# 3

I am not feeling comfortable here.

Charles Dickens - Great Expectations - Chapter fourteen

As the time passes, Pip becomes an adolescent. He hates having to work with Joe and is always worried about what Estella would think if he was caught working on Joe's forge.

"What I dreaded was, that in some unlucky hour I, being at my grimiest and commonest, should lift up my eyes and see Estella looking in at one of the wooden windows of the forge. I was haunted by the fear that she would, sooner or later, find me out, with a black face and hands, doing the coarsest part of my work, and would exult over me and despise me."

However, he never said anything about this feeling for Joe.

"I am glad to know that I never breathed a murmur to Joe while my indentures lasted. It is about the only thing I am glad to know of myself in that connection."

Chapter 14 confirms that all of his past beliefs are falling apart.

"Home had never been a very pleasant place to me, because of my sister’s temper. But, Joe had sanctified it, and I had believed in it. I had believed in the best parlor as a most elegant saloon; I had believed in the front door, as a mysterious portal of the Temple of State whose solemn opening was attended with a sacrifice of roast fowls; I had believed in the kitchen as a chaste though not magnificent apartment; I had believed in the forge as the glowing road to manhood and independence. Within a single year, all this was changed. Now, it was all coarse and common, and I would not have had Miss Havisham and Estella see it on any account"

See you on chapter fifteen.

Charles Dickens - Great Expectations - Chapter thirteen

As she had demanded in chapter 12, Joe goes with Pip meet Ms. Havisham. It's the first time, since the beginning of the book, that Pip starts mocking and diminishing Joe. So far, Joe was some kind of role model for him, his best friend, and someone that he could always consider. During all the chapter, Pip speaks about Joe's clothes, his manners, his life, and perspectives with disdain.

With Joe and Pip, Ms. Joe heads to the town. There, she stays at Mr. Pumblechook's house, awaiting they come back from the meeting.
Estella welcomes Joe and Pip at the gate and leads them to Ms. Havisham. All them, in the end, agree with the new function for Pip, apprenticeship.

Pip is worried about what Estella would be thinking about him and Joe. He seems ashamed of his family and his background. Joe and Pip leave Ms. Havisham's house and go back to Ms. Joe.
Arriving there, Pip shows your deeply bad feelings about Mr. Pumblechook and his actions. Also, Pip is surly and angry, keenly disappointed by this turn in his life.

"Finally, I remember that when I got into my little bedroom I was truly wretched, and had a strong conviction on me that I should never like Joe’s trade. I had liked it once, but once was not now"

See you on chapter fourteen.

#2

You are on the bus and you see an ant “walking” on somebody’s shoulder. What should you do? 

#1

It seems that everything is falling apart. 

My 40's and JM

John Mayer - Curitiba October 2017

April 7th, 2017, I turned a 40 years old man. I thought that I was ready for it, but in fact, I wasn't. I had imagined that becoming 40, all the theater's curtains would open. The sea would open for my walk. It didn't happen. It was like some sort of fog had blinded me. Things became unclear. The doubt started to be my best friend.

As I am the kind of person who is always questioning myself and everything that surrounds me, I set as being my goal, find a way to get rid of that situation. Every single day I spent hours wondering about it.

Six months later, I was quite better but far from entirely well. Thus, my wife invited me to a John Mayer's concert in another city. That involved a lot of planning because our baby was going to travel with us. One of our relatives who lived in the city, would provide everything necessary for the baby well being. Nevertheless, a dozen of doubts were surrounding my mind.

I must say that I wasn't in the mood to attend the concert. Whereas, my wife was super excited. She always loved John Mayer. When John Mayer opened the show I began to think how much time I'd wasted since April. Music after music, things started to becoming clear to me. What was the trigger?

I believe that was the fact that we are the same age, 40. He turned 40 in the beginning of October. Also, both of us admire good music (he produces it) and guitars. We have the same influences (Eric Clapton, BB King, blues, etc). Finally, we have a bunch of people who love us, but in the same way a bunch of people who hate us, just by the fact that we are idealistic.

Okay, but the turning point was that maybe the concert would be his 50th in 2017, not considering his entire career, but he was playing it as if it was his first. I could feel that! He was delivering his soul, all of his heart to the crowd. Why?

Because he was doing what he loves, what he was born for. He was being a professional, but more than that, he was being him, natural, unique. He wasn't there just by the "paycheck" or just to follow the agenda. He was using the gift that God gave to him.

Another "Me" left the concert. Apart from the great music that I listened there, I got something that have been helping me since then.

Some lessons that I learned

• Find the balance between fighting every day and living;

• Do your job with excellence; 

• If God gave you a gift, use it with mastery; 

• Enjoy the path.

Thanks JM!

"Walt Grace's Submarine Test, January 1967" Lyric Video

Walt Grace's Submarine Test, January 1967 - John Mayer

Walt Grace, desperately hating his whole place,
Dreamed to discover a new space,
And buried himself alive,
Inside his basement, tongue on the side of his face when,
He's working away on displacement,
And what it would take to survive.

'Cause when you're done with this world,
You know the next is up to you.
And his wife told his kids he was crazy,
And his friends said he'd fail if he tried,
But with a will to work hard,
And a library card,
He took a homemade, fan-blade, one-man submarine ride.

That morning, the sea was mad and I mean it,
Waves as big as he'd seen it,
Deep in his dreams at home.
From dry land,
He rolled it over to wet sand,
Closed the hatch up with one hand,
And peddled off alone.

'Cause when you're done with this world,
You know the next is up to you.
And for once in his life it was quiet,
As he learned how to turn in the tide,
And the sky was a flare,
When he came up for air,
In his homemade, fan-blade, one-man submarine ride.

One evening,
When weeks had passed since his leaving,
The call she'd planned on receiving,
Finally made it home.
She accepted,
The news she'd never expected,
The operator connected,
A call from Tokyo.

'Cause when you're done with this world,
You know the next is up to you.
Now his friends,
Bring him up when they're drinking,
At the bar with his name on the side,
And they smile when they can,
As they speak of a man,
Who took a homemade,
Fan-blade, one-man submarine ride.

 

Song by John Mayer

Charles Dickens - Great Expectations - Chapter twelve

After the fight episode, Pip starts to think about what happened and the consequences if someone knew about it. Pip believes that maybe somebody would be waiting for him when he returns for the first time to "the scene of the deed of violence", or, even Miss Havisham would take some sort of personal vengeance. But the incident goes unmentioned during his visit.

For months Pip continues to visit Miss Havisham pushing her in a wheelchair. "Over and over and over again, we would make these journeys, and sometimes they would last as long as three hours at a stretch." 

In these meetings, Miss Havisham starts do inquire Pip about his plans for the future. Pip says that he was going to be apprenticed to Joe. Internally, Pip believes that Miss Havisham is going to help him, but in fact, what happens is the opposite. "But, she did not; on the contrary, she seemed to prefer my being ignorant. Neither did she ever give me any money - or anything but my daily dinner - nor ever stipulate that I should be paid for my services.”

Because Pip is kind of waiting for something from Estella, maybe a kiss again, he is not aware of the intentions of Miss Havisham. Estella starts to drive him crazy, changing her behavior, and being conducted by Miss Havisham. There is a passage when Miss Havisham murmurs in Estella's ear "Break their hearts my pride and hope, break their hearts and have no mercy!"

Partially because of his elevated hopes for his own social standing, Pip begins to grow apart from his family, confiding in Biddy instead of Joe and often feeling ashamed that Joe is “common.” His sister and Mr. Pumblechook are set aside as well. The first because of the manners with him and the second for being supportive of the daily bullying. 

"While Pumblechook himself, self-constituted my patron, would sit supervising me with a depreciatory eye, like the architect of my fortunes who thought himself engaged on a very unremunerative job."

One day, Miss Havisham offers to help with the papers that would officially make Pip Joe’s apprentice, and Pip is devastated to realize that she never meant to make him a gentleman.

See you on chapter thirteen.

Marvin Gaye - Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)

Charles Dickens - Great Expectations - Chapter eleven

Another day, and another appointment at Miss Havisham's house. Pip is welcomed by Estella who conducts him to the meeting where other people are waiting for. The meeting today is in another part of the house, as Pip describes as " a gloomy room with a low ceiling, on the ground floor at the back."

There are three ladies in the room and one gentleman as Pip profiles as toadies and humbugs. Over the chapter, Dickens manages a series of dialogues among these characters in a way to introduce them in the narrative. 

They left the room, Estella and Pip have a sort of disagreement when she finally slaps his face. After that, they go upstairs and met a gentleman groping his way down.Pip gives a complete description of the man saying "He was a burly man of an exceedingly dark complexion, with an exceedingly large head and a corresponding large hand. He took my chin in his large hand and turned up my face to have a look at me by the light of the candle. He was prematurely bald on the top of his head and had bushy black eyebrows that wouldn’t lie down but stood up bristling. His eyes were set very deep in his head and were disagreeably sharp and suspicious. He had a large watch-chain, and strong black dots where his beard and whiskers would have been if he had let them. He was nothing to me, and I could have had no foresight then, that he ever would be anything to me, but it happened that I had this opportunity of watching him well."

Pip meets Miss Havisham, who sends him to another room and introduces him to some bizarre things,  like one table that she wishes will be laid when she died. After a while, Miss Havisham asks Pip to call Estella. Estella comes with the others, the three ladies, and the two men. Once again, Dickens introduces these guests and now it is clear that they are relatives visiting Miss Havisham. 

Estella, Pip and Miss Havisham return to her room just after the guests went out. There, Estella and Pip start to play cards. After that,  Pip goes to the garden where he meets a young gentleman, who evokes him to fight. 

Dickens describes the fight with a richness of details that I could almost feel and visualize everything that made part of the scene.

It looks like some kind of practice plotted by Miss Havisham and Estella, some part of a big plan for Pip. After the fight,  Estella allows him to give her a kiss on the cheek. He returns home, ashamed that Estella looks down on him.

See you on chapter twelve.