Back to reality

Ah pois é. Tudo o que é bom acaba.
Fim das ferias e de volta à rotina diária. Se bem que esta rotina está diferente. Com as ferias deixamos muita coisa pendente e por isso é necessário tratar durante delas quando voltamos. E já para não falar no cansaço físico que nos obriga a descansar quando regressamos. Por outro lado ganhamos novos hábitos e costumes. Pois a nossa vida de experiências não pára, tal como o tempo. Continuamos a evoluir. A grande questão será: de que modo queremos evoluir?
A minha surpresa nestas ferias foi raramente ter tocado no meu pc. E talvez por isso, nesta semana em que já estou de volta, só voltei a mexer em computadores porque o meu trabalho assim o obriga. Em casa pc's nem vê-los. Num mundo cada vez mais tecnológico, será que a minha evolução é de regressão? Distanciar-me do futuro HighTech? Ou não poderei estar realmente a evoluir para um estado tal que o que realmente conta nesta vida não se encontra na tecnologia? na própria matéria dos bits e bytes? Há um outro lado. O encontro com a paz interior. As relações interpessoais. O outro e o próximo.
Há que lembrar as nossas raízes e a própria historia do homem. Tal como o dinheiro não compra felicidade. E isso facilmente prova-se verificando que uma pessoa milionária não é necessariamente mais feliz que um pobre. Também é verdade que há uns séculos atrás, as pessoas poderiam ser tão ou mais felizes do que as são hoje em dia. Mesmo sem o acesso às tecnologias de agora. Será a geração dos jogadores de computador mais felizes que os meninos de rua? Provavelmente mais facilmente se afirmaria o contrário. Claramente me faz pensar que o que realmente nos faz feliz é alguma razão que tem durado durante os séculos. E isso é o próprio homem. As relações que há entre si. De amor, carinho, afecto. O respeito ao próximo.
Pessoalmente o que me deixa realmente realizado é poder ajudar alguém a ser mais feliz. A melhor recordação que tenho de um desses momentos foi o meu último jantar de anos. Onde tive oportunidade de juntar os meus amigos e proporcionar-lhes agradável serão. E só o simples observar dos seus rostos de felicidade me deixa feliz.
Por isso acredito que continuo a evoluir positivamente. Estas novas tecnologias não vão deixar de existir, estão aqui para ficar. E a sociedade está-se a adaptar a ela. Mas não podemos deixar de nos focalizar no que realmente interessa. E isso somos nós mesmos, filhos de Deus.

My Precious

Lately I’m turning this blog into a diary. But that is not the point of it. If you want to know what I’m doing talk directly with me :). Of course my thoughts come to me from my daily experience so you will hear from it as good or bad example.

So today I will not write a word about my vacations.
Instead let’s just talk about money. Normally you need always some of it for vacations. More or less depends of what you want to do with your vacations. You might want to go abroad into a luxurious resort or simple stay in the ground and do some camping. Depends on the will and on financial situation. But in the end what really matter is with whom and how it is spend.
As religious I’m teach to be poor in materials and in a way money represents material things. They can be superfluous comparing with love between each other. It is said that money can buy happiness, but are the richer happier that the poor? Not necessarily, money can buy instantaneous happiness but not in long term, the one that should matter. The money provides us a better material/physical life but not an internal/spiritual one.
Money invokes greedy, one of the original mortal sins. It’s known that the more we have the more we want. But is it the goal of our life? Have the biggest bank account? Or have the biggest friends/family community? This last are for life at any cost, the bank account not.
Modesty away, I know that I can be good on what I do, and so I fight to earn what I deserve. I believe that one should be compensated for his work, although not exclusively by money. When we accept a new job there are more factors other than money. There is work experience or with whom we work. But in a capitalist society is necessary to have money. Everything is money. Basic human need to eat requires money to buy or even to cultivate our food supply. Unfortunately we need money.
Another original mortal sin associated with money is luxury. But do we really need everything? Keep it simple, why complicate? Every human being is different and has different needs and different standards. So we shouldn’t criticize anyone for his spending. Though we can try to understand his needs and eventually talk about it. We don’t need to be rich to have everything we need. We can recycle/reuse what we have. We can share. Be solidarity.

And now the big question is how do I spend my money? Speech can be all beautiful, talk about a perfect world, but how do I really handle my precious money? You might not notice but I’m not perfect:), though we must try to do always our best. And so I’m not truly poor in material things. Actually I like to have my own things. And normally I don’t saved much. I prefer to spend more to have more quality. Quality of life is one of my aims. I don’t do much maths to calculate the minimum prices, hate to spend time to find the cheapest, if I want I buy, but typically I just want what I really need. I hate spend too much time at shopping’s. Where I don’t have problems spending money is in activities with friends/family. Go to concerts, theatre, shows, sports, travelling, etc. Like as I’m buying quality time with them.
For me, we live in the present and we have to use it the best way. So I prefer spend more now than to save for later and don’t have time to use it.
Of course the future is uncertain and we have to be cautions with it. So I also save some to invest but trying not to block the present. I believe that God is watching for us, but we have to be worthy of it and do our best. Even if a catastrophe comes upon us, it is for a reason and we must take the most of it.
Well this post is growing too big and time is money:) so I will finish for now.

Olympic Windsurf

Segunda-feira, 11 de Agosto de 2008 (em diferido :) )

Truly vacations are used to do different thing from our daily routine throughout the year. It takes me almost a week to turn on my pc, only to find out that my usual internet stop here doesn’t exists any more. CTT office station in Armação de Pera doesn’t have any more the PT Wifi connection :( So I will be less connected to the world for what I expected. Adding the fact that I’m not touching in any computer in this vacations I will not write much. Even in off-line. Neither I’m using it to see movies neither to play computer games, really for nothing. Strange for me that love computers. Daily I work with computers and these vacations are being also vacations of computer world :)
Instead I’m reading again. I love Agatha Christie’s books. I’m also doing some gardening here in my place, now that we don’t have an employed gardener. And of course doing windsurf. My main activity in this vacations.
The first days of my vacation the wind was a flop. But now there’s wind :) and very good wind. I understand that wind is not good for everyone. When is good for me normally is bad for others. Yesterday started to blow soft at 4pm in the beach full of people enjoying a wonderful sonny day. With soft wind the firsts kite’s went to the water. As I went with my brother and some others guys.
But later the wind increased surprisely. The kitesurfers get out and I had to come back to the beach to change my sail for a much lower one. The wind was really very strong, even when I re-entered it was strong for my smaller sail. In response to the new weather conditions mobs of bathers migrate out of the beach in few minutes. Incredible difference between the first time I went to the water and the second time. First I found a full beach and water cooking human bodies. I had to carefully avoid them to reach the water. Second a much more deserted area with flying sand
Another contrast was what I saw today. The RSX competition in Olympic Games had started. Previously was called Mistral. This can also be called as windsurf, since the basis and material are the same. But I advise that this doesn’t have anything to do with windsurf that I enjoy. To start they compete with no wind or very light wind. Basically in this condition I don’t bother to get my material out. Respecting who enter this class, personally I don’t see any fun on it. Most of the time they are rowing with the sail and they are pasturing in the water.
And for me smaller board and sail the better. In RSX they have standard material for everyone. But they are huge. Twice the size of what I used yesterday. Too big and too heavy.
See what is competed in PWA to see how extreme windsurfing can be. Truly nothing to do with RSX. Speed, jumps, manoeuvres, everything is different. And by far much funnier. Of course I don’t do what the professionals do. But they do that for leaving I just do in weekends and vacations and if there’s wind. The professionals are where can have much better weather conditions. Here in Portugal we have some good wind in the summer. Or have Guincho with high waves and difficult conditions, normally one of the PWA wave spot competitions, although this year it didn’t happen.
But I will continue to enjoy the good wind down here in Algarve :)

Vacations

Beginning of August. End of a working year and start of vacations for many of us. Or at least for me:D Finally the critical phase of my project got to a successful end. No more endless nights for this one. A deserved vacations awaits. Starting one day early. A bonus from the project to compensate our final effort. That's how I think it should happen in all projects. It's normal to work a little bit more in crucial dates. Projects time frames have to be accomplish. Workers will work harder and give theirs best if at least in theirs subconsciousness they know that can be compensate for extra effort. But no more talk about work.
Its time to relax, at least relax our mind. Because physically it might not happen. More and more often, one use his vacations to do what it couldn't do during work time. So he tries to do the maximum in the shorted time period. Travel to different places, participate in all possible activities. Try different and strange things. Stretch our body to the limits. But basically at the end we will get out of our daily routine. For instance, now its 4AM and I'm not working neither sleeping:) I'm in one of my Zen environments, after an evening and a late night with friends. This is vacations, doing different things during stupid hours:)
So physically we might return more tired from vacations. And more often is talked about the stress of coming back from vacations. Our lives are so different between work and vacations that we don't deal so good with this changes. One might be so good and another so bad. I don't want to say that we should do less in vacations. No, we should enjoy the most of it. But we also should organize our time to enjoy life during work days. Of course we get tired after work and I'm not said to party all night every days. But enjoy a dinner with friends, our schedule a weekend travelling. Or take some radical activities or hiking in one of Portugal's beautiful scenarios. Book and organize every thing your self, or use one of many enterprises that book every thing for us. It just a difference of €. But what is for the money earned daily? For superfluous things? at least nowadays it doesn't buy time. So enjoy the most every day. Being vacations or work or what ever.
Because vacations are more than a simple weekend, typically they are associated with travelling abroad. So I will go for the next days to a different country called Allgarve:) That's why I'm writing this text in English. I'm going to a foreign "country" full of British and Germans:D So I will continue to write in English. At least until the end of my vacations.
I won't be connected so often to the world, but I will try to write as often as I can. Probably writing off-line. Describing the beauty of vacations lol.
My thoughts won't stop for nothing. So I don't intent to stop writing. The content might change, but the book is the same.