I am celebrating quite the milestone here, today. This piece – the latest outpouring of well-meaning, Portugal-loving opinion – marks my 100th effort of such, giving me a little pride and a lot of gratitude. This weekly, wordy workout has again offered the routine opportunity to review and relate my assumptions about life in Portugal, shared from my unique point of view as a Life in Portugal pundit and professional.
Being an article centenarian is not, by the way, the only milestone I’m managing at the moment. In a couple of weeks, I will turn 60. So, here I am 100 Portugal Resident articles in, with thousands of hours of video and podcast recorded about life and living here, and about to enter my seventh decade. It’s heady and significant stuff, at least to me, and a circumstantial constellation that calls for something special, which I’ll do my best to produce, taking a week off from the Artificial Intelligence coverage that has dominated recent weeks, and will return in the next.
What today’s offering calls for, I’d say, is a useful mix of retrospection and prediction that such milestones predictably, and hopefully usefully, offer.
Without hesitation or doubt, when looking back from this, the advent of my significant birthday, I am so glad to be here in Portugal, still discovering delights as great as we experienced on arrival in 2017.
Only last week, at a river beach (Olhos d’Água, near Alcanena), the simple but intense joy of Portuguese life disarmed me once more, in joyful and familial appreciation of natural splendour, honest and delicious food, and easy-going, understated culture.
This country, the love of which you may have noticed in my earlier 99 columns, remains a great place to be and live, as witnessed daily (not just weekly) by me, as well as those who put together the annual Peace Index, where Portugal has maintained its 7th place this year. But it is changing.
“This year’s Global Peace Index shows that the world is at a critical inflection point,” says my colleague Natasha Donn in her analysis of the accolade. “This is driven by rising middle-level powers, major power competition, and unsustainable levels of debt burdens in the world’s most fragile countries.”
And here, I take my cue to look forward. Forward to my own next 40 years, should I make my age target of 100, and from that same perspective the next 40 years for Portugal in general and in a global context. A range and perspective I hope also engaging to others of my generation and thereabouts, whose lives will be lived here, if all goes according to plan.
As I see and sense it, and from the daily conversations I have with foreigners and natives alike, it occurs to me that Portugal’s future (and therefore our own) will be less halcyon than our earlier experience, pre-Covid and the madness it ushered in, and subject more to forces beyond our apparent control, as will be the case with all nations and their peoples (a matter of relativity, which must always be kept in mind).
Essentially, and in the big picture, I predict four major areas of profound influence on our little lived lives, namely: Global chaos (predominantly geo-political), Rapid technological change (mainly and noticeably Artificial Intelligence), The future of Europe (politically and culturally); which all point to a grand sociological and historical moment, or possibility of human evolution or transformation. Did I miss anything?!
Should you think I am being dramatic or shrill, I’ll agree that there’s never been a time in our shared lives that the USA wasn’t starting a war or changing a regime; that technology wasn’t upsetting the apple-cart (no pun intended) with outlandish and later failed promises; that Europe – as an idea – wasn’t being dissected to anxious or granular level; or that we thought humanity might end in nuclear climax or level up in a Mayan or Aquarian dream realised.
But this time, it might well be different, with of course the same old same old that any grandparent can see with their older eyes, yet the intensity and volume of social turbulence turned up to ‘11’. And you can smell its breath everywhere, except the safest places you know and love, and must now protect and preserve.
Those of us who live here, in Portugal, know something of a warm and fuzzy ‘safe space’, and we must work – together – to preserve it. But there’s only so much you can do before the Serenity Prayer kicks in, when you are best advised to know what’s yours to take on, and what’s best left in the hands of the providential power, whatever you believe it to be.
On that note, it would not be right to put this, my 100th piece, to you without my characteristic, tried and trusted positivity or hope, when sharing such awkwardness, which only the most optimistic or mad would deny our collective future is. Bringing it closer to home, and in an effort to feel at home, in the face of ever more naked derangement in the public square, I have some ideas.
If, when, the four horsemen I mentioned before draw closer, take courage in three things; the first: the simple (albeit not easy) challenge of learning Portuguese, and in doing so boost your social capital, while demonstrating your willingness and vulnerability to your local community. Whilst it may sound like a trite gesture in the face of global turbulence, you may be surprised by the bonds that are created when making a genuine effort to connect meets local kindness and compassion.
And whilst this next tip might sound very grave and terminal, I suggest, get your bureaucratic practicalities in order too: your residency status, your estate planning, healthcare provision; all the things noticeable by their ability to remain forever on your to-do list, all of which when resolved (or at least addressed) will reduce drag in difficult times.
On the more up-side, please have a purpose in life beyond contemplating survival and passing the time. In my experience, expats who create a consuming endeavour have less time to add compound interest to their concerns, and tend to be more content. Why not explore a passion that connects you more deeply to Portugal and its culture?
The strange thing about my ‘advice’, such as it is, is that whether my prognosis comes true or not in these coming years, enacting any or all of it will bring you some benefit anyway.
If the world just keeps turning, which of course in some way it will, your life will be blessed by your deeper understanding of the Portuguese language (and therefore culture), as well as the power of more practicality and passion in your life.
On this special occasion, may I leave you with: “Muito obrigado e boa sorte. Até à próxima!”
