Monday, November 13, 2006

International humility...


LA is where it all happens. Every mind in the western world is effected by what goes on here, and you feel like a little bug buzzing around the city waiting to be squashed by a random onlooker.
Last night, while sitting in Starbucks with my friend, sipping our ginger green teas a woman comes up to us. We were both deep in conversation talking shop (Capoeira and training) and we didnt notice her aproaching. She goes: 'Hi guys! Can I ask you some questions?'
We: 'Sure, whats on your mind?' (Puzzled..)
She: 'Are you guys actors?'
We: 'Thats right, we are!' (full of shit and ourselfs)
She: 'I'm a casting director for this new TV show, and I have to ask you first how old are you guys?'
We: '31 and 26'
etc..etc...
One day in LA and you get a job offer. And its not for my good looks or acting skills... Just goes to show you: things are happening here if you are in the lookout for such things. 26 years in Israel, and never someone aproached me on the street with such a job offer, one day in LA, though...
(To be fair I have to say, someone aproached me once on the street in Tel Aviv and offered me to buy some fresh avocados..)
Anyways, I wanted to say a couple of words about humility. Humility is an international concept, although I can now clearly see that it is not the same everywhere. The thing is, we judge each other by our own humility standarts, while the other person in front of us works by a completely diffrent set of rules and values. Humility in the US (or at least LA, and YES I'm generalizing) is talking about your self, showing how small you are. The funny thing is: its still talking about yourself... As an Israely, it looks completely fake to me, although, it comes from a very real and sencire place. Israelies look at humility in a diffrent way: just shut up. Dont talk about yourself, although you have a lot to say. The funny thing is: we still think highly of ourselfs, we just dont say it... Brazilian humility is also diffrent: its about posture (round shoulders, making yourself smaller than you realy are, look at Angoleiros), and thinking of yourself in simple terms. Although they are the most macho country in the world, I think their humility is misunderstood by many.
We have a lot to learn from each other. Judging has its drawbacks, but judging is what made me think of all that I'm writing here. Well, enough babble.. I'm off to my morning training.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

i thought your perception of brasilian humility was interesting, especially since brasileiros are the most macho in the world and the brasileiras are the most vain (yes even surpassing the women of the USA).
while you mentioned how they make themselves smaller (ie angoleiros, which seem to be the minorities in the world of capoeira); i immediately thought the opposite... they are trying to make themselves bigger (ie the common contemporary capoeirista). almost every man has brick biceps and tree trunk legs. even in the most tightest, balled up cocarinha (an esquiva they don't even do)the guys would still be taller than me. ok so i'm only about 1.7m tall(on a good day and wearing shoes), but that's still crazy! with the rise and excessive use of Vitamin S in the last 2 decades it seems as if "humility" has become a little lost. i will stop at that point, not wanting to start any drama.
But then again, this might be what you are talking about when you said that they are misunderstood.
hey prof, what was that noise? did you hear that? it sounded like the U.S. was calling you to come over. ok let me stop there too. sorry i couldn't help it, i saw an openning and i had to take it!
obrigado
corujao

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