Santas e Doidas - Martha Medeiros

Martha Medeiros is a fresh burst of ideas, inspiration and plain good thinking on all the most varied topics ever. In this book of hers she recommends many good books and movies and adds her own personal opinion on each one of them. She also borders on the topics of womanhood, sex, loneliness, being adventuresome, plain bad sense and bad taste, how too much certainty is insanity,  rotten Brazilian politics and politicians, motherhood, passion, betrayal, the price and what certain things in our lives are worth and of course she couldn't not speak about life, death and the meaning of it all. In this book I discovered that we share the same admiration and interest for Irvin D. Yalom's psychiatric books. 
In one of her "short stories" she quotes Dr. Yalom where he says (in one of his many books) that there are four things in life that are certain:
1) Death is the only thing we are sure of in life yet it is what hits us most unexpectedly
2.) Our loneliness is never ending. We all arrived here on Earth alone and alone we will always be.
3.)
4.) Life is pointless.


If you think about it that pretty resumes all about life there is to know. Yet Martha knows how to put it so simply written on a piece of paper and make you think, ponder and act on all the crazy ideas that go inside your head that come from those few pages of this book of hers.
Another topic she hits upon is how there are no sane or insane women (here she focuses especially on women but I believe it applies to us all). There are only insane women or dried and dead women who once used to be insane as well but out of lack of luck, love or lust (or all three) they have dried up and cornered themselves to their own little spaces refusing to let their crazyness come out once again for fear of having to suffer, cry, breakdown and feel all the feelings that come together with living and being alive. In the end we all have only two choices: either to cool away and shut down all and any that might make us hurt and suffer - yet these same people are also the ones that might make us love and laugh - or be open to it all: the joy, pain, madness, dance, sorrow, loneliness, fulfillment, passion, betrayal, anger, happiness, astonishment, surprise, love. It is all just a choice of which madness you prefer. And in the end it is pretty clear that sanity is the worst insanity.


Just for the sake of change this once I won't be posting a book review on this book but yes Martha Medeiro's original text which gave name to this fantastic book!

Toda mulher é doida. Impossível não ser. A gente nasce com um dispositivo interno que nos informa desde cedo que, sem amor, a vida não vale a pena ser vivida, e dá-lhe usar o nosso poder de sedução para encontrar the big one, aquele que será inteligente, másculo, se importará com nossos sentimentos e não nos deixará na mão jamais. Uma tarefa que dá prá ocupar uma vida, não é mesmo? Mas além disso, temos que ser independentes, bonitas, ter filhos e fingir de vez em quando que somos santas, ajuizadas, responsáveis, e que nunca, mas nunca, pensaremos em jogar tudo pro alto e embarcar num navio pirata comandado pelo Johnny Depp, ou então virar loura e cafetina, ou sei lá, diga aí uma fantasia secreta, sua imaginação deve ser melhor que a minha.
Eu só conheço mulher louca. Pense em qualquer uma que você conhece e me diga se ela não tem ao menos três dessas qualificações: exagerada, dramática, verborrágica, maníaca, fantasiosa, apaixonada, delirante. Pois então. Também é louca. E fascina a todos.
Nossa insanidade tem nome: chama-se Vontade de Viver até a Última Gota.
Só as cansadas é que se recusam a levantar da cadeira para ver quem está chamando lá fora. E santa, fica combinado, não existe. Uma mulher que só reze, que tenha desistido dos prazeres da inquietude, que não deseje mais nada? Você vai concordar comigo: só se for louca de pedra.

Martha Medeiros