Recycling and the power of ignorance

In my green agenda I listed my second  item through which I could contribute to a better world, for a world more environmentally tolerable. My item 2 says only: agenda printed on recycled paper. What I mean by that?

My green agenda, as paradoxical as it seems, is not made with recycled paper. So that was my first idea. I should think of the trees, in nature, on air quality. I thought my next diaries, notebooks, paper should be made with recycled paper. So I would save the world from destruction.

Does this make sense? Does. If I spend the rest of my life using paper made ​​from other recycled paper, I will spare many trees, which will remain alive oxygenating the planet.


But why only recycle paper? Why not recycle all that I am able to consume, and it is possible to be recycled?

Recycling is a great idea. She is a great idea because it refers to a natural process that is already running by nature since a billion years. In nature, recycling matches the buzzword of Lavoisier, that nothing is created, nothing is lost, everything is transformed.

But look! Pay attention!

Who was Lavoisier?



He, see Wikipedia, is considered the father of modern chemistry. It was he who coined the buzzword of "nothing is created ...". However, only did so after much study. Now, many buzzwords are coined by countless people, with or without much study. So what's the merit of Lavoisier?

His merit is that his buzzword was correct. Today, with over two hundred years of research in chemistry and physics and other sciences of nature, his statement remains as an unquestionable truth. So what can we say of Lavoisier? That was a lucky person? That was a genius?

Well, here's what Wikipedia says:

Joseph-Louis Lagrange, an important mathematician, a contemporary of Lavoisier said: "A century will not suffice to produce a head equal to that brought down in a second."

Lagrange was and still is considered a genius. So we have a genius talking about another.

But look better. Lagrange states that Lavoisier was a genius of those who come around once every century or more. Mankind has to wait ages to get a head that can be made to fall in one second.

Why Lagrange said that?

Because in fact the head of Lavoisier fell into a second, guillotined during the French Revolution. Let's see what Wikipedia says:

He (Lavoisier) lived at the time they began the French Revolution, when the Third Estate (peasants, burghers and merchants) would take the power of France.

He was killed by it, because it was so poorly regarded by the people, who thought that, being of a noble family, Lavoisier, also participated in the corrupt system full of taxes on society.

He was beheaded after a summary trial on May 8, 1794.

Then, Lagrange was right. Just one second of ignorance by losing centuries of work from the nature and  decades of tireless and genial human effort.

I'm condemning the French Revolution? No.

But I'm making a connection between this text and the previous one, which I quote disbelief in humanity, quoted by João Ubaldo Ribeiro.

"The dog bites the hand that feeds him," the saying goes. How is it possible to feed hopes in a  humanity that plow their best heads?

If so, have hope in humanity is an exercise in faith.

But look a little more! This saying, "Dog bites the hand that feeds him," I know a popular saying, but from where? From what mouth it was delivered? From which culture emerged? I do not know, but I went on Google.

Try it you too. It is a thankless task. But if you're smart, you will read another, as instructive as this. You will read, as a comedy, that "the noblest of dogs is the hot dog: it feeds the hand that bites."

It seems a joke, but it is not.

So, we do not fear the collapse of the planet due to lack of paper. We can always resort to recycling, this clever mechanism that allows us to use something ad infinitum. And do not worry, because Lavoisier taught us that nothing is lost. You may want more and more with your consumerist impulse, because as much as you want, will not be able to consume all that is offered, because the universe is greater than your greed. See! There are more stars in the sky than grains of sand on Earth! Farte yourself, because we can recycle!

And do not bite the hand that feeds you: always praise Lavoisier, our genius that, more nobly than just a hot dog, fed us with his wisdom, though he had to pay with his head and his life for the opportunity to serve the  ignorant mob.

The power of ignorance scares me, but then again maybe Lavoisier is the answer: a day, who knows, over the next centuries, because geniuses are rare and time-consuming things, a genius who will examine the nature of ignorance and be able to recycle human minds. And then, become ignorant in nobles, and some light will shine for humanity in the millennia to come.

For now, defend yourself!

Beware the guillotine! It is much more dangerous and imminent that the lack of oxygen and trees for our dear agendas.

Beware the power of ignorance.