What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger

Why do you think Rita says 'it makes me stronger coming here'?

As Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton said "the pen is mighter than the sword". I believe that knowledge is "power", knowledge not only opens your senses and helps you to see and discover things, but it also gives you a kind of power, which nobody can steal from you.

Rita is immersed in an emvironment where life is very simple. Her duty is to work and spend time with her husband and friends, that's all. She is inside a vicious circle.
People are there to live, not think about life or anything. The fact that Rita wants to learn will help her to change her environment (if she wants) will help her to think about other realities, even when the people around her don't like the idea that she can change her way of thinking, living (and maybe leave them).
Learning opens people's minds, learning empowers people. Knowledge makes people feel stronger (other people cannot deceive them).

I think this situation is repeated many times in the entire world. Just as an example, George Orwell's "Animal Farm" just crossed from my mind, where ignorant animals are deceived and controlled by those who knows a little more. They are deceived because they cannot read.

What I learn from you about art an' literature, it feeds me, inside. I can get through the rest of the week if I know I've got comin' here to look forward to.
Denny tried to top me comin' tonight. he tried to get me to go out to the pub with him an' his mates. (...) They hate it when one of them tries to break away. It makes me stronger comin' here. That's what Denny's frightened of.

The Proper Classroom for Proper Students...

What does she think about Frank's room and about the proper students?


I think Rita is a very good observer. From the very beginning she is walking around and meticulously exploring Frank's room. She considers the room to be tasteful, with everything in the right place, and at the same time a mess. A perfect mess. I think everybody has its own mess. I have my own mess. The thing is be able to deal with that mess. As Rita says everything fits in its place. I think it has to do with lifestyles, we cannot experience something without using it. We cannot live without doing and experiencing everything we want to do, and sometimes that way of living results in a mess. A mess we can understand, our own mess. Another thing to highlight is that 'There's nothing phoney about it' (the room). The room represents all Frank's knowledge his life experiences, his likes, and everything is true, because its part of his life.
As for proper students, I think Rita missed the first chance to be a proper student herself. Being a proper student was harder than being just a 'normal' girl. You have to study, you have to work hard, it is boring, your mates don't forgive you if you became a proper student. So Rita chose the easy way.

'Possessing a hungry mind is not, in itself, a guarantee of success.'

Why does Rita want to study?

The answer is easy: She wants to know.

And now the question would be... Know what for?

When we are young we don't want to study, and many times we don't know why we "have" to study. We are sent to school by our parents (in the best case). But as we are so young (sometimes) we cannot see the utility of what we are learning (long term usage).

But in the case of Rita, she is already a grown up and she wants to study at the university. Study at the university... what for?
What for are we studying at universities (or terteary levels)?
We may have different answers, different goals, different interests, but in the end we're all learning. Some of us may want their degree, some others polish their English, some of us may study just for fun. Study for fun?

I think this is the beginning of all. When we start discovering that learning can be fun, that we can use our knowledge, and that we are open to new things that we didn't appreciate before (just because of ignorance, or not understanding).
Knowledge let us understand new things, or discover new things that we weren't able to see before. Knowledge opens our mind to new worlds, and that in my opinion, is what Rita wants.

"Because I wanna know Everything" = ) * (= "I'll have to learn about it all..."

"... y' sit (...) watchin' the ballet or the opera on the telly an' - an' y' call it rubbish cos that's what it looks like? Cos y' don't understand. So y' switch it off an' saym that's fuckin' rubbish."

"(...) But I don't want to. I wanna see."

Final Post

And ten years later...

The New Millenium brougth hopes and worries... but nothing new in its essence.
Life is quite cyclical, everything happend again and again in different or similar ways. The point is how can we avoid repeting the events that were not so good. Avoid doing or repeting the mistakes from the past. How can we plan our future, how can we make a better future...

As human beings we are part of the flock. We are surrounded by our peers, those who are similar to us and reflect us. But as soon as somebody different appears... BOOM! Discrimination! Segregation!
We are all immigrants in the Earth, and we will be here for a while (life is not so long) so, treat the mankind the way you like to be treated. Be hospitable and kind. Treat the Earth as if it were your home, because it belongs to you and to your inheritors and the rest of us.

Just trust yourself and trust on you peers. Give the best of you... and we all gonna get a better world, but we need to be together!

Si diez años después te vuelvo a encontrar en algún lugar,
no te olvides que soy distinto de aquél pero casi igual. (...)

Aquello fue un gran punto de partida,
pero a la vez qué fácil se olvida.
Diez años después quién puede volver atrás.
Estamos en la tierra cuatro días
y el cielo no me ofrece garantías:
diez años después mejor volver a empezar.

Si tu credulidad se deterioró en algún lugar,
no te olvides que soy testigo casual de tu soledad.

Si diez años después no estamos igual, qué le vas a hacer.
Otros diez años más y luego, empezar juntos otra vez.

(...)Diez años después el tiempo empieza a pesar.
(...)Diez años después mejor reír que llorar.

(...)Hoy, diez años después, todo sigue igual, nunca te llegó.

Dentro del corazón, al día de hoy, no queda lugar.
Si perdí la razón, no fue por amor, fue por soledad.

La vida es una gran sala de espera,
la otra es una caja de madera.
Diez años después mejor dormir que soñar.
No se puede vivir de otra manera,
porque si no la gente ni se entera.
Diez años después quién puede volver atrás.

Diez años después, mejor decir que callar.

Los Rodriguez

Life.... What for?

What can I do with my life? What should we do with our lives? How can I know the meaning of life? Has it got any meaning? Is life worthy of being lived? Are there something after death?or it's just death and that's it?

When we are born we are given something unique and invaluable: LIFE

We don't learn how valuable are our lives till we get older or we loose a beloved somebody, even then we cannot estimate the valuable gift we have in our hands.

We have very little time to be here (in life) and learn how to live. We make many mistakes, sometimes when we get olders with our white hairs we whisper 'if I could be young again...' and tend to advise those young people who seem to be wasting their time and lives...

Our duty in life is live it and find or make up the purpose for our life.
Life has meaning, we are here as the result of love (in the best of the situations) and to do something.

Life is not a game, we cannot repeat moves and generally we cannot correct certain movemetns. Anyway we are given a lot of different opportunities. What we need first of all is to know what is that that we want, think how to get there and reflect on what we are doing.
We are going to make a lot of mistakes, we are human beings and is part of our nature, but we can learn to avoid them or find new ways and possibilities.

Life is not an exact science, where we always get the same results.
'The good life' is not something general, and it's not manufactured in mass production. Each of us must create our own 'good life' according to our likes, uniqueness, irrepetible, individual and fragile.

INTENTA NO OCUPAR TU VIDA EN ODIAR Y TENER MIEDO.

Ethics and politics: Spot the difference

Ethics has to do with choosing the best options and living the best possible way. Ethics has to do with our own freedom and how we deal with it. Ethics helps us to want the good things of life. It has to do with improving ourselves, wanting to be or become better human beings. Ethics helps to answer: How do I want to be?

The aim of poilitics is to organize the social affairs in order to let each member of the society to choose what is convenient or good for them.
Politics trys to coordinate what the whole does with its freedom in order to be beneficial for all.
In politics the results of the actions taken are important, no matter what for.
Politics' aim is that the majority of the whole work in armony.

From ethics... The ideal political organization:

a) It has to start from freedom, and it has to respect social freedom. It also has to regulate the social resposibilities.

b) It has to treat and consider the people as human kinds!
That's be able to stand on their shoes. Justice.

c) To be on other's shoes has to do with recognize them as equals and their dignity. It has to assist those who suffer within the society.


FREEDOM, JUSTICE and ASSISTANCE are the three fundamental pillars for an ethical and political organization.

The fragmentation of the world do nothing but hold up the possible solutions.

The break of the armony and balance caused by the selfish self-interests of the man make the situation worst, and blind them at the extreme of not knowing when to stop, where's the limit.

"Sólo cuando el último árbol esté muerto,
el último río envenenado,
y el último pez atrapado,
nos daremos cuenta
que no se puede comer dinero"