SS_02/14 → Notes from Conversas Vadias #2 – Agostinho da Silva in conversation with Adelino Gomes
Notes from Conversas Vadias #2
Agostinho da Silva in conversation with Adelino Gomes
Originally broadcast by RTP on 15 March 1990.
Available through the RTP Archives.
One sentence was enough.
I paused the episode and wrote it down immediately.
I don’t believe the best thing a human being can do is try to be normal.
It’s one of those ideas that sounds almost obvious.
Until you realise how much of modern life is built around exactly the opposite.
School teaches standardisation.
Companies reward conformity.
Politics rewards predictability.
Even success has become surprisingly uniform.
Study.
Work.
Buy.
Retire.
Repeat.
Agostinho refuses that entire architecture.
Not because he celebrates rebellion.
But because he questions the premise.
Who decided that “normal” was something worth pursuing?
Another idea follows naturally.
He argues that people don’t have qualities and defects.
They have characteristics.
It’s a subtle distinction.
A defect in one context becomes a strength somewhere else.
Curiosity can look like distraction.
Stubbornness can become persistence.
Restlessness can become invention.
Perhaps the problem isn’t who we are.
Perhaps it’s the environments trying to flatten us into the same shape.
That’s why another sentence from the conversation stayed with me.
Every exceptional case in the world…
…is simply another human being.
We like to celebrate exceptional people.
Agostinho almost suggests the opposite.
Everyone is exceptional.
Society simply spends years teaching us how not to look like it.
There’s another idea I keep returning to.
He warns against solving problems too completely.
At first that sounded strange.
Shouldn’t we solve problems?
His answer is more nuanced.
The moment we believe we’ve found the definitive answer…
…we close the door to the future.
Certainty becomes dogma.
Dogma eventually becomes institutions.
And institutions slowly become inquisitions.
Curiosity dies the moment certainty takes over.
Thirty-five years later, that observation feels remarkably contemporary.
We’re surrounded by people desperate to have definitive opinions.
Algorithms reward certainty.
Nuance performs badly.
Changing your mind is often interpreted as weakness.
Yet Agostinho seems to defend something much more demanding.
Staying available.
Remaining curious.
Leaving space for the possibility that tomorrow might prove us wrong.
Perhaps that’s what freedom actually looks like.
Not knowing.
But remaining open enough that reality can still surprise us.
Original source
Conversas Vadias — Episode 2 → https://www.fernandomoreira.me/conversas-vadias-episodio-2-com-adelino-gomes/
Agostinho da Silva in conversation with Adelino Gomes.
Broadcast by RTP on 15 March 1990.
Available through the RTP Archives.