To the bewilderment of Portugal – Observer
At work Anatomy of Wandering, the writer Bruce Chatwin asks: “Why do men move, instead of processing quietly?”. The author is one of the most acclaimed writers of travel literature and asks this unsettling question, which transports us to the core of human nature.
Traveling implies movement and not just a physical movement, Man does not only travel geographically. When traveling, we must be open to what is new, what is different, a new language, a new culture and a new people. Traveling is an act of transformation of the self that brings us the discovery and construction of ourselves.
Henry Ford said that anyone who thinks he can or can’t, in either case, that person is right. Why? Because what we can’t imagine, we don’t experience. That is, whether or not to achieve a goal, whatever it may be, first you have to have it and after having it, you have to take precise action to achieve it, you have to move. The path to a goal is usually accompanied by a belief and it is this belief that usually determines the action that leads us to reach the goal. Both beliefs are just beliefs, they are not tangible, but they have the power to determine our behavior. No limit believing it’s possible or believing it’s not possible, it’s a choice.
If in order to start a journey we need to move, it is at the beginning of the movement that the journey begins. We may not know which destination we want to go to, but if there is a will, it is only consummated with departure. Anyone who has already accompanied without a set destination, just with the idea that they want to go, easily discovers the path, just start. We can insert at this point, for example, the Portuguese discoveries. There was a day when the first trip took place, a movement, a departure that was concomitant with a belief. A belief that one could. As Henry Ford said, the belief that it could and it could. That day changed the course of the history of the planet and we were able to do it.
Dom Afonso IV, after the conquest of Ceuta, started the national project of Portuguese navigations. In it was the objective of the match and the belief that it was possible. From that day until today or since Dom Afonso Henriques began the conquest, there were many times that Portugal traveled accompanied by the belief that it was possible, some went well, others less so, but there were always men and women who took the first step. Who knew how to galvanize Portugal towards the journey, towards new worlds.
Almost 900 years after the founding of Portugal as a Kingdom, it remains to produce someone who knows how to propose something to the country that is not what we have. As a Portuguese and young man, it makes me sad that the intention of our leaders, namely António Costa, is to remain quiet, exactly where we are. It is sad and revolting that someone who has this intention as a way of being in life proposes that we get used to this little bit with him. In a country that, whenever it was called to a greater purpose, knew how to fulfill it, in a people that, with the right leadership, always started the journey believing that it was possible, what António Costa asks of us is that we get used to four more years of mediocrity, which let’s get used to our plan continuing to be to see the trips of our friends and family who don’t get used to this misery and leave.
It is sad to see a country that, almost fifty years after starting the journey towards democracy, continues to cry out for development as it did back then. Today as fifty years ago, there is a Portugal in despair to start a new journey and the helmsman refuses at the outset, he has no idea where Portugal should go.
You may not know where you want to go, but it’s important that you at least want to go. Starting the journey with a will, showing the Portuguese that we have to travel to a new safe haven, certainly our compatriots, once again, will know how to correspond to that plan, we cannot just stay as we are. To be where we are is to continue to contribute to the extinction of Portugal and the Portuguese soul. To continue as we are is to contribute so that Portugal continues to send our best to travel. To continue as we are is to contribute to Portugal becoming irrelevant.
Portugal needs to rejuvenate itself like bread for the mouth, it needs to place the interests of individuals ahead of ideologies, ahead of the party-cracy, it needs pragmatism and who does the work, who realizes that the State has grown enormous and the wealth produced is incapable of to support it and maintain dignified lives.
“The good ones I always saw pass
In the world severe torments;
And to amaze me more,
The bad ones I always saw swimming
In a sea of contentment.”
That Portugal knows how to find a new direction is my wish for 2023. Good year to all!
Braga, December 25, 2022