:48,364 --> 00:03:51,624 so they transformed my problem from high intracranial pressure 67 00:03:51,624 --> 00:03:53,554 to extremely low pressure. 68 00:03:53,554 --> 00:03:58,104 In 8 months, I underwent 4 surgeries with this procedure 69 00:03:58,104 --> 00:04:02,704 and 3 other ones to try to fix the mess this doctor made. 70 00:04:02,704 --> 00:04:05,674 But the damage was done. 71 00:04:05,674 --> 00:04:08,494 Then I could finally come back to school, 72 00:04:08,494 --> 00:04:10,484 but I wasn’t the same anymore. 73 00:04:10,484 --> 00:04:15,344 Life continued for normal people and I had lost many of the classic events 74 00:04:15,344 --> 00:04:19,404 and teenage crisis which, honestly, I don’t miss. 75 00:04:21,545 --> 00:04:23,335 I basically spent one year sleeping, 76 00:04:23,335 --> 00:04:26,295 because since literature was taken away from me 77 00:04:26,295 --> 00:04:30,605 this was the only way to sink in another reality in the moment I most needed. 78 00:04:30,605 --> 00:04:34,278 But hey, I’m here today. 79 00:04:34,278 --> 00:04:39,048 There's a sentence that says: I fell in a hole, came out as a giant. 80 00:04:39,048 --> 00:04:40,545 That’s really how I feel, 81 00:04:40,545 --> 00:04:44,875 because every time something hard happens to you, there’s a force, 82 00:04:44,875 --> 00:04:47,621 even if it’s almost unnoticeable, 83 00:04:47,621 --> 00:04:49,821 that will bring you up again, 84 00:04:49,821 --> 00:04:52,944 and this time you will be much wiser. 85 00:04:52,944 --> 00:04:56,694 I can concentrate and have much more focus on one thing now. 86 00:04:56,694 --> 00:05:00,694 And eating, that's a completely different experience. 87 00:05:00,694 --> 00:05:02,864 Everytime I eat “bolinho de chuva” 88 00:05:02,864 --> 00:05:04,934 raindrop cakes 89 00:05:04,934 --> 00:05:08,954 I’m immediately transported to a good and safe place where there are clouds of sugar 90 00:05:08,954 --> 00:05:10,794 and cinnamon. 91 00:05:10,794 --> 00:05:13,504 And also, when I hear or play music 92 00:05:13,504 --> 00:05:17,504 that’s a way to escape from the difficulties I pass in my life. 93 00:05:17,504 --> 00:05:20,114 And now I can remember complete Bob Dylan’s lyrics, 94 00:05:20,114 --> 00:05:22,944 which is quite crazy. 95 00:05:22,944 --> 00:05:26,084 My imagination is more intense than ever 96 00:05:26,084 --> 00:05:29,514 because now I use it as one of the most important senses. 97 00:05:29,514 --> 00:05:32,651 It’s the one who allows me to build a completely new world 98 00:05:32,651 --> 00:05:36,290 based on what I have seen and on other sensorial channels. 99 00:05:36,290 --> 00:05:39,684 I have to use imagination as a creative and logical instrument 100 00:05:39,684 --> 00:05:44,894 to survive in this reality that relies too much on visual stimulation. 101 00:05:44,894 --> 00:05:50,074 And I can do that because there’s a difference between looking and seeing 102 00:05:50,074 --> 00:05:53,244 as there is between hearing and listening. 103 00:05:53,244 --> 00:05:58,694 Seeing and listening aren't about an accurate capacity of your senses, 104 00:05:58,694 --> 00:06:00,366 but they mean sensibility, 105 00:06:00,366 --> 00:06:03,416 to understand things and have empathy with others, 106 00:06:03,416 --> 00:06:07,176 so for this I think I can see better now than before. 107 00:06:07,176 --> 00:06:13,256 For an example, I can see you’re paying attention. 108 00:06:13,256 --> 00:06:19,276 In Greek mythology, the most famous seer, Tiresias, was blind, 109 00:06:19,276 --> 00:06:25,626 because he wasn’t fooled with the traps of appearance and the visual world, you see? 110 00:06:25,626 --> 00:06:28,946 I’m definitely not the 16 year old person I thought I would be, 111 00:06:28,946 --> 00:06:31,126 and I don’t have the life I thought I would, 112 00:06:31,126 --> 00:06:33,806 but if you ask me, would I want to go back in time 113 00:06:33,806 --> 00:06:35,986 and prevent this all from happening, 114 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. 115 00:06:39,616 --> 00:06:41,196 Thank you.