16. Munich: 5th Philosophical Meeting (13 pgs.)

ACT I - CHAPTER 16

MUNICH

5TH MEETING:

EPISTEMOLOGY — PART 4

Saturday February 17, 2018

Munich Germany

That afternoon they played against the Stern Munich Club in their own stadium. Five minutes before the end, Alexandre was fouled inside the area. The score was tied, and his team was down to ten men. He insisted on taking the penalty.

The German goalkeeper was two meters tall. Alexandre knew the shot had to stay low and close to the post. That giant would struggle to drop fast enough.

The whistle blew. Alexandre advanced, feinted, and fired a low shot. As the goalkeeper fell, he saw the ball cross the line.

Alexandre ran while his teammates chased him to celebrate.

“Goal! Goal! Alexandre’s solidity proves itself again on the field! Goal! Goal! Goal from the football philosopher!” shouted the commentator.

The German fans fell silent. Their team was out of the championship.

Alexandre’s team stayed at the Munich Walker Hotel, one of a luxurious chain. He was signing autographs for kids in the hallway when he saw Yellow waiting in a sleek German sedan.

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It was hard to reach the car through the crowd of fans. A few blocks from the hotel, they noticed a man on a motorcycle following them, probably a journalist with a camera around his neck.

Yellow tried to lose him with evasive turns through the streets of Munich, but it wasn’t easy. Once they reached the highway, it seemed they had escaped. Suddenly, another motorcyclist dressed in black appeared beside them. Alexandre saw the gun at the window. Five shots hit the glass in a tight line, but the bullets didn’t penetrate.

A third motorcyclist appeared from behind and rammed the shooter’s bike, sending him crashing onto the side shoulder. The last motorcyclist followed them for a few minutes, then took an exit and vanished. They were driving at two hundred kilometers per hour.

“Who was the last one?” Alexandre asked, holding the GPS keychain Boris had given him.

“I don’t know,” Yellow said.

Fifteen minutes later, they arrived at a Bavarian-style house with three floors. A helicopter stood on the side patio. More than ten guards in bulletproof vests, armed with machine guns, watched the area.

Inside, a giant elk head greeted them in the entrance hall.

“Are you okay?” Ricardo asked.

“Yes. If not for the armoured glass, I’d be dead.”

“Alexandre! Are you okay? What a bastard! If I knew where he was hiding, I’d kill him myself! Where’s the car?” Arturo said.

They went outside and saw the five bullet marks in a neat line. The glass had held. It had saved Alexandre’s life.

They grilled German sausages and drank beer. The tension lingered, but the guards’ presence made them feel safe.

“It doesn’t matter what happens. We’ll finish the book. Nothing and no one will stop us,” Arturo said, like a captain giving a locker room speech before a final. He had done it many times with the Argentine team.

They talked about the next day’s skydive.

“I’m ready to jump solo. And you?” Alexandre asked Ricardo.

“I’m not ready yet. I’ll take another month to prepare, but today I’ll jump in tandem.”

“This time I’ll just watch,” Arturo said.

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After the barbecue, they moved inside and set the scene. In one corner stood the beautiful trio: the black-mirror tetrahedron, Ronald’s picture, and the ball. Below them lay the knife. At the centre, the copper pot, the glasses, and a bottle of vodka.

“Today it’s my turn to read Ronald’s letter,” Arturo said. He took the butcher’s knife and opened the envelope.

“DEAR EAGLES:

THIS IS RONALD SPEAKING.

THIS MEETING IS TO OPEN A DEBATE.

TODAY YOU’LL DISCOVER A NEW POWERFUL TOOL: THE EMOTION – LOGIC CONNECTION.

THE QUOTE: WHO SAID, ‘IT IS BY SYLLOGISMS THAT WE DEMONSTRATE TRUTHS’.

A) PLATO

B) ARISTOTLE”

“I’ll choose Aristotle,” Alexandre said. The others agreed. They were right.

“We all won!” Arturo said.

“Nobody loses,” Ricardo added.

“Shall we begin the debate?” Alexandre asked.

“First I need to read Ronald’s joke!” Arturo said.

“Sorry. I almost forgot. Please,” Alexandre replied and Arturo read.

“THE JOKE: ‘WHY DID THE LOGICIAN GO BROKE? BECAUSE HE KEPT ASSUMING ALL HIS PREMISES WERE TRUE.’”

They laughed. After a pause, Arturo burned Ronald’s letter and placed the ashes in the plastic bag with the others. Then they toasted, lifting their glasses to Ronald’s picture, the ball and the tetrahedron.

Suddenly, Alexandre started pounding on the table, drumming with his hands. The others joined in. The sound was deafening. Still pounding, he shouted his usual pep talk.

“Are you ready to suffer?” he yelled, striking harder.

“Yes!” they answered, matching his rhythm. The table shook.

“Do you dare climb?”

“Yes!”

“To acclimate or not acclimate?”

“To acclimate!”

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“Who are you?”

“Eagles!”

“I don’t hear!”

“Eagles!” they shouted louder, drumming harder. The table trembled under their hands.

“I don’t hear!” Alexandre roared.

“Eagles!” Ricardo and Arturo screamed as if shouting for their lives.

Alexandre stopped. They stopped too. The silence was loud, the air electric.

He asked them to hang a banner, similar to the previous meetings. When hanged it read:

EMOTIONS AND REASON

“Let’s begin then,” he said calmly, turning on the recorder. He read his summary and added, “Today you’ll discover the power of logic-driven emotions.”

During the meeting, Alexandre clashed with both of them, mostly with Arturo, who denied that emotions came from thought.

“Are you crazy? You don’t think before feeling! You just feel!” Arturo shouted, standing beside the table, one foot on the ball.

“You’re wrong,” Alexandre said.

“Wrong? Why wrong? Can you prove it?” Arturo asked, eyes on the ball.

“Yes.”

“I doubt it.”

“Do you want me to prove it or not?”

“Yes, but I want conclusive evidence. Show me the proof. Show me a video!” he said, lifting the ball and staring straight at Alexandre.

“I can’t show you a video.”

“That’s because emotions don’t come from reason,” Arturo said and began juggling the ball again.

“You’re wrong,” Alexandre said, holding Boris GPS keychain in his hand.

“Again, present the proof,” Arturo said, still juggling with the ball.

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“I will, if you sit down,” Alexandre replied, and thought, I will have to improvise.

“I’m waiting,” Arturo said, smiling, the ball in his hands.

“You know emotions happen in your body, inside your brain,” Alexandre said. “I can’t make a video of that. But I can show you this. When you see an object, real or imaginary, a sequence begins. First, you perceive; second, you identify; third, you evaluate; fourth, you feel.”

He spread four large white cardboard posters across the table. “I will explain with this,” he said, stacking them. Their length matched the table’s width. In the centre, words appeared in capital letters, outlined only.

“What does the top one say?” Alexandre asked.

“4. Emotion,” Arturo answered.

“Fill the number and word with red. Here are the paints and brushes,” Alexandre said. They began painting.

EMOTION

When they finished, Alexandre said, “When you feel, you notice the emotion, the last part of a process. You don’t see what comes before. Lift the painted cardboard and place it on the floor.”

Arturo and Ricardo lifted it. Another poster appeared below.

“What does the top one say?” Alexandre asked again.

“3. Evaluation,” Ricardo answered.

“Do the same, but now with blue,” Alexandre said, handing them the paint.

EVALUATION

Again, when they finished, Alexandre said, “Behind every emotion is an evaluation, a judgment, an act of intellect. But of what? Lift the blue one and place it on the floor.”

They lifted it. Beneath, another poster appeared.

“What does the top one say?” Alexandre asked again.

“2. Identification,” Arturo answered.

“Paint it yellow,” he said, and they began painting.

IDENTIFICATION

When they were ready, Alexandre explained, “To evaluate something, you must first identify it. You can’t judge what you haven’t identified. Now lift the yellow one and place it on the floor.”

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The last poster appeared.

“What does it say?”

“1. Perception,” Ricardo answered.

“Paint it green,” he said, handing them the paint.

PERCEPTION

When finished, Alexandre said, “Perception comes first. You perceive something — real or imaginary — and the sequence begins.”

He asked them to place all the cardboards on the table in order, side by side.

Arturo crossed his arms, studying the sequence, observing the large numbers and coloured words. “So, emotion is just the tip of the iceberg,” he said, picking up the ball again.

“Exactly,” Alexandre said. “It’s the visible result of a process that starts deep in the mind. You only see the last red cardboard.”

Ricardo nodded. “So, when people say they ‘just feel something,’ they ignore the first three steps: the blue, yellow, and green.”

“That’s right,” Alexandre said. “They skip the cause and worship the consequence.”

Then they arranged the four posters on the long table, one below the other.

PERCEPTION
IDENTIFICATION
EVALUATION
EMOTION

Alexandre picked up a small lantern and turned it on. The beam swept across the table, from one poster to the next.

“Now watch this,” he said, flashing the light, skipping the second and third posters. “When you feel, you only notice the first and fourth: the green and the red. The yellow and blue also happen, but so quickly you don’t notice them.”

For a moment, they stood watching the glow move across the painted cardboards. They looked like a map of the human soul.

“I get it,” Arturo said, “but can you prove it with a daily example?”

“Follow me,” Alexandre said.

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They left the room and headed toward the parking lot. The sun shone on the pavement, and a breeze stirred the leaves of the trees. Alexandre led them to a car. Arturo and Ricardo followed, exchanging curious glances.

“Where are you taking us?” Arturo asked, scratching his head with one hand and carrying Ronald’s picture with the other.

“You’ll see,” Alexandre said with a sly smile.

Ricardo frowned. “A driving lesson?”

“Maybe. Let’s find out.”

At the car, Alexandre opened the driver’s door. Arturo climbed in, uncertain. Alexandre took the passenger seat, adjusting his glasses. Ricardo settled in the back, already laughing, with Ronald photo seating at his side.

“Remember when you learned to drive?” Alexandre asked Arturo. “You had to do a dozen things at once. Now imagine that again. Act like a dumb student.”

He nodded nervously, gripping the wheel.

“Start the engine,” Alexandre said.

Arturo turned the key. The engine coughed and rolled forward a foot before stopping.

“Accelerate!” Alexandre ordered.

Arturo slammed the brakes. The car shuddered.

“No, accelerate!” Alexandre corrected.

Arturo pressed the gas. The car rolled forward, wobbling.

“Look to the back,” Alexandre said.

Arturo twisted his neck, squinting over his shoulder.

“No, look through the mirror,” Alexandre said, pointing.

Arturo swerved the car to one side and almost knocked off the mirror on a post.

“Signal left!”

Arturo flicked the left blinker, then turned right. He was playing the dumb student role to the perfection.

“No! Left, not right!” Alexandre yelled.

“Brake!”

Arturo hit the gas.

“Accelerate!”

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Arturo slammed the brake.

Ricardo burst out laughing in the back seat. “I can’t breathe,” he said, clutching the headrest.

The car crawled past a stop sign.

“Stop! You’re crossing the stop sign!” Alexandre groaned.

Arturo floored the gas. Tires squealed.

“Hit the brakes! Damn it! You want to kill us?”

The car lurched to a jerky stop.

“Turn the wheel!”

Arturo spun it wildly. The car zigzagged and halted again.

“Look forward!” Alexandre shouted.

Arturo leaned back, then forward, squinting.

“Signal left again!”

Arturo hit the blinker and turned right.

They all burst out laughing. Alexandre threw his hands in the air.

“Stop in a safe place, please,” Alexandre said, checking the GPS Boris had given him. They laughed until they calmed down.

“When you’re learning to drive,” Alexandre said, “you need to think about many things. You must know the traffic rules and what every sign means. You must know how to signal, accelerate, brake, and check the mirrors. Every action is logical and has a purpose. At first, you need to think about everything and coordinate your moves. After practice, you automate. Then you drive. But at the beginning, you observe, identify, evaluate. Every step counts, even the wrong ones. Now get out of the car.”

They walked around it, checked wheels, lights, and mirrors, then opened the hood to see the engine. Afterward, they got back in. Arturo sat in the copilot seat and Alexandre sat in the driver’s one, smiling. He started the car and drove back smoothly.

“Now that we’ve survived,” he said, “let’s see why this was useful.”

He pointed to the dashboard. “Every action you just took began with perception: you saw the pedals, mirrors, the road and signs. Then identification: you recognized what each meant. Evaluation: you decided what to do. Finally, the outcome: driving. At first, you think of every move, but after years, like me now, you do it automatically. That’s how emotions work. Every feeling begins with perception, passes through identification and evaluation, and only then becomes emotion.”

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Watching Alexandre driving, Arturo asked, “So all that chaos I made was a lesson?”

“Exactly,” he responded. “Your emotions, like driving, begin with conscious thought. With practice, they become automatic, smooth, and safe. The point was the performance. Learning sticks when you feel it.”

Ricardo nodded, still laughing. “I’ll never forget that.”

When they returned, Alexandre told them to march. They had to repeat his steps.

“Perception, identification, evaluation, emotion,” he said, taking four steps. Then he jumped and shouted, “Automatic!”

They imitated him, chanting, “One, two, three, four… automatic!” They laughed until they cried, repeating it many times before entering the room again.

They approached the table. Arturo placed Ronald’s picture back next to the black mirror tetrahedron and the ball. The four posters still lay in order. Alexandre spread his hands over them.

“Arturo, wrap it up in your words,” he said.

“Sure,” Arturo replied, grabbing the ball. “Perception is first. Identification comes next. Then evaluation,” he said, dropping the ball. “Finally, emotion: goal!” He kicked it against the wall, stopped the rebound with his chest, and laughed. “Automatic!”

They laughed again, tears in their eyes. Then silence. The afternoon light struck the white paper, illuminating the four stages. The lesson was carved in memory, not as words, but as a lived performance.

They concluded that emotions were effects, not causes. You were aware of what you felt, but not of what caused it.

They were alarmed to see that many emotions were evaluated from frozen beliefs, some formed in infancy without critical thought. The good news: knowing the four steps, you could now evaluate those beliefs, think critically, and control your emotions from the root, feeling only intelligent emotions grounded in reality.

“Maybe some of your beliefs are playing tricks on you,” Alexandre said.

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“I’ll review mine,” Arturo replied, juggling the ball. “I’ll dominate my emotions as I dominate the ball,” he said, thinking, How many problems my emotions have caused me.

They ended the meeting near midnight, without a toast. They had to continue the next day. Alexandre stopped the recorder. Though satisfied, all three had butterflies in their stomachs. Tomorrow, they would jump and open their parachutes alone.

He read the news on his phone: US THREATENS NORTH KOREA. THIRD AIR CARRIER SENT AFTER NEW NUCLEAR TEST.

He frowned. I want to live. I need to open my parachute tomorrow. Those were his last thoughts before sleep.

The next morning dawned bright and cold. Yellow flew them by helicopter to a nearby airport after breakfast. The same instructor from Dubai waited to give final instructions. One by one, he asked if they were ready to jump alone. He knew it was a question of life or death.

Ricardo said he would jump in tandem again. Arturo preferred to stay on the ground. Alexandre was ready to jump alone.

“OK. Your decision, your consequences. We are clear,” the instructor said. “Only Alexandre will make the free jump today. The rest can try next time. Don’t worry, fear is normal.”

“Why do you call it a free jump?” Arturo asked.

“I don’t know. But the skydiver who packs and jumps alone is called that.”

Soon after, Alexandre, Ricardo, and the instructor boarded a single-engine plane with its door removed for a panoramic view. Arturo watched from afar, feeling heavy. They would jump from eight thousand feet. Ricardo first, in tandem, then Alexandre. After jumping, he had to count to thirty before opening his parachute. Another instructor would jump behind him to open it if he fainted.

When the plane reached altitude, Alexandre reviewed his position and the sequence for opening both main and reserve parachutes in case of emergency.

“One minute!” the jumpmaster shouted. They held their breath, bodies tense with fear.

“Jump!” the jumpmaster ordered, and Ricardo and his instructor plunged into the void.

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Adrenaline replaced Alexandre’s blood. He swallowed hard, face set. His fear was total, but he turned it into an ally. He knew that if he didn’t, terror would paralyze him. His decision gave him control.

“Stand on the edge!” his instructor said.

He obeyed, stomach tight. When he looked down, emptiness hit him again. Another plane flew nearby, perhaps too close. Inside another parachuter, ready to jump. Is it armed? Alexandre thought watching something shined in his leg.

“Jump!” the instructor shouted.

He froze, muscles locked.

“Jump!”

Like a newborn leaving the womb, Alexandre leapt into the void. He took the position he had practiced hundreds of times, relaxed, and watched the planes drift away above him. His instructor jumped behind. From the other plane, the unknown skydiver followed. Would he kill him midair? The man fell about fifty meters away. Alexandre saw he held no weapons. They were falling at two hundred kilometers per hour, though speed was impossible to feel.

Alexandre smiled, flying like a bird, serene. The landscape spread below, hills, clouds, the vastness of Earth. Death waited seconds away. He was fully alert, no emotions, focused on each second, knowing exactly what to do in the next.

His instructor floated five meters away, watching his cheeks flapping like flags in a hurricane.

Alexandre began rocking back and forth, too tense. He needed to relax. He remembered the instructor tossing a vest in the air to show how to surrender to the wind. He imitated it, relaxed and stabilized.

He looked down. Far below, a parachute opened, its canopy painted with the United Kingdom flag. Was that the stranger from the other plane? The man flew in another direction. Then Alexandre saw his instructor signalling to open. Worried about the other parachutist, he had forgotten to count and look his altimeter.

He checked his position: horizontal, stomach down, stable. Palms down. Right hand to the pilot handle, left before his head. Symmetry was vital; without it, the air could spin him violently. Take the pilot! he thought.

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The pilot, a small parachute about the size of a basketball, was folded into a pocket near his right hip. He grabbed the handle, the size of a ping-pong ball, returned both hands to position, and released it. The pilot shot upward, tensioned the yellow cable, and pulled out the main chute.

A violent tug slowed him from two hundred to ten kilometers per hour in three seconds. None of the lines tangled. It opened! he thought. Good packing, good opening. Cause and effect. He smiled. “Now I just have to land,” he said aloud.

Above him, the parachute bloomed perfectly. He grabbed the right and left handles and steered. I’m alive, he thought and smiled.

After three minutes, he touched down gently on the sandy court, almost like an expert.

“Alexandre! You did it!” Arturo shouted, running to hug him. But ten meters away, he stopped. Don’t bother him, he thought. He just came down from the heavens. Now he speaks the language of the gods.

Alexandre stood still, hands calm and gaze serene. He gathered the parachute cloth, pressed it to his chest, and felt the urge to embrace the planet, the galaxy, the entire universe. Then he remembered Ronald’s question on one of the cards: Who am I?

Someone who could be dead but is alive, he thought, grateful. Though I might not have been born, I was born. Though I could have died, I lived.

He felt invincible, as if bullets would bounce off him.

He didn’t speak for several minutes. He stood still, holding the parachute, contemplating the landscape. Arturo stayed silent and distant, as if afraid to approach him. The instructor walked up quickly and congratulated him.

“You were very good. Come on, no time to waste, two jumps left,” the instructor said. Alexandre followed, but first raised his hand to greet Arturo, who waved back.

While folding his parachute, he reviewed every detail and felt a deep confidence. If I pack well on earth, I unpack well in heaven, he thought. Causality never betrays. Understanding how to pack the parachute so that the wind would open it — and not kill him — was his clearest proof of the law of causality in action. That realization made him happy. He also felt deep gratitude for simply existing. Life is valued in contrast to death, he thought. This gratitude is the nectar of awakened men, unreachable even to the gods.

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After two more jumps, he knew he wasn’t the same. He had entered a higher state of awareness, not of another world, but of this one. The same material, visible world now felt deeper because his whole body had learned that life is precious only in the face of death.

During lunch at the airfield, he barely spoke. Alexandre seemed transformed, as if he had evolved. Ricardo was still processing the experience. Arturo realized what he had missed.

“At least I have a tandem jump,” Arturo said. Maybe he should approach skydiving with the same seriousness he gave to football. I’m not sure I have the guts, he thought.

“Life is valued in contrast to death,” Alexandre said, smiling. I love raw truth, he thought. The others stared at him, not just for what he said, but for the way he said it.

He couldn’t contain his smile, serene. I’m happy to exist. I’m alive now. A poem rose in his mind:

Oh, beloved death

that everyone evades,

I looked into your eyes

and never turned my gaze.

How grateful I am now,

to me, that I survived.

After Yellow flew them back home, his thoughts deepened. How much more can I do? What’s my limit? How will I sculpt my character? Like Michelangelo’s David? Or better?

My main feat is to finish Ronald’s book: the tool for a millennium, he thought. I want to win the World Cup in Russia. I want to avenge Ronald. I want to marry Victoria. Francisca? I’m not sure.

They decided to celebrate Alexandre’s free jump. In the house’s salon, they emptied two bottles of whisky. The alcohol didn’t dull them, perhaps the adrenaline was still working. It sharpened their minds and humour as they continued their philosophical debate.

When the meeting ended, as always, they toasted with vodka to Ronald’s picture, the ball and the tetrahedron, and smashed their glasses. The book advanced. They were growing.

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