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Good evening.

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My name is Alexandre Medeiros,

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I'm 36 years old,

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and one thing I've been[br]questioning myself about recently

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is "What am I doing here?"

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It's neither rhetorical nor philosophical,

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it's what am I doing[br]here at TEDx right now?

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I've watched every talk,

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and I'm honored by the presence[br]of each of you in my life now.

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And I've been thinking.

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Human beings have this ability -

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when they don't know an answer,[br]they create or discover it.

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And I've created my answer[br]to this question.

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I'm here to meet the quota[br]of normal people.

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Every person I've watched today[br]is awesome, magnificent.

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I'm the normal guy in the story.

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There's a bright side to this -

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you can identify with me,[br]at least 99% of you.

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I didn't study the data.

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(Laughter)

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But I believe that 99% of people[br]think themselves normal,

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so I think you guys[br]will identify with a normal guy.

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This ability to create an answer

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is exactly what I think [br]is most interesting in people.

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This ability to rationalize,[br]hierarchize, organize,

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create a speech,[br]create a text, and research

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is the most fascinating thing,[br]the most interesting gift we have.

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I believe it to be a divine gift,

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and even people who have no religion[br]can't stop believing it's a gift.

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Perhaps, it's not divine, but it's a gift.

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I had an interesting experience

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when I took care of an aunt of mine[br]in her last months of life,

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during her cancer treatment,

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which, unfortunately, took her life.

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She was an amazing, magnificent, smart,[br]brilliant, quick-thinking person -

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you know, one of those[br]interesting types of people.

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During a certain stage[br]of her treatment, she lost all of this.

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She no longer had any type of reaction.

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She couldn't talk, she couldn't reason.

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It was then that I realized[br]that my aunt was gone.

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Her soul had gone away.

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Her biological death[br]was only confirmed days later,

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but, the way I see it,[br]she had passed away at that moment.

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So, I prayed to God to never let me[br]go through something like that

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because the most interesting[br]things that I have

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are my intelligence, my reasoning,[br]and my ability to create and transform.

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I suffered an accident when I was 23.

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I was a military police officer[br]with the Special Forces battalion,

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and in a street operation,[br]I was hit by a 12-gauge shotgun shell,

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which resulted in my leg amputation.

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From that moment on,

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I found that I needed to be twice[br]as clever as I was before.

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What I just did,

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moving myself from where[br]I was sitting to the stage,

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required me to reason[br]through each movement.

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When you think of getting up[br]at night to use the bathroom,

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you just get up and go.

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I have to get up and remember

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that when I take the weight[br]off my right leg,

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my prosthesis will bend.

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I have to control the movement,

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and I can only put my weight on it again[br]when I put my foot on the floor.

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If I don't do it the correct way,[br]it will bend backward,

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and I'll fall, like I did[br]this week on the motorcycle

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when I tried to put my weight[br]on my leg while it was bent.

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So over time,

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I had to work on a characteristic[br]that I didn't have before,

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which was to always anticipate everything.

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For a long time, I drove a car [br]with no adaptation whatsoever,

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and my way of driving[br]was to anticipate every move.

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I had to watch the traffic much more,

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I had to predict when to stop,[br]and the moment to disengage the clutch

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because if I didn't, the car[br]would stall when I braked

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and give that little shudder.

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So I'd get back into gear[br]and drive off normally.

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This is a human capacity,[br]and it doesn't make me more special.

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After my accident, I had two options:

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one was to lie around,[br]wait for my retirement,

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receive a tiny monthly allowance,[br]and just live my life,

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enjoying depression or whatever.

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The other was to continue my life.

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I chose to continue[br]out of sheer stubbornness

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and because I look horrible crying.

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(Laughter)

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Seriously, I look horrible,[br]with my huge nose.

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(Laughter)

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So, in that context,[br]bodybuilding entered my life,

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although much later.

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I was invited by a coach[br]to participate in a championship.

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We worked on this.

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I thought bodybuilding was silly.

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I found it strange -

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a pumped-up guy in swim trunks[br]doing poses for a lot of people.

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That's why I chose[br]not to show any slides here

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because it'd be weird showing me[br]in swim trunks to you all.

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(Laughter)

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This invitation represented[br]a paradigm shift.

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Bodybuilding is an[br]extremely aesthetic sport.

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You have to be good-looking,[br]your body has to be in good shape.

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And to achieve that as an amputee[br]is a paradigm shift,

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internally as well.

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I spent a lot of time, as Jessica said,

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denying it to myself, hiding,[br]wearing jeans all the time,

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disguising my walk as best I could[br]so people wouldn't notice.

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And I'd feel proud when people said,[br]"Wow, you can't even tell."

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And then, there I was in swim trunks.

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They're not even normal swim trunks.

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They're ... horrible.

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(Laughter)

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Exposed to thousands of people,[br]including videos or whatever.

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And I found out that I was[br]the first amputee bodybuilder in Brazil.

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I found that really weird.

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But actually, that isn't really[br]what I want to talk about.

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That's all in the past.

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Bodybuilding and everything[br]I've just told you

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is just a metaphor for my life story.

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I believe we all have this amazing,[br]transformative, and creative power.

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Today, I've seen brilliant examples here.

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As I said, I'm amazed and honored[br]to be with all these interesting people.

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And the truth is that everyone here[br]has this same potential.

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I think we sometimes stop using[br]this potential out of convenience,

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or sometimes, our daily routine kills it,

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and we let things go by.

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I tried to tape and memorize[br]countless versions of this talk,

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thinking this would be the best way.

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I even sent some to the production team.

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In one of them, I was driving.

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Can you believe it?[br]Driving while recording the talk!

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A guy cut me off,[br]and I felt that terrible fury

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that I think everyone here[br]has experienced in traffic ...

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an urge to hit the guy.

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He cut me off, and I braked[br]to avoid a collision.

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He swerved in front of me,[br]then to the left,

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went into the deceleration lane,

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and drove off.

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I realized that the moment I braked,

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I had kept his path free, my path free,[br]and had let the traffic flow,

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so everyone could continue their journey.

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Then I realized that having[br]an ignorant attitude

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just makes me more ignorant.

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Braking, on the other hand,[br]and waiting for the person to pass

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makes you a better person.

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Maybe it's a matter of humility,[br]something we often forget.

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Some values have been so forgotten,

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having changed so much [br]from place to place.

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Sometimes we see humility as submission.

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But the way I see it,[br]humility is what makes you greater.

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I have the habit of thinking[br]about everything as movement,

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and how to optimize[br]and hierarchize what I'll do.

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I usually have breakfast at a bakery.

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During its busiest times,[br]people leave the cups in a terrible mess.

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Not content with tidying up[br]my table to have breakfast,

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I decided to tidy up the tables[br]beside me every day.

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People are busy.

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There's a Chinese proverb that says[br]that a man crossing a river

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ceases to be the same man,

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just as the river[br]is no longer the same river.

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And I believe it.

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I believe my life isn't in vain.

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I believe I have the power to transform.

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And even if I don't open[br]a big company or an NGO,

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even if I don't go out of here and take in[br]all the abandoned animals on the street,

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I can cause great revolutions[br]with small gestures.

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So my perspective of life is very simple:

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I believe that when entering a place,

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I should leave it in better shape[br]than when I found it.

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It's basic, it's simple,[br]it's not dropping paper on the street.

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It's silly things.[br]As I said, it's normal stuff.

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I'm not asking or proposing[br]anything extraordinary,

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as we saw here of people[br]using paper and soil in construction,

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transforming chemistry and physics.

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A teacher who can transform calculus[br]into something acceptable.

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I don't know calculus, I really don't.

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(Laughter)

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How does he do it?

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I'm a humanities teacher;[br]history is simple to teach.

0:10:06.443,0:10:10.696
But to make calculus interesting[br]is worthy of congratulations.

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(Laughter)

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To summarize a little of all this.

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I was about 12 or 13 years old

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when I started to get involved in music,[br]and I couldn't tune my guitar.

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There was an alcoholic who lived near me.

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He had a home,

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but was basically living on the street

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because he'd drink[br]and lie sprawled on the ground.

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He was one of these characters[br]that everyone has in their childhood.

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And I'd ask him to tune my guitar.

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We'd play some songs,

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and, from this, we formed[br]a great friendship.

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So many times, I'd take João -

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unforgettable João,[br]who's no longer with us -

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and escort him safely home[br]when he was drunk.

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When I had my accident,[br]he couldn't visit me.

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He was already quite debilitated,

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dirty, stinky.

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They didn't let him inside the hospital.

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We only saw each other when I got home.

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I was still debilitated,[br]using a wheelchair.

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I wasn't using a prosthesis yet.

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He came to me in tears

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and said something[br]that I want to leave with you.

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He turned to me and said,

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"Son, those who can't run learn to fly."

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So I believe this is what[br]I try to make of my life,

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every day upon waking up.

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My only enemy in this illusory[br]competitiveness of our daily lives

0:11:33.868,0:11:36.369
is myself, past and present.

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I want to be better than yesterday,[br]and tomorrow I'll be better than today.

0:11:40.332,0:11:42.600
And I'd like us to try this.

0:11:42.600,0:11:45.839
Because the best father,[br]the best son, the best neighbor

0:11:45.839,0:11:48.271
is a multiplying element[br]of something good,

0:11:48.271,0:11:50.104
and society needs this.

0:11:51.394,0:11:53.716
This has been an honor.

0:11:54.016,0:11:56.226
Thank you very much.

0:11:56.226,0:11:57.239
Goodnight.

0:11:57.239,0:11:59.012
(Applause)

0:11:59.012,0:12:00.720
(Cheers)