I’ve written close to fifty articles for this, the Portugal Resident, and my challenge is never who or what to write about. More often than not, it’s what to not write about, spoiled as I am for choice, living and working in this wonderful country, so rich in fascinating characters, delightful experiences and tasty treats.
As one recent commenter on my YouTube channel, Phil Bell, put it: “Beautiful country. Fantastic food. Warm and friendly people. Rich history and culture. What’s not to love?” Quite simply, there’s so much to do and enjoy here.
Now on the one hand, that’s a bonus, a big bonus, and comforting too, given that I hope to spend the rest of my life here. Yet, in this age of commonplace stress and epidemic anxiety, where we’re told it’s good to relax and take our foot off the gas, it might be worth asking: is Portugal a good place to just be?
As a resident of São Martinho do Porto, on Portugal’s Silver Coast, and having lived all around the country, I can confirm that the recent popular saints-related festa season can have you believe that Portuguese people never stop, except when asleep, and that’s only from 4am until 8am, when the kids – who have also been working all day and partying all night – need to be taken to school.
And this is just the start of Portugal’s party season, which you can expect to last until Christmas with something to do involving the holy trinity, pretty much every weekend somewhere in this life-loving land. By holy trinity, I, of course, mean food, drink and music, although if you look really hard, or go at the right time, you can also enjoy the religious roots of what keeps the nation spiritually nourished, as well as its bellies, bladders and bopping feet.
So, with so much revelling-based recreation, is Portugal a good place to relax, unwind and find inner peace too? Given that if it’s not the festa, it’ll be football, and if not that, the stirring cries of fado, it’s easy to come to the assessment that this country is always in some way busy, boozy or boisterous.
That said, the first words I heard and were taught were ‘calma’ and ‘tranquilo’. These in response to my attempts to get or know things quickly. I knew then, as I had hoped, that this was my spiritual home, where there was, is, something more important than the doing of things for doing’s sake. It ain’t what you do, as Bananarama once famously said, it’s the way that you do it, which really matters (and of course, as they also said, what gets results).
I think the Portuguese do, in the way that many other nationalities are progressively forgetting, know how to be, how to live in the moment, and how to enjoy the moment, as busy as their lives can often seem.
Here we have a country that pauses with and through its daily greetings, before anyone gets down to business. A country that takes a ticket and respects queues, in anticipation of focused and personal attention when one’s moment comes. Here, we say “Olá, bom dia!” before ordering our morning coffee, “Olá, boa tarde” before getting on with the matter in hand, and “Olá, boa noite” before ordering that nightcap.
I, for one, admire this culturally-ordained coming into the moment and the call for human-to-human connection that prefaces transactions and interactions. So long may it continue, regardless of whether people understand and appreciate its impact and value, in a way that was not obvious to me, until realised in real-time, real-life.
Bringing us back to the question raised here today, I say Portugal is a good place to ponder. It is a wholesome and rich culture in which to relax and reflect and has countryside, seascapes and landscapes aplenty, among and against which we might savour the delightful simplicity of being alive – a basic pleasure so easily forgotten and not acknowledged in an increasingly disturbed and insane world.
Being here, literally being here, has changed my previously pompous view of what living a spiritual life might look like. My first affection for this country and subsequent longing to be here (which took around 10 years to realise) was rooted in the central Portuguese countryside, where I imagined the peace and tranquillity – disturbed only by barking dogs, crowing cockerels and church bells – might be a balm to my troubled, industrialised soul.
Far from living in a quiet corner of Portugal, renovating a pile of old stones in a personally furrowed field, growing my own food, I have found myself in a seaside town, where life – especially at this time of year, festa-filled as mentioned – can be quite intense and excitable. This, my old spiritually-correct self might say, would never do, and be most “vexatious to the spirit” as the Desiderata puts it. However, as I have been encouraged to see, there is an error in imagining that a quiet life is made of serene circumstances, almost monastic in make-up.
What Portuguese culture has taught me, among many other things, is that a quiet life or calm experience of existence, is an inner matter and an attitude. It is a disposition and not a set of circumstances. One can be busy (as the Portuguese invariably are, and as anyone is, who is meeting the needs of family and working life), and calmness and peacefulness are qualities brought to our activities by our own will, not created by them. Calmness, tranquillity, and that big buzzword of our times ‘mindfulness’, are a means not an end.
I thank Portugal for showing me this and am delighted to say this culture is the perfect backdrop and enduring inspiration for a new project I am involved in with my wife Louisa. In a few weeks from now, we will be hosting a new daily show for The Ethereal Network, an emerging US-based subscription TV channel with global aspirations, and on it our contribution – ‘The Moment’.
This new show is intended to be a light-hearted and open-minded, mid-morning meetup of minds, Monday through Friday, which aims to help anyone and everyone come into the present moment, in just the way I have described, in the way that the Portuguese have taught me better to do – not like a hermit monk in self-imposed exile, but a full-blown family man taking his chances in the cut and thrust of modern life.
Incidentally, Ethereal’s aim is to entertain, educate, inspire and uplift humanity, a mission both me and the Mrs are on board with: me as a former ‘new age’ magazine publisher, broadcaster and author, as well as being the founder of the ‘International Institute of Joy’ back in the 1990s, and her a busy, internationally-renowned, astrological coach and broadcaster too.
“It seems everyone knows that ‘living in the moment’ or ‘being in the moment’ is an optimal state and a great way to be, but honestly, who manages to do that in the busy and sometimes bonkers lives we have?” says Louisa, who balances being a devoted mum of three with a demanding professional diary.
“Our daily ‘check-in’ will be a global opportunity for people to come together … pause … and connect with the deepest, most uplifting and nourishing aspects of ourselves,” adds Mrs M, who’s the yin to my yang on the show, and in real life.
Together, we’re blessed to be living here in Portugal with its quiet-er life and a culture that still knows how to be as well as do, in such a balanced and life-enhancing way. But above all, remember it’s not where you are that matters, and that there’s no need to wait to ‘have a moment’.
Why not take a few mindful breaths right now, count your blessings, and treat yourself to a worry-free moment or two? And if you need a reminder and a bit of support and insight, be sure to join us for a moment, The Moment, on Ethereal TV soon …
More about The Moment and Ethereal TV here – www.etherealtv.net
By Carl Munson
Carl Munson is host of the Good Morning Portugal! show every weekday on YouTube and creator of www.learnaboutportugal.com, where you can learn something new about Portugal every day!
