The ability of plants to develop new roots really impresses me. Roots are a way of getting attached to a territory, communicating with surroundings, collecting and exchanging resources. Without them, life becomes harder – even for us.
Por Gustavo Souza
As humans, can we grow new roots? This is my conversation starter for today. Some people believe youth, while we are still the seeds of adulthood, is the moment to make new friends, define your interests and establish roots through relationships. But not everything comes from seeds.
Cassava, commonly known in Brazil as macaxeira, mandioca or aipim, is a good example. It grows from maniva, small branches that we bury on soil. Cassava is a word I was happy to discover in English. When it comes to living beings, in school we would often learn a lot of animal names, common in zoos, that I have never seen in my life, like elephant, leon and tiger.
Whenever I’m abroad, cassava is a relevant word to me because it actually helps me to tell my stories. In a previous exercise to reflect my roots and work relations, I noticed how, once again, Google was not able to translate ‘networking’ into Brazilian Portuguese. And honestly, neither am I. For a word I can’t properly express in my native tongue, I sure feel that there is a lot to be said.
‘THAT IS SO OBVIOUS’
An interesting aspect of social sciences is their ability to point at our cultures and describe how behaviours perceived as deterministic as the flow of waterways are anything, but natural. When it comes to people, what seems natural and obvious often requires explanation to make sense to most outsiders – and some insiders.
As a child, a memorable teaching I got from my parents was about talking to strangers. Instead of teaching how to recognize strange behaviour, parents often tell their children to “never talk to strangers”. This rule is followed by complex scenarios related to stranger danger, and ignores how often we are actually hurt by people in our families.
To me, that rule was a source of somewhat of a social anxiety as a kid. I have a clear memory telling my dad I wanted to eat something next to a pool. He gave me some money and told me to order it at the grocery store. I went there, but I couldn’t take the final steps to ask the lady for a snack. When I got back empty handed, my dad asked me what happened – I said I was embarrassed, and he told me I needed to deal with it. I went back there feeling very anxious and ordered some snacks. Back in the early 2000s, using chatGPT for absolutely everything wasn’t an option.
I discovered never talking to strangers is a common rule – but I couldn’t quite understand the exceptions. If you have followed this rule, you probably have no friends. And if you start to follow this rule today, as you age, you will have less and less friends.
‘ARE THERE OTHER RULES?’
The field of social interactions is not included in most school’s curriculum as a discipline – and I’m not suggesting it should, ok? Still, developing relationships, building and joining networks requires some intelligence.
Communities usually have rules for social interaction, and they vary a lot. Best case scenario, we learn the rules inside the community by listening to stories (aka: gossip), or by making simple mistakes. This is a learning process that demands a lot of practice, and it can be improved by some reading, notes and content management. The rules tend to be community specific, but there are principles that we can learn and adapt accordingly to our reality.
As I write this in my parent’s home, where my bedroom used to be, I reflect on built, eroded and rearranged relationships. At this moment, I see an opportunity to share some learning on building relationships, telling our stories and joining communities.
Principle 1. SELFAWARENESS. It is important to build some self-awareness. I have been doing it specially through journaling. A good start for anyone is to evaluate how much of an extrovert you are. In my personal experience, extroverted people tend to feel energized when surrounded by a lot of people. In many cases, I feel like a vampire is sucking my blood while I’m making an effort to say: ‘Can you taste the garlic I ate during lunch? I’m so sorry.’
And don’t get me wrong here, ok? I like to know new people, but few at a time. In a controlled environment, I would say 6 people at a table is more than enough. There are some who suggest 4 people is the best case scenario for meaningful conversations.
Principle 2. INSTINCT. It is important to interpret our instinct. A lot of what we learn in life is not consolidated so well in memories. We usually have some gut feeling about people, and our guts quite often have something to say but lack the vocabulary.
I had a colleague. She used to pretend to be close to politically important figures. Whenever she was being introduced to someone new, and needed validation she would drop some important name in the conversation as a way to associate herself to a professional who actually had a relevant contribution. And, it worked. This behaviour bothered me. After a while, being able to identify it as name-dropping really helped to understand what was happening and avoid people who displayed similar characters.
In my perspective, it is important to trust our gut. On the other hand, my gut has been proved wrong before. So the idea here is trust your gut, while learning to be aware of your bias. When dealing with our instincts about others, we need to educate ourselves to avoid taking the easy path of prejudice.
Principle 3. START. It is important to take initiative. Sometimes we miss an old friend and we expect them to reach out. It is important to remember that the phone works both ways, and friendships demand maintenance. The fact that we can start conversations is especially true for new people.
Personally, I try to avoid questions like “Where do you work?” because it sounds too transactional and some people are still in college, and others have recently lost their jobs. If you have issues chatting, try simple stuff, like “Are you visiting the city?” or “Where did you get your drink?” “How did you get this pin you’re wearing? I loved it”.
That kind of simple stuff works.
YOUR ROOTS ARE A PRIORITY
The meaning of roots is often understood as a source, or where you come from. Personally, I’m more worried about other meanings for roots. Not all plants come from seeds. Some of them come from forgotten branches or taken leaves.
To me, roots are much more about the community you choose to establish yourself. As adults, our ability to build new relationships is important to live. Learning to deal with people requires a set of skills, and this is often neglected. On one hand, people have less time to interact with others, but also they spend so much time focusing on a job, so immersed in a toxic work culture, that meaningful relationships become more rare.
In this world, the soil is the community we choose to deepen our roots, to sustain us and to exchange resources. So, learning to grow new roots is essential. Our roots are the strategies we choose to develop. I have a few roots – can you tell me what are yours?
Sobre Gustavo Souza
Acreano e graduado em Direito pela UFAC. Ele é alumni do CopyrightX, YouthXPolicyMakers e da Escola de Governança da Internet. Participou de diversas edições do Internet Governance Forum. Foi Coordenador de Políticas de Proteção de Direitos na Rede, na Presidência da República. Gustavo atualmente trabalha como Especialista em Estratégia de Inteligência Artificial.
Este artigo é uma contribuição das pessoas tutorandas que participaram da Turma VI (2025) do Curso Preparatório para Seleções de Pós-Graduação. O objetivo é explorar o potencial documental da plataforma de blog para partilhar curadoria de materiais pertinentes para a comunidade científica e para a sociedade de modo geral.
