(português) (Nederlands)
It is the Monday after All Saints’ Day. In Spain today the population has a day off because All Saints’ Day was a Sunday. In Portugal, the people just get on with their lives. I am sure that the graves were cleaned yesterday and that new plastic flowers were placed that can thrive in all weather conditions during the year to come. I have not been in the graveyard myself but that is what happens on all All Saints’ Days. This weekend, for five days, a lockdown is applied in both countries. Nobody can leave their village until Wednesday. Then there will be freedom of movement again. At the place where I live in the middle of nature, I hardly notice these measures. The only difference is that it is even quieter than it was in the past. Surely I am allowed to use that word in these times for a situation that once was? For something that is bygone and won’t come back. And the past that I’m talking about dates back to nine months ago. Yet it seems far away. Just like the time before a pregnancy, you quickly forget it once the child is born.
An old man once spoke the following wise words at the sight of my big belly:
“The revolution has begun! Just wait until it is born then the revolution is complete and remember, your life will never be the same again! ”
By telling me this, he waved his index finger dangerously in the air. I was twenty-three years old and life was pink. The old man reminded me of an angry Lenin or Stalin and I decided he was not quite on track. I am now seventy and those words have settled in my head. Every time, with every change, with everything that has happened in my life, I had to think about that statement. The old one was right. Nothing has stayed the same since then. But really nothing. And that’s how it should be, I think.
The past nine months the world being pregnant with Corona have, in my opinion, sparked such a revolution. It creeps closer on stockinged feet. Meanwhile, the light-footedness is gone. The case has gained weight and the past will never return to the usual. The delivery for this world is sometime this week. Perhaps at the time of the presidential election results in the United States. Who knows?
From experience I can tell you that after a delivery or any other fundamental event in your life, all your individual achievements that were important before, are worthless. Your diplomas, your career, your knowledge. How well you know yourself will be the guide for how to live your life from now on. For how to deal with this revolution.
Being conscious of your morality is vital. How do you treat yourself and others? I have a simple guideline that is as old as the road to Rome and has never lost a millimeter of its validity:
What you don’t want to happen to you or someone else to do to you, don’t do that to someone else.
Don’t wish someone else anything you wouldn’t wish on yourself.
During times in my life when I was off track this golden rule served as a beacon for me and now I am quite capable of living these golden words. Fortunately. I am ready to help raise the new child – the new era. And you?