One day, I was sitting in the car next to my friend driving, and all of a sudden she asked me: “Why are you crying?”

I seriously did not realize I was… I was just thinking… of the slums we have just driven through, of the malnourished, beaten up, worn out horses pulling precarious wagons on the side of the road, hungrier even than the wagoners who were beating the horses that just could not go any faster. They were beating them in despair, out of hunger which turned into aggression. I was thinking about the beautiful colours of the houses and the people who live there and their extreme poverty. Some go to work (if they have any) by local buses and have to bear the robberies that happen on daily schedule, when a car makes the bus stop and the armed crew forces those on the bus to give out whatever valuables they might have. It is the poor acting this way, taking from the other poor, while the rich or richer are more or less safe in their cars (unless those get stopped in a tunnel) and huge houses fortified by barbed wire or metallic prickles growing out of the high cement walls (unless they happen to get mugged in the streets while walking – which is why they don’t walk much, I guess)…

I was thinking about the poor beautiful Brazilian girls who could be world-famous Beauty Queens when they grow up but just because they were born where they were, into poverty, almost no education, and possibly no ambitions, they might instead spend their lives by giving birth to many kids and bearing the often disrespectful behaviour of their husbands. I would hope for them to be born under a lucky star and have one day a life of success and abundance but I doubt that all of them will get the chance…

And all that made me think: “Why is it so in this world?” Those huge differences among people… we speak of equality but is there truly any? We speak of the same chances for everyone but what we mean is often: “Hey, middle class kid, if you study hard or come out with some brilliant idea you might become successful and famous”…

There are so many talented people in this world whose talents will simply remain undiscovered. So many possibly great singers, actors, models – but really, only a few get the chance to make it through. So, what does it depend on? Who decides who gets the chance and who not? God? The god who makes no differences among us?

Or is it about karma? You lived some good lives so let´s see what you do with this chance now… and then we get strikers like Freddie Mercury or Elvis Presley? Is that so then?

So if you see a rich mafia person who has earned their money by violence and drugs you can appease yourself by guessing that since their abundance is rooted in evil, they will be born poor and shady in the next life?

What role does destiny have in all this and to what extent can we change it? Is it like in ancient Greek tragedies? The more we try to get away from it the more we actually come to the fulfilment of destiny and pre-determination?

Or do we carry the divine essences in us that enable us change whatever there is by belief and faith?

I wish somebody could tell me… because I am truly getting lost here when it comes to answers.

I did not offer any proper answer to my friend in the car either. The rain came down a few minutes later and as I got off the car my tears mingled with the water from the sky… I did my crying in the rain… out of compassion. Each tear as if a prayer for those in need…