Nenín is a privileged octogenarian. He does not accept being far from the classroom and confesses that as long as he has strength, is lucid, and with all his knowledge of Mathematics alive, he will fight to be hired, especially now that teachers are needed in that discipline and retirement is not enough.

And there you see him get up early, with his usual elegance, to be in the morning and meet the class schedule at the Vicente Garcia elementary school, where he works at the other end of this city and more than two kilometers from home. That is why she is happy.

However, "that daily walk around town has me worried," he says to this reporter with the deep regret of blunt truths that are carried inside and today shakes most of our elders, if not all, unstoppable in defending the values they carry and taught us, which seems we did not learn well.

The truth is that he does not accept that citizen respect is a drawing, solidarity is a copy and the wolf of man is a certainty. He says, then, that many times he saw in danger his entrance to the school on time because "empty cars pass by the bus stop and continue, even if you signal them. They only stop if there are inspectors. Tolerance and courtesy, that education to serve us as human beings, is rarely seen. And don't even think of scolding, advising, or alerting a stranger to danger, and if it's a child or young person, even more so. With good luck the least they do is look at you as if you were crazy, they even do it with contempt..."

Nenín's righteous concerns overfly his possible ethical rigidity and reach, in dissimilar ways, a social thought that endures and resists seeing as normal what is not. Or, in the best of cases, he does not accept to live with certain excesses that some justify, although they do not applaud them, because these are hard times and economic crises generate instability of all kinds, such as those related to individual and collective behavior.

At this point of his reflections, I recall confessions and laments of people who are victims of verbal abuse, an acid bad luck that proliferates in public, private, and state service establishments, for the simple fact of assuming their rights now of acquiring a product, claiming a price, requesting information, demanding to be treated as it should be.

Or the aggressiveness that swarms in the environment and multiplies in the communities, queues, warehouses, buses, bus stops, and inter-municipal collection points. Neighbors of years, with debts of mutual gratitude, fight even for the unforeseen spill of a little water. Apologies without fuss, offenses, and fists are practically non-existent.

There is public irritability, no doubt. It may be a logical consequence of the post-COVID-19 stress, exacerbated by the economic reordering and the objective daily reality of "no hay". When what we need appears, there is not enough money to buy it because of the exorbitant prices. And vice versa. If there are "coins", stretching them and finding what we lack is another titanic path to bring home the indispensable minimum.

And does this give license to someone to hurt us, even with bladed weapons? If this crisis lasts, will we eat each other with impunity? Old Nenín's musings contain many diverse questions. However, the problem is not to question, endure or adapt to living in a common space devoid of good manners, and moderation, and in permanent mockery of the moral ethical precepts that govern the conduct of collective coexistence.

This social violence must be stopped. We will have to think of a new decree as a matter of urgency. If we are fine for stepping on the lawn, it is worth teaching for disrespectful acts. Or it could be a job offer to help reduce the number of unemployed and interrupted workers. Governments should write it down in their agendas because I am clear about one thing: by hook or by crook we have to cut the indecency that grows and blurs Cuba. Nenín is right to be very worried.