The greatness of small things | Julio Chang | TEDxAmazonia

Julio Villanueva Chang, is a Peruvian journalist who decided to create a sophisticated, intelligent and independent magazine "the Black Label", which grew to be admired by writers worldwide.

Good morning.

Listenberg, the great German scientist,

said that man has 62 different ways
of supporting the head.

I wonder why the skull is so heavy?

Why do we always relate
the act of thinking,

to the image of Rodin's "Thinker,"

this bronze sculpture
of a man in deep meditation?

That's why I ask myself,
why do we believe

that the act of thinking
is a sad and dismal action?

Can't it be a lighter
and a more joyful one?

This is my first question.

Einstein had a somehow
comforting and ironic quote,

on how he had only two original ideas
all his life.

Facebook posed
a similar question last year,

"What are you doing?"

sort of an action-oriented question,

but at the end of the same year
they decided on a more philosophical one,

"What's on your mind?"

The answers are right there;
posted on your walls.

We are almost always thinking
about silly things,

something unworthy to be shared.

So, my next question is,

aren't we thinking in a very staid
and uncreative way

about Amazon's serious problems?

Haven't we dedicated too much time
to finding a way

to remind people what's important to us?

That's what editors and writers do,
create memory.

What I and a worldwide group
are trying to do

using "The Black Label" magazine
and the articles I write

is to create a memory,

so that what matters to me
can concern others too.

That's what I aim at.

How can I make people
uninterested in Amazon

care about it?

How can I make residents
of Vila Madalena

care about the Amazon?

To make this happen,

what I do is write,

and look for people
who can tell stories.

Here are some of them.

"The woman who arrived
the following day"

is a Zoe Koplowitz's story.

We sent the journalist Sergio Vilela
to cover the New York Marathon,

but we didn't want something

about the repeated victories
of Ethiopians and Kenyans.

We'd wait for the last runner instead,

who turned out to be Zoe Koplowitz.

Besides the fact that Zoe
won none of the marathons

she participated in,

she also succeeded in always being
the last one

to get at the finish line.

She turned the word "last"
into an issue of pride,

she was almost proud
to be the last one to get there.

Amidst all this
driving popular winning culture

her view was focused
on avoiding the tedium of winning.

She simply reinvented
the meaning of the word "lose."

She added charisma to it.

Sergio Vilela has been already waiting
for 7 hours at the finish line,

when he sees a man in a turban,

looking like a centenarian,

but happy because he made it.

Vilela asked
an Associated press photographer

near him if that was the last participant.

He answered no,

the last one would finish tomorrow.

And 29 hours later
she crossed the finish line.

Zoe Koplowitz has been running

since she was saved
by a vitamin C tablet.

She almost died

of multiple sclerosis complications

but saved only by taking

a vitamin C tablet.

She promised herself she'd do something

beyond her capability

and since then, with the help of crutches,

she attends every marathon in New York.

That's one of our stories.

The other one is about Messi,

the top scorer who fires us up
and then goes to sleep.

What else is left to say
about an overexposed person

who we think
we already know everything about?

And how to make people read this story,

especially if they aren't soccer fans?

The obvious answer is
by searching for small details.

Thus, Leonardo Faccio arranged

a 15-minute interview with Messi,

after 9 months of waiting.

15 minutes indeed
after 9 months of waiting.

During the interview,

Leonardo found out in that interview

that Messi, when he is not playing ball

he likes to take a nap best.

And it's not a regular 30-minute nap,

but a longer, two, three-hour one.

If we do the math, it turns out
that besides playing brilliantly,

he spends a great deal
of the afternoon sleeping.

There must be a reason,

and I believe it's because nobody
gets bored while sleeping.

This is a hard fact.

No one wakes up all of a sudden
and says,

"What a boring dream!"

So, he feels great when he's playing ball

but whe he isn't, he doesn't know
what to do and gets bored.

And this is humanity's big problem.

What to do not to get bored?

We know the answer now from Messi.

The only way for him not to get bored

since he was a little child
and injected growth hormons,

was to rest and allow cells to regenerate.

And he kept that custom
even as an adult,

and that's why after he entertains us
he goes to sleep.

The next story is about the Inca Empire.

The only two soft drinks

that de-throned Coca Cola
in their own country

were "Guarana" and "Inca Kola".

We have something in common, don't we?

It's the story of how a urine-colored
and gum-flavored drink

defeated the arrogant black queen.

That was our point of view.

Instead of covering it
as a business story,

we turned it into a taste-related story

to explain why "Inca Kola"
came out as a favorite

only in Tahuantinsuyo,

and couldn't be exported.

The reason was a simple one.

Peruvian food flavors are extreme,

and very little convincing.

We tell all foreigners, or they believe

we only know "ceviche,"

but it's more than that.

A similar story was the ketchup enigma,
covered by Malcolm Gladwell.

Malcolm studies reasons
rather than people.

He wondered on the reasons
why mustard changed over time,

and ketchup didn't.

He looked into the reasons

why people, driven by their taste,

never want to change their ketchup brand.

"The Russian who never returned
from Machu Picchu"

is a story we read from a news agency

about a Russian tourist who had died

struck by lightning in Machu Picchu.

It was like a tale.

First of all, how many
Russian tourists are there?

Second, how many people
did die struck by lightning?

And third,

how many people really die in places

such as the Egyptian Pyramids
or Machu Picchu?

Also, who dies on vacation?

But this man died at Machu Pichu.

It's an amazing story,

because the press tried to make us belive,

and the man's relatives as well,

that the man was carbonized.

When the man's remains were returned,

his family didn't want
to open up the coffin,

because they believed he was all burnt up,
and didn't want to see him,

when in fact, he died,

- and this was discovered later -

when lightning struck the ground

and the expansive wave

threw the man against the floor

causing him severe blow to the head.

That was the real cause of death.

This is a story about Joe Loya.

Robbing banks is a sexy bussiness,

especially when nobody gets hurt.

Joe Loya robbed almost one bank
per week during one year.

Then he took on a new personality,

of a man with a bank account,

who pays taxes and writes books,

one of which is a self-help book.

We sent a writer to interview Joe Loya

on the Hollywood's bank robbery goofs
and bloopers.

As a master bank robber,
arrested once or twice,

who, after serving time,
redeemed himself,

told us how to rob a bank

and what are the film industry's
mistakes and virtues.

This is what we keep doing.

And to end, this is a story I've written,

and it's titled "Garcia Marquez
goes to the dentist."

Since Garcia Marquez
never gave interviews,

the only way to approach
or get to know him

was to try to do it indirectly.

While looking for a way to meet him,
what I found instead was his dentist.

The incredible part was
that I called the dentist,

asked him if he could see me
and he said yes.

I believe he made a mistake
in receiving me,

because he divulged me things

protected by professional secrecy;

nonetheless, they all were
great compliments to Garcia Marquez.

It's about how Garcia Marquez
agrees to be

the dentist son's godfather

as they had been friends for 7 years.

This gesture reveals the greatness
of a Nobel prize winner

who doesn't like interviews.

This story isn't actually an anecdote,
or a prank story,

but the secret story of a smile.

A scientist once said

that already during the first 10 minutes
of a first encounter,

we usually tell 3 or 4 lies.

I hope that during my 10-minute talk

I didn't tell any.

Thank you.

(Applause)