Human Page #7

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because you want to let off steam,

and you don't know how.

I am poor.

I will define poverty now.

What poverty means to me.

It's when I have to go to school,

but I can't go.

When I have to eat, but I can't.

When I have to sleep, but I can't.

When my wife and children suffer.

I don't have

a sufficient intellectual level

to get us out of this situation,

me or my family.

I really feel poor.

Physically poor, mentally poor.

And you rich people who listen to me,

what do you have to say

about your wealth?

I know

that I'm less happy with more money.

And I know that I still want more.

I like things

and I pursue the things,

but the things only make me happy

for a short period of time.

Then, I go back

and I have the challenges of my family

and I don't know how

to make a depressed person happy.

You can't give them a thing

and make them happy,

because their brain is not happy.

So, I feel frustrated that

the cures don't exist.

And I can't just wave a magic wand

and make my...

son...

better.

I lived in a place

surrounded by villas.

And I lived in a hovel.

I knew that people

sometimes threw food away.

And we, especially me,

we were hungry.

We just wanted some food.

For me, poverty

makes me sad

because of the injustice.

Because if everyone had food,

at least had full bellies,

at home, we could think.

Reasoning is intelligence.

So, we could be poor,

live in a hovel,

but have the intelligence

to be able to get ahead.

Thank God,

I managed to rise above all that.

But how many others can't?

Many die because of it.

And that is really sad.

To me, that's sheer injustice.

The street is a very tough school.

Poverty

is a state

which I'm in

at the moment.

When you're poor,

day in and day out,

it's not that you enjoy it,

but you do get used to it,

quite simply.

Poverty is a state.

It's a state

which lasts.

And for many.

Far too many.

What would I like to ask?

What the hell I'm doing here.

Why can't I be where you are

to see what the hell is going on?

Let's switch for a minute.

Let's switch!

You come here and be me

and I'll go there and be you.

We'll meet up

in the middle line on the Equator

and we'll play golf.

It doesn't matter

if I'm the president (of Uruguay).

I've thought about all this a lot.

I spent over 10 years

in a solitary confinement cell.

I had the time...

I spent 7 years

without opening a book.

It left me time to think.

This is what I discovered.

Either you're happy with very little,

without overburdening yourself,

because you have happiness inside,

or you'll get nowhere.

I am not advocating poverty.

I'm advocating sobriety.

But we invented

a consumer society...

which is continually seeking growth.

When there's no growth, it's tragic.

We invented a mountain

of superfluous needs.

You have to keep buying,

throwing away...

It's our lives we are squandering.

When I buy something,

or when you buy it,

we're not paying with money.

We're paying

with the time from our lives

we had to spend

to earn that money.

The difference is

that you can't buy life.

Life just goes by.

And it's terrible

to waste your life

losing your freedom.

I'm not afraid of dying.

My children want to make me happy

so that I leave this life serenely.

If I'm happy before I die,

I will be after, too.

I can't work anymore.

I'm so old that I no longer know

if I should sleep

on this side or that side.

I sleep badly.

So, I wait in my bed.

Sometimes, I tell myself

I'd be better off dead.

At least I'd be at peace.

After death,

for me, there's nothing else.

Then, we'll laugh:

we're going to heaven,

but we're not taking the right path.

When you go in the ground,

you don't go to heaven.

We're not taking the right path.

I don't think

there's life after death.

I don't believe in all that.

When I think of my grandmother

whom I loved a lot

and who died a long time ago,

I tell myself memories soon fade.

The picture becomes blurred.

Sometimes,

the sound of the voice disappears.

What do we leave behind?

What remains?

That scares me.

It's a totally irrational fear...

which is based on something

completely archaic and tribal.

It stirs up

so many things inside of me.

It's not something

which has to do with pride

or anything like that.

It's something else.

It's to do with the meaning of life.

What have we done with our lives?

Why am I here?

I don't know.

I'd like to leave something behind.

I'd like to leave my mark.

The meaning of life...

I don't know

if it comes from the fact

that I don't feel important.

We are not important.

I don't see...

I don't see life that way.

You just have to live life.

We all have been, we all are,

and we all will cease to be.

I think I was born

to give birth

to one or two children.

To feed them

from infancy

so that, when I'm old,

they take care of me, in return.

My biggest fear is...

is being nobody,

is being nothing...

Not knowing

why I'm here, what the point is,

if it has meaning.

To really not be any use whatsoever,

me,

just a man among men.

I have the impression

that there's a universal dynamic

and if I'm not part of it,

it will destroy me.

I want to be part

of the history of mankind.

Me being 15 with a life sentence,

what can be the meaning of my life?

That is a hard question.

I think

the meaning of my life could be

happiness, making everything right.

Helping out young and older people.

Just help one another.

Stand for someone.

Just stay out of trouble,

don't come to prison.

That ain't no meaning in life.

This ain't no place for nobody.

I don't know...

Everybody has their own purpose.

I don't know what my purpose is.

I don't know about that question.

Sometimes, I think

of a phrase I heard as a boy,

a friend who said:

"Life is like carrying a message

"from the child you were

"to the old man you will be.

"You have to make sure

that this message

"isn't lost along the way."

I often think of that,

because when I was little,

I used to imagine fine things,

to dream of a world without beggars

in which everyone was happy.

Simple, subtle things.

But you lose those things

over the course of life.

You just work

to be able to buy things.

And you stop seeing the beggar,

you stop caring.

Where's the message

of the child I once was?

Maybe the meaning of life

is making sure that this message

doesn't disappear.

I've already asked myself...

I've already asked myself

why I was on Earth.

I'm here...

to do what God

has planned for me.

Because on Earth,

everyone has a mission.

I have one, too,

but I don't know it yet.

This movie is dedicated

to the thousands of people

who answered our questions

with honesty, courage and kindness.

A huge thank you.

A special thank you also

to the Bettencourt Schueller Foundation

and to its team

who made this project possible.

Mom and Dad, you must listen to me:

if you can, stop the drugs.

I've told you so many times

and I tell you again.

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