2020 was a psychotic year.
For several reasons.
Bad, grim, complex, difficult.
Inexplicable, unexpected, unknown.
Frightening, distinctive, disturbing.
Shocking. Physical. Horrible.
2020 was the year when:
My father was admitted to hospital with a terrible cancer.
We were confronted with an unexpected family financial situation.
I broke the phalanx, metacarpal, hamate and pisiform bones in my right hand.
I received three phone calls cancelling all the projects planned for that year.
The revival of the Reconstruir Moçambique project died in March.
I was forced to take out a bank loan to support B16’s cash flow.
I had to sell furniture, objects and other items in order to pay the bills at home.
I had to stop working with the Viking, due to a lack of liquidity.
I was separated from my Wife for several weeks, forcing our daughter Olívia to sleep in different homes…
The pandemic appeared…
And all that social, inhumane, global, atrocious pressure coming from all those who believed that salvation lay in the vaccine. That it was compulsory. Unquestionable. Anyone who did not take the vaccine was a criminal. Not me! I was not vaccinated! Thanks to the moral support of my Friend Eduardo. Thanks to several people. Thanks to my communication with Rute. Thanks to our ability to detach ourselves from the world and make our own way. Two or three times we almost wavered. You could not do anything without the vaccine. It was unbelievable. Sickening. But we managed to hold on. We did not give in. We stood firm. Rigid.
This year I add another 2,000 kilometres to my “journey”.
But today,
after all the panic, the wave of terror,
looking back from a distance and in a positive way:
it had memory, connection, colour and some magic.
It brought innovation, creativity, adaptation.
It forced change(s).
It brought truth to the surface, in a real and direct way.
2020 was (also) the year when:
My family did not directly suffer the consequences of Covid-19.
My father received exemplary care in the places where he was hospitalised.
My family’s lockdown took place in Ludo.
B16 moved offices to CELFIL.
The +COESO programme was approved.
We produced content for several Clients.
We caught big waves in Sagres.
We updated our showreel.
We started our commercial strategy.
And our relationship with the donkey project…
And neither I nor my family suffered any physical ailments along that journey, unlike so many other people who, near or far, we watched succumb and surrender to that terrifying global wave of suffering.
It was a year in which we began creating distinctive streams of content. Prepared for greater digital dissemination. With a strong on-line component. The World as we knew it changed. Everything became different. It was from this year onwards that Human Beings began adapting to other ways of communicating, working and operating. And we were there, we participated, we were part of it.
2020 was a psychotic year.
Bipolar (acute) and schizophrenic.
A year of poppers, salvia or out-of-date LSD.
Damp opium smoked through a paper pipe held close.
I had already seen and done many things in my life, but I had never lived through a year like this.
