Porto
Our modern society is nothing but a delicate house of cards
If you don’t live in Portugal or Spain, it will be impossible for you to understand the feelings I’m trying to convey below. And I sincerely hope you never have to deal withĀ it.**
Around 11:30 a.m., the external monitor I have hooked to my laptop, went black while I was editing a video. If the room’s light hadn’t been also shut off, I would think it was a simple connection issue. This type of incident is such a rare phenomenon that at first I thought it was related to my apartment or building and decided to go for a walk with my dog.
Heading to the dog park, I grabbed my phone to share the āmorning eventā with my wife. Yes, we keep in touch all the time using Signal.
This was the moment I sensed something bigger was happening, but I still thought it was a local thing. My phone data connection was down, and as someone who has worked for 10 years in the telecommunications sector, I know that something like that rarely happens. There are so many contingencies and backups. Something else must be going on.
Maybe the entire neighborhood lost power, and, for some reason, the backup generator at the mobile phone tower closest to me didn’t kick off, I thought, trying to rationalize the situation.
I don’t know if it was instinct, but I immediately sent my wife an SMS: āI have no idea what’s happening, but we lost power and I have no data on my phoneā. Again, because of many years of experience, I know how SMS works and how it is such a robust feature of the network.
The SMS took longer than expected to be sent, and that was another undesired sign. Perhaps she didn’t get it. My wife is currently on an overseas trip, so I text a friend here in Portugal: āWe lost power and I have no data on my phone. What about you?ā āWe also lost power and I can barely use data. It looks like it’s affecting the entire country.ā
This is when I started having very unwanted thoughts. Instant communication is a crucial element that we take for granted. But if you think about it, modern society has been building on top of this core infrastructure since the invention of the telegraph.
Let me provide you with further context of the situation I found myself in at that moment. Every single appliance and equipment in my house is electric, so there’s no way to cook or take a hot shower. The TV cable is an Ethernet connector that plugs to an Internet hub, so there’s no way to watch the news. I also just sold my car, so no analog radio as well.
To make coffee that day, I used my gas-powered camping stove, which I ironically set up on top of its modern induction successor.
Okay, this is a national situation. A big one because the phones went down. If there’s a positive side to this, it’s that there are probably dozens of people working tirelessly to fix it. Again, little did I know.Ā
Here’s when I decided I had to stay calm. I ate the rest of yesterday’s salad, grabbed my iPod, a book (the paper type), and thought to myself: If this is not solved until 4 p.m., I’ll go buy some extra supplies.
I read for two hours, but at some less engaging parts, I couldn’t help but stop and think about this unusual and unexpected situation. Looking around, I began to see all these wonderful sparks of beauty in the midst of the chaos. From my balcony, where I was reading, I could see all the other people on their balconies, kids playing on the street, and neighbors having fun conversations on their doorsteps.
I remember it now. This is how the world used to be when I was a kid, and even a teenager. This is how people used to behave before mobile phones existed.
Back to reality. āIt’s 4 p.m. Time to buy some supplies,ā I reminded myself.
I decided to bring my dog to a nice place we usually go together to relax, before heading to the supermarket. If there was one happy soul in the house, that was my dog. Ignorance is bliss.
Going to another dog park on the same day must be winning the dog’s lottery, right? Itās a somewhat hidden micro forest on the way to the supermarket. We stayed there, going back and forth from having fun to relaxing for a while. Then we headed to our main mission.
With no shopping carts available and so many people inside, the outcome couldn’t be different. The number of shelves empty was impressive. To give you some context, something like this never happened during COVID-19. Thankfully, I don’t need much, but that’s one more unwelcoming sign to add to my list, I thought to myself.
On the other hand, I kept seeing all these kids playing on the streets and so many adults in front of houses having conversations face to face and laughing without looking at their phones. Those scenes were absolutely beautiful.
As all of this was going on, I still didn’t have any mobile data and, shortly after texting my wife and my friend in the morning, the SMS system stopped working. If you haven’t guessed yet, there was no calling as well.Ā
All the information I had, was collected here and there, talking to others on the street. But because most people didn’t have access to the rest of the world, it was impossible to know what was really happening. Moreover, all the ones I talked to would start the sentence with something like āI heard thatā¦ā
Experience, or perhaps hope, was telling me to keep sending journaling messages to my wife, and so I did. At this point, I was already back to using Signal, where I started narrating everything I was doing. That was the only app I kept opened all the time, hooping for momentarily breaths of the network.
If, for some reason, the network comes up for a few seconds or minutes, she’ll get all the updates. I didn’t know it at that moment, but she was doing the same on her side, and at about 7 p.m., a relieving exchange happened. I saw a burst of messages from her, and the read update pop-up on all the messages I had previously sent here. That would never happen again until the power and network came back to life at about 11 p.m. But at least she was now aware of what was happening to me.
I don’t know if this applies to everyone, but as I grew older, I started understanding that many things in life were never supposed to be about me. At some point, I learned that it’s about what I mean to other people, and that’s why I have to take care of myself. That’s for them! And it goes both ways, of course. Anything we do is always affecting the ones who love us, and this perception became so important to me that I’m constantly more worried about the feelings of the others, the loved ones. It’s like going to a funeral. Our main responsibility there is to comfort the ones that are still alive. We are there for them. Loving is seldom about us, and I wish I had learned this early in life.
Anyway, back to my ordeal. You know me, I’ve been detaching my digital life from the cloud for a long time. And I do have equipment to survive in a situation like this for a few days. Of course, I learned some new lessons with this test the world just tossed at me, and I’ll do my homework.
However, as a society, I think we are digging our own grave. Why are we increasingly relying on the cloud for everything? Why do all things have to have an app that has to be connected to the Internet to work? The more I think about it, the more I see unreliable digital conveniences replacing the so-called āoutdatedā gadgets that are still working so well. This is nothing more than building a gigantic house of cards. And to further add more salt to the injury, it is probably being built on top of a single point of failure.
This digital modern life of ours is so bizarre. Among all the real and relevant concerns I was having yesterday, it also occurred to me that I would lose my 775 streak on Duolingo if I couldn’t do my lesson today. Seriously?! The simple fact that something as futile as that crossed my mind is so absurd!
Today, I woke up feeling slightly stressed from my adventures and I still have a bit of a headache. Nothing terrible or distressing happened yesterday. Thankfully, I was working from home and everything was calm in my neighborhood. But, in retrospect, I think the real burden I felt was the thought of possibly not being able to connect with my loved ones living in different parts of the world. That, and the fact that nobody knew exactly what was happening or how many days would be like that. I didn’t miss anything else related to the Internet, just that connection with others and the real-time information that comes with instant communication.
By the way, I’m old enough to say that most of what we did at the beginning of the web was communicating via email, forums, blog comments, etc. It was a lot of fun!
I’m grateful to have power and communication back, but, when walking with my dog this morning, I saw people quickly resuming their lives just like if nothing had happened, and, in a way, that made me sad. Yesterday’s flourishes of harmony and beauty are now gone, like busted soap bubbles.Ā
The insane society we are building for ourselves is now back on track, and the house of cards is sitting there waiting for the next breeze. Until then, the only sign of the now gone problems was a possible bug that kept the public lighting still on during this morning.
I was jogging as if nothing had happened, and suddenly I saw this big tree blocking the path I usually take.Ā
We’ve been getting “Severe Weather” and “Coastal Event” warnings for a few days, and today we woke up to severe winds. Then, about noon, the weather started to return to the norm, and I could even run at the end of the day. Things were not so normal, though. There were branches and scattered materials everywhere.
Porto went from wildfires to storms and strong winds in the span of a few weeks. It seems to me that Mother Nature is pretty unhappy with us humans.
It rained for a couple of hours early in the morning, but it was enough to bring Porto’s sky and sun colors back to normal. Concerning the wildfires, I’m not an expert and have no idea how effective the rain was in reducing or extinguishing them. The only thing I can say is that the map on fogos.pt shows a significantly smaller number of ongoing fires plotted. But let’s not forget that firefighters are the real heroes here. They work hard to protect us. I greatly appreciate it, guys. Thank you!
š The sun is still covered with a red hue, as it had been yesterday. Thankfully, rain is expected within a few days. I’m hoping it will help put out the fires.
I took the picture below this morning at around 8:30 a.m., and, so far (5 p.m.), there have been no visual changes. The sky has been this unusual orange hue since yesterday because of the wildfires that have burned an estimated 38 square kilometers in the central and north regions of Portugal š, according to Google Maps. Even the moon appeared red last night.
Some of the fires are close to us here in Porto, but the Aveiro district has the most area affected. Seeing the devastation on the news is heartbreaking. My thoughts are with the firefighters and everyone affected by this disaster.
Voicenotes describing my goodbye picture
When I asked Voicenotes to describe the picture shown in today’s video, I wasn’t expecting so many details.
As you can see below, it got very few things wrong. For example, the “Iā¤ļøšš ” (I love Evernote Home) was hilariously converted to “I ā¤ļø š¦”. As for the chemical structure, it is indeed caffeine, but the sticker is on my tumbler, not the laptop.
The image shows a person smiling at the camera, sitting in front of a laptop with several stickers on it. The background features a decorative wall with a geometric pattern and a window showing outside reflections. The laptop stickers include ‘I’m not being rude, I’m taking notes in Evernote’, a star icon inside a speech bubble, ‘ActivityPub Enthusiast’, ‘I ā¤ļø š¦’, and a chemical structure, possibly caffeine. There is also a stainless-steel tumbler with the same chemical structure sticker.
As a side note, that is a goodbye photo. On that day, I was told that the Starbucks would be closing for a period of 18 months. Like what happened when I lived in Boston, it took me a few weeks to find the best Starbucks in Porto to take breaks from working at my office.
This one had a fairly evenly split number of local and international customers. It was never full of tourists, and, at the same time, that peaceful feeling of listening to people speak so many different languages was still present.Ā Then there were the enjoyable conversations withĀ many baristas who started talking to me because of the sticker with a caffeine molecule on my tumbler. One even asked me if I was a chemistry professor š
I’ll now have to go on a new quest to find another similar fun place. Maybe it’s the Universe’s way of reminding me that change can bring unexpected positive outcomes.
Have a lovely week, Vlad.
There's only one thing powerful enough to disrupt Porto'sĀ famed SĆ£o JoĆ£o street festival.
Starting tonight, June 23rd, at 9:45 pm and lasting until 1 am tomorrow, lighting paper hot air balloons will be allowed over Porto. And, trust me, they will fly in herds.Ā The white dots in the image below from 2019 are not stars. Each one of them is a balloon that someone lit on the streets of the city.
This unique permission reflects the scale of the famed SĆ£o JoĆ£o street festival, as even the airport airspace will be closed during this period.Ā But balloons are only one attraction at this incredible party. As you can see in the image below from last year’s Porto downtown, the entire city takes to the streets until the wee hours of the morning.
If Porto is on your wishlist for future trips, I suggest keeping June 23rd in mind. Believe me, you won’t regret it.
The only thing powerful enough to disrupt the tradition for two years in a row was the COVID-19 lockdown. And this year, it will once again interrupt it, as COVID-19 has finally caught up with me. I began feeling sick on Tuesday, and although I’m much better now, there is no way I’ll risk making other people sick. So sadly, it means there will be no festivity for me this year.
I hope everyone has a great SĆ£o JoĆ£o and I look forward to next year’s celebrations.
No check-in, boarding or any other lines to wait in. Not even security check. Super quick boarding and deboarding. There is a lot of lag space, even in the economy class. And, to top it all off, there is the departure and arrival in the city center. It is impossible to not love trains.
PS. š Thatās a Supernote.
Getting away from the problem for a while often leads to new insights
Taking a break is as important as getting into the flow
Itās my belief most people come here for the free Wi-Fi. Not me. I have an office, that is also my studio, and even a comfortable home office. But I do my best to come to this Starbucks at least once a week toĀ edit a video.
Why?
I call it my Coffee Office Day. And last Friday was a special one. The city streetsĀ are not empty anymore. On contrary, everything is getting back to normal. Iām hearing people speaking English, French, Spanish and some other languages I have no idea what they are.
Welcome back, Porto!
Randomness
Have you readĀ The Click Moment, from Frans Johansson? One thing Iām looking for when I come here is getting away from my comfort zone.
You need to take time, even schedule time, to explore things that are not directly related to your immediate goal. You need to take your eyes off the ball in order to see and connect with the possibilities around you.
āFrans Johansson
The Flow State
There’s more. When Iām here, I seldom ask for the Wi-Fi password, or connect my phone to the computer. My goal is to avoid online distractions, and, at the same time, enjoy people speaking a multitude of languages. I love to edit here. As soon as I sit down and open my computer, I enter the Flow State. Itās magical.
Flow is great, but one has to escape from it once in a while to avoid exhaustion and to break the blind alleysā paralysis. At my office I have a different strategy, but here I do it by raising my head and looking around for a while. It never fails. In essence, this is how theĀ Pomodoro TechniqueĀ works.
During that moment, I try to guess what a person is doing. Is he working? Is she messaging a friend? Where are they from? Iāve seen it all. From job interviews to friends from different countries meeting accidentally.
It takes no more than a couple of minutes. Suddenly everything becomes background noise again, and I’m back to the computer.
Something tells me I developed this ability when I lived in Boston, back in 2015. But this is a story for another day.
Have a nice week!
It feels like driving on a highway not wearing a seat belt.
When I arrived at the checkout counter, all the other cashiers were teasing him.Ā I only understood all that buzz when I looked up. He wasn’t wearing a mask.
I was aware that the government was discussing new measures that day, but my brain took a while to assimilate that a store employee, that person right in front of me, wasn’t wearing a mask.Ā He had this wonderful happiness face, replying to his friends:
āNo, I’m not going to wear it anymore!
That was a great smile. Made my day.
Starting on the last last 21st, masks in Portugal are only mandatory on public transportation and health related situations, like hospitals, home care, etc.
It’s remarkable how we humans get used to new habits.Ā It’s a week after the new rules, and it still feels like something is not quite right when I enter a store without my mask.
šÆ Feels like driving on a highway, not wearing a seat belt.
Will the world ever get back to how it was before?
Last month, after so many months in lockdown, I finally got fully vaccinated against the Corona-19, and now Iām gradually starting to enjoy simple things again. My wife and I went to some of Portoās popular touristic sites the past weekend, but something was off. No busy people walking around, no crowds on most streetsā¦
