Interview with an Aspiring Brazilian Author: Art, Linguistics, and the Power of Polymathy

Today, we dive into an inspiring conversation with an aspiring Brazilian author(V) whose work is a tapestry woven with threads of art, linguistics, and a polymathic curiosity. Our discussion explores how his interpretation of art influences his writing, the role of linguistic expression in shaping powerful narratives, and how his diverse interests fuel his creative process. Through his unique perspective, we gain insight into how blending disciplines can lead to fresh and thought-provoking stories. Join me s as we explore the intersection of culture, intellect, and imagination with V! 

Q)What initially sparked your interest in exploring the humanites/literature?

A) I've always been very interested in media. Since young I've been exposed to it quite a lot. I never read, I actually hated reading, but I was always big on watching movies, TV, anime later on and manga and so on. After having consumed a lot of that, and being exposed to certain content creators speaking about literature, I grew more into it, from then on, after also being exposed to certain communities I became quite obsessed with reading literature, the fictional classics

From then on, I grew more and more interested and encountered certain writers which I believed spoke their own language

In the sense that they had read a lot and took a lot from it

That drove me into the humanities, philosophy and so on

Then that grew on me separately

Q) What do you consider to be the most essential quality for a creative thinker? Curiosity? Will? Or something else entirely?

A) I've never been a creative thinker myself; I was actually quite the opposite — a destructive thinker. I used to debate a lot, debates mainly with the same person; just hours arguing like an old marriage. Apparently I was quite good at deconstructing stuff and tearing it apart and got praise for it. The jump into creative thinking is not something I can really define. I suppose I grew more passionate than expected, and like the classic case of "monkey sees monkey does" I started to think I could do something myself — something I now consider myself quite good at. 

Given how...personal the question is, the only way I can answer it is, I suppose to answer with my own experience. Once I made the jump, that jump which I still don't know when I took it, I decided I could do something with it. Every time I write, although I don't consider myself a writer, I seem to be on a whim — I have something I want to make sure it stays there, I suppose, just eternally there.

What I have come to understand is that, the more knowledge I acquire, and the more I get to know myself, the better I write 

I occasionally impress myself as to how rapid that development is

I suppose that's the best way I can answer it




Q) In general, how would you approach new knowledge that challenges your beliefs before acquiring it? Would you engage in a destructive dialectic or have you evolved past that?

A) I don't see any issues with tearing things down, if something is substantial it shouldn't fall by it's own weight. So, every time I engage with an idea — regardless of whether it's one I agree or disagree with — I make sure to deconstruct it to understand it wholly. 

To clarify the deconstruction thing, I don't think there is anything wrong with it in the sense that, when I engage with something, I make sure to take its stance, and by understanding it, pinpoint the positives and downsides. 

What I try to make sure of is to absorb everything; let everything have an impact on me. An example I could give would be Orwell, he is a writer I enjoy reading, but within whom I don't necessarily agree. One of the last things I read of his was a series of essays, one of them being "The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius" — it felt like conversing with an old friend. I took many things out of it, but many others I ultimately disagreed with, yet it was an enjoyable chat nonetheless 

Q) Do you see language as merely a tool for communication, or do you believe it holds a deeper, (higher ontology) fundamental role in shaping our social dynamics? 

A) Rather complicated question. It all comes down to context. I was seeing a series of lectures by a speaker I enjoy, whom separated the written word among philosophy, poetic, and scientific. Depending on the context, each word is meant to mean something else. 

I tend to describe writing, or literature, as a of 'self-contained decipherable existence' in the sense that, everything that's within the text, is sustained by the text and only that. Yet it is clear that, our own perception of language has an impact on it. 

I was discussing with a person I know a perception that his teacher seemed to sustain about how "not everything is meant to be understood" and I argued otherwise. But I suppose that's a different story. 

Ultimately, as a writer, I find great beauty in language and I believe it shapes us, and thus a big chunk of how we perceive things. 

For instance, there is this short story of J.D. Salinger called "A Girl I knew" and it really made me think, and, in an odd sense, feel quite alone. 

The quote in question was the following: "The apartment below mine had the only balcony of the house. I saw a girl standing on it, completely submerged in the pool of autumn twilight. She wasn't doing a thing that I could see, except standing there leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together."

I believe that's one of the quotes that builds a legacy — that quote in a million — that piece that made Salinger be Salinger. The truth is, I exposed it to a person I know, and I saw that he could read it, understand it even, but he couldn't feel it.

There is just something so beautiful about a women, which just standing, bathing in light — just by existing, can hold the universe together. 

And that feeling is not something that can be really understood. 

Going a little further, I'm bilingual, and quite recently I learned that I take the two languages as extensions of the other. I essentially have two meanings for the same words. 

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Ultimately words are meant to evoke something, and that something is in a large part learned by experience. In that sense, when I wrote in my original language, I used an English framework because that's what I have mostly read in. It was this weird moment where I was a foreigner in my own language. 

Now, in the more technical sense, I believe that words, attempting to evoke something, occasionally become just a sort of mirror and never its actuality. 

Ironically, occasionally I feel they might be more beautiful than things themselves, but other times, they are just a contradiction. 

To make an example, the word "nothing" is meant to highlight the "absence of something" or the "lack there of." In a paradoxical sense, the very word that is meant to mean an absence becomes a presence by it's usage. It's a sort of existence in itself. There can't be 'nothing' as long as the word remains. 






Q) Do you think pursuing polymathy in the postmodern age holds value, especially considering the cultural and intellectual climate of increasing specialization? Are there particular domains—like the natural sciences, humanities, or the arts—that you believe are more naturally aligned with a polymathic approach? How do you view the balance between the pursuit of broad knowledge and the often unspoken pressures of specialization, and do you think the spirit of polymathy can still thrive amidst these dynamics? I believe linguistics is at the very core of what any knowledge exists within, do you think there is value in attempting to grasp all of it?

A) It is a very complicated question. In a practical sense, I would say that people should specialise in that which they like and that which they are good at — try to find a middle term. 

In general, anyone who tries to pursue everything might ultimately become a master of none. 

The question can only be replied to on an individual basis. An individual that is willing to sacrifice everything for that purpose and that alone, I suppose is an admirable one. Now, I don't believe most people will have that dedication nor that thirst and passion for knowledge. 

Me personally, I do have that willingness to sacrifice everything for that something, although occasionally I do find myself describing things I do not have as sacrifices which I suppose would be inaccurate. 

In my particular case, however, my approach is one more linked to leadership in the sense of conquest. Now, I believe a good leader knows how to surround himself by experts and is able to learn from them. 

That is to say, I think the only things worth pursuing are those one is willing to kill and die for, and nothing else. I think the dynamics among everything — among all the fields is there, and many have attempted to walk among them; particularly the Germans — Goethe and Hegel come to mind. 

Another example, Aristotle is for instance said to have been the only person to have truly understood the whole of his culture. He wrote about physics, philosophy, politics, and was imbued in his period. 

Again, it mostly depends on the individual and his goals. 

As to the value of trying to grasp all of it, it's something I believe both achievable and valuable, but one should be mindful that once they have grasped something, they are able to discern when to keep it and when not too. But it's not a goal I find beyond human comprehension, just beyond the average.







Q) In what ways do literature and philosophy together inspire your everyday decision-making?

A) I view literature and philosophy as my tools and goals. When I read them I find myself taking them as learning rather than anything else — cultivation. Therefore, I essentially take my decisions upon the notion that they are the most important, in that sense, they guide the decisions for their sake, rather than taking a decision for something else and using either. I guide my decisions through them and for them 

That's all

There is really nothing beyond it currently

Nothing I hold over either




Q) What philosophical question raised by literature has had the most lasting impact on your worldview? Similar to the quote you mentioned.

A) I don't like quotes, in that sense, I don't like questions. I believe the issue with quotes is that, once out of its context they really do stop meaning anything. In this case I subjugated it to that story of mine, which I suppose gives it a different spirit to it. That idea was what I was trying to highlight rather than the quote itself. 

I don't know to what extent I ask myself questions, I rather just build and build, but I don't find the need of a question to trigger me. 

Similarly with literature, it presents a series of ideas, those ideas are contained within the pages, and I can't really take one from it. I tend to take them all. 

Many books channelled many ideas with them, and I find it hard to stick with one. Perhaps I might turn to The Stranger, because it's a book I have forgotten for the most part, yet the question after the catalyst of the 'first part' is one that I occasionally ponder upon. 

The protagonist, being attacked, decides to shoot his attacker. Yet, after shooting him once, he waits, and shoots him again and again. The question of the book is not why he shoots him or even why he shoots him as many times as he did, but why he waited. Why after the first bullet, he waited, and then kept going. 

The only answer I find is that, Merseult, after having killed a man, felt absolutely nothing. And having felt absolutely nothing — being completely dead inside, his own indifferent surprised him and lead him to keep going till he felt something. He never did. 

There is a similar case in The Wind-up Bird Chronicle where the protagonist Toru, beats a man with a bat. Now, if I have to wonder why, the book shows that he might perceive this man as one of the catalyst for the doom of his marriage, yet, I believe that's not the case. I believe he was pissed off, I believe he beat him with a bat because he wanted to and that's all. He was angry and he beat the crap out of someone regardless of who;  there really is nothing more to it. 

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I suppose violence, the 'violence question' in that sense might be the overarching element. Crime and Punishment or Demons might be other good cases. But really, there isn't just one thing 

Q) How do you think sublime or sublimity in general arises in literature, from a writer's perspective. Are there techniques or is it truly unintentional?

A) Everything is international. Not everything is willing.

That's the only way I can put it

There really is not much more to it

When I sit down and write, I write what I want to write, and the way I write it is the only way I feel I can write it. Yet not all I write is willingly. 

Q) Do you believe that a polymathic approach to art can lead to more profound or innovative contribution/understandings to culture and society? ie a correlation between epistemic knowledge and depth of understanding, or does independent reason play a larger aspect. 

There is no independent reason, or at least I don't believe such a thing exists. All there are, are fragments from that common idea. 

As to the idea of an art  product — something idiosyncratic, it really is just a matter of choosing. You have an intent, and from there your conscious and unconscious volition creates something. 

I used to believe, all one had to do was to say the same but in a different way. Hemingway, in his Nobel speech used the very words I tended to use, and prove me wrong. Therefore, I believe it is fair to say that the polymathic approach might lead into something wholly new. 

When you write, you really do have to have sufficient depth as a person to full 100, 500, 1000 pages of a book. Every paragraph is a new idea, yet a progression of another. That's why I believe learning is so important; one can derive a lot of depth on their own, but a lot of the reach is derived by reading and reading and reading more. But, similarly a lot of it is  derived by just observing. 

I'm not an author, at least I have never written a book or even a novella, but I find myself taking snapshots of experiences. 

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The other day, I went for a walk somewhere — it was raining, and as I walked, I saw a person still, under the rain, crying in a corner I always walk by. I looked at him, took a couple of steps, and decided to turn back and ask. He walked away. The thing that really stuck with me is that, this random corner, this corner I never thought of, had now mean something entirely different from just "a corner" like any other. It was tainted. 

This snapshot of my day was later incorporated into a script I was writing, that used this idea and abstracted it. It really wasn't the same image, yet it was. 

Me being a bit of an asshole, I shared the script, told this other person I know that something similar had happened in real life, and told him "the bastard should be proud of his tears" all because I had made him "eternal." I had "externalised him." 

In that very corner, the following day or so, I saw a man, who lifted on foot over a puddle, left it in the pavement across the puddle, lifted the other, and skipped over the puddle. 

This entirely common and irrelevant action stuck with me, and then I wrote a short story about it. 

The truth is, the writers grabs from whatever it is he has, but out of all the things he has, he doesn't always chooses what it is that he grabs.

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Therefore, yes, but no. 

It's also important to mention, while a writer might speak his own language as I have mentioned above, ultimately the writer is bilingual. He speaks a universal language, and that's the language of emotions. That language we all speak, and that oftentimes for art is worth more than any idea. 

I occasionally imagine a person who doesn't want to leave his bed. If you give this person a deeply philosophical book you might rewire his brain, you might change his perception of reality, but I wonder how much that matters when he doesn't want to leave his bed. 

I then imagine this person, receiving one of those things that one can't help to to relate and feel inspired by, and I imagine him taking a step out of that bed. 

That step out of the bed, to me at least, has more weight than rewiring this persons brain. Once the step is taken, once we go beyond 0, I suppose we can worry about going around rewiring the perception of reality of everyone else.






Q) Looking ahead, what are some of your goals for the next 5 years in terms of your literature exploration/potential authorship?
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A) The main ones are, to break the barrier from an amateur writer to a professional one. I'm currently just an amateur. 

Become a published writer; I mainly want to publish in The New Yorker. It would be the tangible proof I need. 

Further, I seem to be able to sustain multiple ideas at once, ideas which I seem to develop unconsciously through my actions and observations. These are mainly 3 ideas, so I would like to publish 3 books; 2 of fiction and 1 of non fiction. 

I want to win the Pulitzer, and subsequently the Nobel. 

I either go big or I go home, like people say. 

Q) And finally, what is one question you'd like people to ask you more?
A) "Do cats fly?" I wrote a few stories, some had cats in them, and they all seemed to be able to fly.



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