By any measure, and whether you’re the loveliest and lightest hippy who’s ready for the Age of Aquarius, a hard-nosed investor poised for a crash, or an expat cringing about what you see in the rear-view mirror, all of our various and respective worlds seem ‘upheaval-ous’ (a word headed for the dictionary, if only because of my persistent observation and constant repetition).
I speak, of course, mainly of the outside world, our collective experience, when I call out the chaotic. The world some call ‘reality’, others more recently a ‘matrix’. That which is presented to us in the news, that which we have been schooled to accept as normality, despite its chronic and woeful state.
Out of our direct control, it is more turbulent, I would say, than our ‘inner’ world, over which we arguably have more agency and authority – should we wish to take responsibility and make a personal stand, behind or beyond the proliferating madness.
And it is this inner orientation that I wish to address today, and Portugal’s part in that – at least for me, but maybe you too?
Ever since I first fell in love with the culture of Portugal, back in 2007, and particularly central Portugal, where the most awful fires have recently had their way, I knew it was here that I wanted to bring my soul.
‘Wherever you go, there you are’, it’s said, and I sensed that my baggage might find solace and succour in those calm valleys and welcoming communities that delighted me nearly 20 years ago. And, I am happy to say, still do.
Yes, by the rational measures, the numbers, Portugal makes a good and attractive account of itself to the fickle and foreign eye, winning weekly, it seems, some award or other for the preferable cost of living, better health facilities and sense of safety, but there’s more to it than this.
What I want you to know, as I also remind myself of the subtler gifts of this place and people, and despite the failing bureaucracy and opportunistic politicians, is that that beautiful backdrop persists for anyone looking to soothe their psyche.
Arguably, and given that it’s inner work I speak of here – the righting of mental wrongs, the transformation of trauma, and the chance at least to breathe into life rather than gasp for survival – we might be anywhere in the world. And it’s true. We are sovereign over our inner realm and private majesty. But context and culture are also important.
Given my native and formative circumstances, the ones I made a concerted effort to ‘escape’, hoping for freedom, esoterically and exoterically, I know it’s here that my spirit can feel soothed more easily, and contend less with the ‘noise and haste’.
Not that this has been easy, however. It is, in fact, a matter of cosmic or divine humour to note that my best-laid Portuguese plans didn’t go quite as planned.
Twenty years ago, when my assumed ‘home’ felt quite the opposite, I imagined a ‘good life’ in the Portuguese hills, perhaps renovating – maybe alone, maybe with a dog – a pile of rocks and tending to a veg’ patch that would feed me and sustain a quiet, contented existence. Fast forward, and I have three more children, who were unknown and unexpected then; a darling wife, who heard this mad dream and hitched her ride to it – all now subscribers of a semi-detached, seaside life in Portugal (albeit with two dogs, and four cats).
She grows delicious fruit and vegetables, which are the sublime icing on a cake that is otherwise fairly conventional and quite unlike the one I had in mind as I hatched my escape plans, now long ago. We have not escaped the rat-race, which seems, actually, to have an uncanny knack of catching up, as soon as any attempt is made to be free of it. And worldly challenges, of course, still make their presence felt – those sufficient unto the day, and the bonus balls of recent times.
That global, governmental and monumental mess called and made a ‘pandemic’, and the next thing we feel breathing down our necks, through the demonic nostrils of those who seem unable to exist without interfering in everyone else’s existence.
AI, digital dictatorship, warmongering and narcissistic efforts of every kind are gradually, probably exponentially, filling that outer world I began with today.
We are, for sure, slowly boiling frogs, in that ironically cold and cruel external context, mere numbers in the psychopathic calculations of those who appear to have no interest in their inner lives, their souls or spirits.
Total ownership of the outer world would appear to be their aim, and I say ‘let them have it’. This perhaps the only way to bring us back to our true selves, back to real life and beyond the outer dystopia in which we seem forced to gamble, with decreasing and dismal odds.
As I paint this grimmest of pictures, please know I do so only with salvation and transcendence in mind. With a solution and suggestion in my heart. And that is to go within. I came here to heal, to be whole. Once installed in the conceptual paradise of a better cost of living, healthcare and safety, the real work might begin.
It’s good to tick the structural boxes of Maslow’s hierarchy, and we are indeed privileged to do so. But having done that, and once the existential yearning for self-realisation or actualisation is heard, that still and small voice, we might act upon it.
Here, in Portugal, we might breathe, really breathe, once more. Mindfully. Renewed, re-born and emotionally regulated, we might attend to those harms and hurts that we never had the time to deal with, until now, that we could alternatively be tempted to project upon others in that outer world of endless reprisal.
Ultimately, and we get to realise this the more truly peaceful we are – it’s all an ‘inside job’. It was never about finding the ‘good life’ out there, it was always about finding the good within. That kind, quiet and peaceful state of being that Portugal – for some reason, for many reasons – has helped me to find, and for which I am most grateful.
