OBSERVATIONS & OTHER ACCIDENTS

A manifesto for quiet creation.

Only God and my boyfriend know how hard it has been for me to get here. In a world where everyone flaunts their lives, holidays, or their bums, showing up is increasingly difficult for me.

If in real life I already value a quiet existence, with little appetite for an intense social life, online it’s even more so. I’m not saying this to feel “different” or superior. The world has already shown me it isn’t like that: if you don’t show up, you disappear. And it couldn’t be more true. The Internet is overflowing with lives and empty content, glorified all the time. Almost everything yields some sort of reward, regardless of quality. We’ve become, in short, undemanding. Whether we like it or not, society has turned into a giant Big Brother.

And this is where my difficulty in getting anything done lies. Because carrying anything forward without sharing it leaves me stuck in the same uncomfortable comfort of not moving forward in life — professionally, career-wise, or even financially. And let’s not be hypocritical: of course it matters to me. Living in darkness is nice, until it stops being. There comes a point when this romanticism of being on the outside tires you. It’s poetic, even comforting — but life stagnates. And suddenly, we’re in our forties, looking at that stagnation with disdain. It’s the exhaustion of not being able to row against the current.

If I were a doctor, economist, lawyer (and I could list a long roll of professions I now regret not pursuing), probably everything would be different. But I threw myself headfirst, without ever questioning, into everything related to writing or fashion. And I screwed up. Because in these fields, there’s no backstage to hide in.

I spent the last few years spinning in circles, postponing understanding how to get out of this. I convinced myself of all sorts of things — except actually doing anything. When you have little to lose, it’s better to get lost completely. There’s demotivation, innocence long past its prime, and, ultimately, exhaustion. But eventually, a huge “sod it” moment comes, when you realise that, rather than thinking about doing something, it’s better to actually do it. And the “thing” I have to do isn’t anything special — it’s something I’ve done in the past, when there was no Instagram and the end was an end in itself. Creating a free-writing blog is that thing for me.

In 2008, I created three blogs — not one, but three — purely for the joy of writing. Followers weren’t a concern; where the blog would take me even less so. The exposure was light, so it wasn’t intimidating. Back then, as the Italian writer Umberto Eco might say, the Internet hadn’t yet “given a voice to a legion of imbeciles.” I’ve always found negative comments extremely unpleasant — toxic even — on each other’s Instagrams. I only follow what I like, and what I don’t, I either ignore, or glance at once, acknowledge it doesn’t appeal, and move on.

Circa 2010 — in my fashion blog days and sweet self-delusion.

Having a free-writing blog, where sharing with the public will be a matter, sim senhor, is opening the doors of my inner house — and only those who come with good intentions are welcome. It doesn’t seem right to enter someone’s home to be rude. We don’t allow that in real life, so why do it on social media? The blog is mine, the words are mine. I won’t expose myself as a professional, I don’t represent any media outlet, so toxicity is not welcome and will be excluded at the first attempt. All constructive criticism, yes.

Another feature of this blog is that the texts will be published in English. I always write originally in Portuguese, but for obvious reasons — what we currently call “reach” — English will be my choice. I’ll gladly send the original Portuguese to anyone who prefers it via email.

So, I invite you to join me on this journey of writing this blog, so it isn’t so solitary. There will be texts I’ve written in the past but never published, as well as new ones that come up. At its core, this will be about putting on paper all kinds of observations — and other accidents — that coexist within me every day: questions, lessons, learnings, emotions, fears. Including everything that crosses us as a culture — from the mind and human relationships to fashion, lifestyle, and trends that, subtly, shape us and reveal something about who we are or who we wish to be.

I commit to just this: one new text every week. Anyone who wants to, come with me.