A galinha do vizinho

Expressed in its horticultural form, Marxism* is the complex that involves thinking that the grass is always greener on the other side. Alone in our garden, we gaze covetously at the neighbour’s green patch. The point is not that the neighbour’s patch is in itself any greener or lusher than our own. What makes the grass greener and desirable is that it is not ours (…).

But what if the neighbour were suddenly to fall in love with us and apply for permission from the council to break down the wall separating the two gardens? Would it not threaten our herbivorous envy? Would not the neighbour’s patch slowly lose its appeal and begin to look as tired and worn as our own lawn? Perhaps what we were looking for was not necessarily greener grass, but grass we could admire [whatever its condition] because it was not our own.

[de «Essays in Love», Alain de Botton. *A partir da frase de Groucho Marx “I don't want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member”]