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But, if Proverb, the most perceptive and intelligent person I've ever known, disagrees I'm either failing to communicate or I'm wrong. Maybe it's like my grand-daddy always said, "This conversation will only make sense if you understand what I'm saying."

We live in a world of superlatives, rankings, and comparisons. There's a 1-100, "best of" or "most" list for everything. And the world is competitive, even with respect to things that are ultimately subjective like fine art competitions and battles of the bands. The connotation attached to mediocre isn't pretty. Who wants to hear someone call their finest effort mediocre at best?

What I mean by advocating the celebration of mediocrity is that we should learn to cherish and celebrate personal excellence that is comparatively mediocre. Most of us do that most of the time when it comes to friends and family, but I think the inability to do it in general causes a fair amount of unnecessary pain.

Here's an example.

Of course, I said that was a pretty daring move. He stopped playing and told me it had been his dream since childhood in India. Things had gotten to the point where he couldn't think of anything else. It was a burning passion and he figured it was now or never.

Listening to him noodle on my guitar, I couldn't imagine how he got accepted to a guitar instruction program that had any entrance standards. He wasn't far from being a rank beginner and the few riffs and chords he could play had much room for improvement. Maybe we had different ideas as to what constituted a pro.

He said he expected to work with a bar band within the next six months since he was practicing ten or more hours a day and had enrolled in a pricey school. I said keep in touch and let me know when he started gigging.

He did.

About a year later I got an email from him letting me know his band was playing at some small bar. This I had to hear.

I heard. He sucked. I stayed until the break and asked him if he was happy with his new career. He smiled. I wished him good luck, left, and didn't hear from him again.

But, a couple of years later I happened to go into another small bar and there he was playing with a different band. He had improved and the rest of the band was decent, but even if some of his riffs had smoothed out I could tell he didn't have a good touch and probably never would. At the very best his playing would reach the level of mediocre if he kept at it (and I had a strong feeling he would keep at it).

On the way home though I realized that while there may be something left of center in his playing, there was something even more off the mark in my thinking.

My opinion about him eventually attaining mediocrity was based on what I thought a "pro" should sound like. It was based on a comparison. I realized that while he may be comparatively mediocre, which is a subjective conclusion, he was heavily engaged in the pursuit of excellence. His own level of excellence. His performances on these two occassions may have been comparatively weak, but they might have also been his personal best.

But, that's where attitudes get complex. I happened to know his background story and how seriously he pursued his passion. Without that information I probably would have pegged him as a somewhat lazy hobbyist. So there was a dilemma. On one hand I had to celebrate his pursuit, but on the other, as a paying bar-going customer couldn't I expect something more?

Maybe it's not so much of a dilemma as it is a conflict, a tension between personal best and comparative best (or comparative mediocrity).

What to do when a personal best is comparatively mediocre? Should we give up? Say, "Well, no matter how diligently I pursue excellence in this field I will always be mediocre compared to some so why bother?" Sure, our friends and family will, if we're lucky, applaud our diligence and progress, but what if no one contributes to the tip jar?

If you believe, as I do, that a life worth living requires the diligent pursuit of excellence in something (and it will probably have to be something about which we are passionate or the pursuit will be half-hearted and far from diligent), then maybe it's good to make peace with two ideas.

One: Make peace with your market share, be it ever so humble. If your best is comparatively mediocre, don't waste time sitting by the phone waiting for a call from Carnegie Hall.

Two: Live by your own standards. This flows from the principle above. If you depend on the approval of others, you're in for a rough time. Strive for your personal best and try to celebrate the strivings of others. You'll always come across a guitarist whose playing humbles you but remember, his efforts have nothing to do with yours. Be your own source of validation. Believe it or not, many, if not most, of the "great" players are as insecure about their position in the comparative world as you are.

But no time for that now. Tomorrow morning we go to London for 4 days - Proverb, our daughter, and Proverb's father and his fiancé.

Will have some info and hopefully some photos from London when we return.

Next week I'll publish Proverb's old entries.

I'm in the process of re-publishing our old entries, which will take awhile. No telling when we'll have time to add new posts or get caught up with all that's gone on since our last post on the old Contemporary Love.

In a nutshell, Proverb and I are happily married since September 1, 2003, we still live in Portugal, and we now have a beautiful baby daughter who is seven-months-old.

Been a long, hard road, but one filled with a true contemporary love.

And to my Proverb - Happy Valentine's Day! I love you!

"Another day in paradise"... What's good about all this? Two things: life itself, as an experience, and, second: the fact that we have people we really love.

But how many times do we fail to give family and friends the attention they need? Life's tough, but we all think that family and friends are guaranteed. And that's the problem, because nothing in this life is guaranteed. The biggest adventure in life is not conquering people, as hard as that may be, it's keeping them and keeping them happy.

And we will see them happy only if we are happy. But most of us are not very happy. Probably because we are addicted to the speed of modern life, because we have the illusion that with this hectic rhythm we will conquer more things, and while we are concerned about conquering things we forget to keep our people.

Nothing I write is new, not at all. Nothing anyone can write is new, but, it seems that even if what I say is repeated over and over, most people delay doing something about it. Probably only when we are old we understand the sense of life.

And the sense of life is peace.

Who I am to say this? Exactly one of you that spends too much time inside the car, eating badly, working as best as I know, struggling to pay the bills, sleeping less than I should, worrying about everything, with more bad humor than I would like... and not giving enough attention to the people I love.

How many days has it been since I called my big friend Sara? My friend John? My friend Mesquita, Filipa, Tony, etc, etc? How many days don't I take care of my father as I should? How may times was I impatient and aggressive with my sister that I love so much? How may days did I spend without seeing my nephew, my adorable and honest brother and his wife? How many times didn't I understand my brother-in-law?

Why, because life is tough? It is, so what? That's what we live for - to learn, to suffer, to smile. The fact is: the rhythm we live by doesn't allow us to smile too often. Of course there are those good people that I envy that always smile no matter how hard their life is. But for me, that wisdom will come only with time. At least, I know that we shouldn't take for granted the people we truly care about.

Because family is our best support, and, in the end, is the base of all society. If you are happy at home, you will be happy or happier outside of home, and you will be more generous even if you don't notice it. Imagine if everybody was happy at home. I know, I am being Utopian, but I can hope for it, can't I?

All of this to say that we should always love our loved ones as good as we know we should because we never know what tomorrow will bring.

And today was a very sad day. Almost 200 people died in Spain because of a terrorist attack. A lot of people will stay without their family and friends. And that made me think about how brief life can be, about how often we should kiss and hug the ones we love because we never know.

A family without a member is always a family without all the happiness it deserved. I know that because I had no mother and I always felt different, as if there was always a hole in my heart. But what happened today was much more than losing loved ones, it was losing them in a very cruel and unacceptable way. A way that shows how unhappy and sick the world we live in is. A way that will bring, after sadness and pain, revolt and hate. And that makes me really sad. Because I truly believe that violence is the worst response to anything.

No matter the causes, violence is always a repugnant thing. Because life is sacred. And life has to be respected. I don't care about religions, political colors, dirty political games, traditions, cultures, races. I care about humans. Point, period. Because this is our world, the only one we have, and we have to live here all together. With respect. If we don't like it we always have the option of indifference. And this is a valid option for all those who plant seeds of hate, no matter if they live in the east, the west (or somewhere in-between), or if they believe in Jesus, Allah, or money.

There are no books on economics or religion that instigate violence. We don't need to change or burn books, what we need is to change people and the way they interpret the world.

I would love to believe that in two centuries the world will be better, but I don't know. The 20th Century, the century of "facilities", technology, information and humane laws, was also the century of big barbarities. Now, in the twenty-first, it doesn't seem things have changed. Until when will we continue to live among stupidity and ignorance with a computer in front of our eyes?

Now I am sleepy, I have to go, I have to give a ton of kisses to my Adverb. Even if I am sad because the night always brings more and more thoughts and I know I will not escape thinking about all those families that were destroyed today. To the ones that died, peace to their soul. To the ones that think all this speech is to corny, pity.

But I hope all you stay as best as you can.

Regards,

Proverb

And here, here is my love, my passion, my nest. My Adverb taking a nap. What can I say about him? That I wouldn't be happy without him. He is everything. The best person to laugh with, the best person to talk with, the best person to play with, the best lover, the best everything, even the best person to fight with... Lol. And, of course, I don't need to say that anytime I am in an inner revolution he goes there and heroically rescues me.

And here's my Adverb with Miguel, my nephiew. With four years old he looks to the adults and he says: "I already told you that I don't allow you to tell me to shup up" . I guess my father will have to repeat the sames lessons over and over, for the next twenty years. Lol.

And here I am with my nephew. Don't even think that I was teacthing him anything because obviously he knows much more than I do. That's how he feels and, of course, we obey. Who said kids were democrats?

Why do men always forget to put their things in the right place?

Here's me, in an inner revolution. Well, my stomach was in a revolution after 10 hours with Madame Sara and one bottle of whiskey, one bottle of champagne, and one botle of liqueur. Luckily, my Adverb was there to laugh with me and rescue me.

Regards,

Proverb

PS: Family and friends are the best thing in this world

I finally did an assignment about the minimum wage. In fact, I had wanted to do it for a very long time so I gave the idea to my newspaper, they accepted it, and I did it. The article ran three pages and, in addition to all the statistical information and economic explanations, contained stories about real people struggling to survive. What they told me was sad, very sad, but was not a surprise. I have to admit though that I was very surprised by the number of people that didn't speak, giving up at the last minute, because they were afraid of having problems with their bosses.

Although a country where the official dictatorship ended 30 years ago, Portugal is still a country that lives, in many aspects, under fear. And that continues to shock me. When I was a little younger I used to think that these people were cowards because they failed to help themselves or a collective cause (better salaries, better lives, better companies, better profits, stronger economies). Today, I have a different idea. Probably because when some of the times I decided to speak out loud about what I considered unfair I got hurt (though, looking back now, not as much as I could have been). So, today, even shocked, even sad, even not agreeing that silence is the better answer, I can understand people that struggle quietly to survive in order to avoid hurting their children and families.

And all the stories these people told me for my minimum wage article made me think about something completely different but that somehow relates to it: silent dictatorship. You know, all the things you have to avoid doing or saying, for your own health, even if nobody tells you to. And I am not speaking only about people that struggle to survive at a basic level (they just refreshed this in my mind). I am speaking about all the things that go with and lurk behind surviving in any environment. All the fearful situations that we all help to create that result in unfair things. And yes, I can honestly say that I hear a silent dictatorship in most places.

How many people do you know that are good professionals but have miserable salaries compared to their equally good professional colleagues that do exactly the same work? And how many of these people have you seen quietly accepting this until, one day, they revolt and they say everything they think with the wrong delivery because they've reached their limit ? What did you observe then? Most of the time they got more hurt, right? If not directly - because nobody can fire anybody without strong reason - indirectly, like suddenly nobody gives them work to do, or gives them always the same kind of work, until they get tired and depressed.

Four week ago, for example, in my country, two women decided to speak about the things they considered unfair in their jobs. Their boss (a woman - never think a woman is more sensitive) decided to seek revenge and put them working in the garage of the store without being allowed to come outside. They were basically treated as if they were in jail. Cruel, right? Also rude but at least obvious enough to draw attention to this ridiculous revenge.

But what about when these things happen in a polite way, among graduated people, people that lived with books but learned very little about loving mankind? Seems even worse, right? But it happens often enough... People that pretend to be friends for convenience, people that always have a nice smile when they say a bitter thing, people that always try to step on other people to achieve their goals, authoritarian rule disguised as smooth suggestion. I cannot tell you how many people (the ones with good relationships - which means friends of the bosses) I heard during my working life saying things like: "I will not rest until I destroy him (or her)". Would be nice if it had been only a nervous moment, but it wasn't. Often, after the "nervous moment", when they recover their charade of politeness, as if it was just coincidence they decide to say a simple and apparently innocent sentence about the "poor work" of the person that they just wanted to destroy. Imagine this innocent sentence day after day, spoken next to a friend (read boss).

And how many times has this happened to you? How many times have you decided to pretend you didn't understand? And how many times you did you look the other way because you knew that it would be worse to speak what you feel? How many times have you kept smiling? How many times, tired of pretending, have you started to be honest? What happened? Did you win something with it? How many times have you heard that, anyway, you are the one with the bad temper? Welcome to the dictatorship of silence. And this does not apply only to the ones that really struggle to survive. I believe it applies to all of us.

An example: How many times were you going to be the next boss of your department, but suddenly a guy that nobody knows where he came from took your place just because your general boss likes him more than he likes you? And how many times did you keep smiling because you clung to hope and because you believed that it would be worse to say what you really thought and felt?

So, after having to fight hard to have a job or to win the minimum wage you have to fight hard to be the boss's friend to keep the privilege of winning the minimum wage. And when you are lucky and competent enough to have a good job and a good salary, you still have to lick your boss's boots and approve any nonsense he says because your ideas are always worse than his... simply because he is the boss (which means you have to trust luck and hope to have a good, organized and competent boss).

Do I believe that this silent dictatorship happens everywhere? Yes. But do I also believe this happens more in countries like Portugal? Yes. Too many affections involved, too many sympathies and antipathies involved. Here I have the feeling that it's not always competence that matters.

Portugal is a country where it's so hard to conquer something, where it's so hard to keep what you conquered. It's a country where people cannot separate their personal tastes from competence or incompetence. Because Portugal is still a country not very professional and still growing in that matter, people become wild and do whatever they feel they must to keep what they have conquered. And this is the silent dictatorship we live every day of our lives, taking it everywhere we go.

And this country that demands from itself the same speed it sees in developed countries is still lost in the question of how to do things in a professional manner, because it is still lost in personal affections, lobbies and poor power games. Like a teenager, Portugal is somehow lost between what it was and what it wants to be, struggling to grow but meanwhile creating bad habits like fear and the resulting lack of initiative or creativity caused by fear.

Regards,

Proverb

Last month I wrote a little piece about contemporary romance entitled, Contemporary Romance: Sense and Nonsense, Part One.

This is Part Two.

Part One took a brief look at the meaning of "romance". My conclusion was that "romance" was the means by which we obtain affection from someone we desire. I described two types of romance, unilateral and bilateral, the difference being whether or not there was a pre-existing affectionate relationship. If so, romance is bilateral in nature, if not, unilateral.

Winning (or, of course, losing), implies reluctance, selectivity, and competition. Thus, the ideas of "battle" or "conquest" come into play.

Not new concepts as the history of literature demonstrates. We may desire affection from a particular individual, but unless (and often even if) there is a strong, immediate, mutual attraction, in most cases that affection has to be won.

The process, or tactics, by which that affection is won is often referred to as "courting". The person desiring affection makes that desire known directly or indirectly and engages in various forms of conduct intended to persuade the desired person that he or she is worthy of his or her affection.

The Big Picture

Many scientists explain this phenomenon in biological terms. According to this point of view, the mating ritual is nature's way of enforcing selective breeding. Beefing up the gene pool. Observation of the mating habits in the animal kingdom seems to support the theory. Males, for example, compete for the affection of the female, often literally fighting among each other to demonstrate their worthiness.

A variation on the theme of Darwinism. Survival of the fittest. Males and females choosing mates among available choices that will most likely contribute to the production of the fittest offspring.

The impact of Darwin's theories should not be underestimated. Darwinism caused an intellectual revolution with respect to philosophical, religious and political thought. Unfortunately, it has also caused a great deal of pain, suffering and bloodshed.

Survival of the fittest. The animal kingdom. Observation. On its face, Darwinism is compelling. It seems there is a "natural law" that makes survival the fundamental reason why living things are as they are and do what they do.

But this is a superficial point of view. It assumes that mankind is identical to the peacock, buffalo and goldfish. It assumes that what is deemed "strength" and "fitness" in the animal kingdom is equally applicable to human beings.

The attributes that lead to success in the non-human animal kingdom are often war-like in nature. Physical strength, courage, aggression, unrelenting violence. In fact, in many species traits such as tenderness or mercy would be a definite handicap. If you believe that mankind, being a part of the natural animal kingdom, is subject to exactly the same principles as non-human species, you are a short step away from declaring that might makes right and that all's fair in love and war.

"Might makes right" may be applicable to the lion kingdom and may be an important part of what constitutes a healthy lion community, but is that true for mankind? Not necessarily. While healthy individuals and communities are what survive in nature, what is "healthy" for some species is not necessarily a healthy state in all.

Throughout history, human societies have practiced superficial Darwinism and lived by the sword. Without fail, each one of them eventually either died by the sword or fell to decay.

That we are part of the animal kingdom is undeniable. But failure to understand that we are something more than our animal kingdom relatives is a prescription for disaster. A healthy human community thrives on cooperation and reasonable efforts to advance the well-being of the community, its individual members, and the environment in which it finds itself.

Not that a certain degree of competition and aggression aren't healthy qualities. They are essential, within certain limits. Without them we'd be sheep.

Lions do lion things by instinct. When confronted by adversity or desire, the question for a lion is simply what can it do to prevail. What makes us so different from the lion is the second question that arises when we meet with adversity or desire - what should we do - what is the right thing to do?

Our raw animal instinct is tempered by our human emotions and ability to reason - the traits that define us as human and set up apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. We are both lion and man. The question that faces us, being both lion and man, is what attributes do predominate and what attributes should predominate.

Over time, only healthy species survive. A healthy species is one that is in tune with its finest, unique traits, and its environment. In order for mankind to become a healthy species we need to conduct ourselves in accordance with what makes us truly human - our peculiar ability to reason and feel. Human "fitness" isn't dependent upon military or economic strength, but upon the willingness to exercise the tools of reason in accordance with compassion and cooperation.

This isn't just a "nice" attitude. Considering the growth of the human population and the progressive development of technology, it's an attitude that will become essential for the survival our species. We will survive through cooperation, not conquest.

It's difficult to overcome the lion in us and apparent foolishness to advocate reason and compassion inside the lion's den. Our basic animal instincts pull us toward decisions that laugh at reason and compassion. But it's precisely our ability to overcome that pull that marks us as human. It's all that protects us from destruction.

Romance - the smaller picture

It may be that the scientists are right and that it is animal instinct that initially ignites our desire for affection from a particular individual. But, as in the discussion above, once ignited we decide whether to conduct ourselves as lion or human.

If we conduct ourselves as lion, winning is our only goal no matter the cost or means. We buy fashionable clothes and play the peacock; we butt heads with our competitors and play the buffalo; and we tout our bank balance to seem the shiniest goldfish. We lie. We scheme. We make every effort, honest or otherwise, to appear worthy of our target's affection.

If we conduct ourselves as human, our desire for the other person engenders an honest concern for them. We take an interest in their well-being. We want to see them grow and flourish. We desire their affection, but not at the cost of their harm. And we want them to see in us something admirable and desireable that is not transitory like clothes, physical strength or the strenght of our bank balance. If we have not confused affection with lust, we hope they find in us traits that make us decent human beings - honesty, courage, compassion, and the ability (and willingness) to reason.

How does this help us get that first date? It removes fear. I'll leave how it does that for Part Three.

What are your wishes for 2004?

"What are your wishes for 2004?" my friend asked me. It should have been enough to say, "more wisdom to the world," but wasn't. She wanted to know what I demanded from myself for myself. From among several choices - like having more time for family and friends, being more patient, etc., etc., I answered that I wanted to continue to avoid using cynicism and sarcasm with my "enemies", even if too hard and sometimes a strong temptation. She looked at me seriously and questioned me again, "Aren't those important tools for survival?"

Are they?

A long talk began.

See, I have a different perspective. To me, cynicism and sarcasm are signs of intelligence (like humor) and because intelligence is so expensive I don't think we should waste it on those we don't care about. What I see out there masquerading as "cynicism" and "sarcasm" aren't really signs of intelligent speech. Actually, they are nothing more than cheap attacks disguised as witty conversation by the use of fake smiles and polite manners. And what's the point of wasting the little intelligence I have with those who wouldn't get it anyway? I prefer to save my wit for the ones I love instead of spending it on "amateurs".

"But you can be very sarcastic when you write," my friend said back to me. Yes, I can, because as a matter of principle I like people I haven't met yet.

So I use cynicism, sarcasm and rude humor among my people to play with the nonsense I read in the news (example: in a country like Portugal where the minimum wage is less than 400 dollars the price of bread was going to increase 35%); to describe our government's blindness (example: illegal immigrants were allowed to pay taxes but not remain in our country); or to describe the cheap attacks I see everyday between people that are supposed to be adults. Because if there's something I really like it's a good laugh among friends. And the world is out there full of reasons to laugh (though basically they are exactly the same reasons to cry).

Here's to 2004...

And now I am too sleepy...

Regards,

Proverb

But you know something? I would do it all again.

So, the first thing I want to tell you is: Love is a wonderful thing. Second: I wish you a lot of love. Third: I wish you a Merry Christmas or a joyful holiday season, and a very Happy New Year. Fourth, I wish you health, patience and persistence.

And today I say no more because I am really tired and tomorrow is going to be a very long day.

One thing I promise you: I will speak about what is going on in France and the law that forbids religious symbols in schools.

Proverb

Since putting these journals/diaries/weblogs, or whatever we should call them, online in August of 2003, I've received a fair amount of email from people around the world asking questions about: long distance relationships; being a U.S. citizen living abroad; technical visa questions; and, a variety of other topics related to love and romance.

True, I've learned quite a bit over the last year and a half. I have a very good idea of the time and expense involved in moving to the European Union and remaining there legally, at least in the case of a U.S. citizen; I now know more about the Schengen Treaty than I care to; and, I can tell you how to navigate the Heathrow, Charles DeGaulle, and Frankfurt International Airports.

But I've also learned something truly important. Something about the power of love.

Before Proverb and I met for the first time in Paris in May, 2002, we thought we were in love. In less than twenty-four hours after meeting we knew we were. There's a big difference between the two. Our "plan" before meeting in Paris was simple. We each had our own life, hers in Portugal, mine in Los Angeles. Yes, we "loved" each other, but thought we could continue our long distance love after meeting in Paris by simply spending our holidays together, here, there, or at some exotic location in-between. Two or so weeks a year. We met on May 7. By May 8 that simple plan was out the window. From that point on the only life that made sense was a life together, daily, permanently. Period.

From Paris we flew to Porto where she lived, and where we now live together. A week later I returned to Los Angeles. Within a month I was back in Portugal to stay. I arrived with two guitars and one suitcase containing: clothes; old photos; a few miscellaneous items related to my life that my mother had collected; three books; a digital camera; and, a few CDs. Gone was a fine automobile and a nice house with a garage full of "stuff" that probably now sits in someone else's garage gathering dust. Life was ahead, not behind.

What I didn't bring with me was a plan as to exactly how Proverb and I were going to create a life together in Portugal. At the time it didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was Proverb's beautiful face being the last thing I saw at night and the first thing I saw in the morning.

My research into how I could legally stay in Portugal consisted of some Internet browsing and one call to the Poruguese consulate office in San Francisco. I would be permitted to stay in Portugal for three months after which I would have to visit a non-EU country and have my passport stamped in order to stay in Portugal for another three months.

Sounded easy, especially when the lady at the consulate's office told me all I had to do was visit Morocco for the passport stamp, a non-EU country not far from Portugal and not all that expensive to visit. The reality of staying in Portugal legally would prove quite different.

The alternative of Proverb moving to the U.S. was never a serious option. By occupation and family she was much more tied to Portugal than I was to the U.S. I had lived outside of the U.S. before, in Asia, enjoyed it, and figured living in Europe would be even easier, the language and culture being more familiar.

But there really was no "plan". Now when I receive emails from people who are in situations similar to ours, I marvel at the depth of detail people consider before making a long distance relationship a reality - a study in logistics worthy of a major military campaign. What was I thinking?

Of course, I wasn't thinking. I was feeling. My "thinking" amounted to no more than a belief that once we were together things would somehow work out. A very strong belief. A belief strong enough for me to abandon everything for the only thing that drove me.

Love.

History and literature are full of examples of the power of love. My life, though, isn't. Before Proverb, I would have been the last person you would guess could ever act under the influence of the power and magic of love.

I was a walking testament to the power of reason.

So, while I've learned a good deal about international travel and visa applications, I've learned more important things. Things and lessons I missed in the graduate school of philosophy. I've learned that words and reason are means and not ends. They're simply tools. I've learned that if you're lucky, there are rare moments in your life in which your heart takes command and speaks clearly, making words and reason nothing more than bubbles of air.

Now when people email me and ask, should I do this or that, I know the answer. Probably not. When your heart knows, doubts, fear, and questions fade. The power of love, as I know it, does first and thinks after. Practical? No. Easy? No. Risky? Yes. Worthwhile? Beyond words.

I don't mean to create a false impression. True love isn't a static thing that instantly transforms life into a carefree adventure in wonderland. It's a living, breathing thing that can grow and flourish or wither and die. It's a flower that requires careful tending. Its first appearance is a seed and, as powerful as that appearance might be, it's a seed that often finds itself in rocky ground where cultivation requires considerable attention, labor, and sacrifice.

And I'm not suggesting that we live recklessly, that we throw caution to the wind every time we get a whiff of desire, passion, infatuation, or other form of attraction. Keep it safe and sane.

And I can't say when or if you'll experience true love, though if it can happen to me it can happen to anyone, whether you're ten feet or ten thousand miles apart.

What I can say is that when you discover the seed of true love heed the clear voice of your heart and tend your garden well.

Have a safe and wonderful holiday season.

In the last post I never offered a solution to the minimum wage problem here, I was more concerned about things as they are, at least my perspective of how they are. Today I want to present one very basic solution. To make life bearable in this country we need to take one of three roads: lower retail prices; increase wages; or, why not, achieve a liveable harmony between them, lowering the prices and raising the minimum wage until the two reach a healthy balance.

Our minimum wage is unbearable. We need a law to change it. But more than laws, we need intelligent people. We need intelligent governments that are not subordinated to big companies, and we need big companies that follow the law and want to grow without exploiting people. How many centuries will Portugal take to imitate good examples? Again, what we need is a change of mentality.

Example: I had an opportunity to appreciate how America works. Very generally speaking, American people work hard and well, but American people are also very well paid. America is a country that promotes intelligence and creativity. And here are the basic differences. Portugal has companies that don't follow laws and governments (whatever their political color) that are subordinated to those companies. What further complicates the problem is the fact that Portuguese corporate culture is still largely based on the "buddy system" where we see big companies in this country hiring and promoting people whose highest work skill is making friends with or being related to the bosses.

From an economic point of view, Portugal is a recipe for disaster and the victims of the disaster aren't our large corporations.

Let's face it. Someone's making money here. The math is simple: in a situation where retail prices are high and the cost of labor is low, somebody's making good money. And it's not the labor.

What do we need to achieve a situation in which workers earn a minimum wage high enough to be a true living wage?

What do we need to achieve an economic recovery?

Sacrifice.

Who always sacrifices more? Consumers. Well, I prefer to call them workers. But what more do they have to sacrifice?

Economic recovery requires that companies sacrifice. They must lower the prices of their goods, raise salaries or, as I said above, strike a balance between those two alternatives. Left alone, it's not something that's likely to happen. To do so would mean less corporate revenue, at least in the short term, and corporate managers keep their jobs by producing more short term revenue for investors, not less. Don't expect the large corporations that are benefitting from this cost of living -- minimum wage discrepancy to fix it.

Can we expect the government to step in and correct the situation? Are governments that look to the big companies to sustain the national economy likely to correct the situation by asking them to sacrifice? Of course not.

Recovery is also and mainly up to those who are currently suffering and sacrificing from this bad economic situation. The voter. The worker.

Why is this so difficult? Because workers believe what companies and governments tell them. Workers believe the companies when the companies tell them they have no money for higher wages, although they continue to raise the prices of their goods. So we need informed workers.

And we need workers (voters) who have courage, who refuse to remain silent about the situation out of fear of losing their job. Laws that protect workers from being fired for voicing their opinions would help.

Workers (voters) also believe governments who tell them that the economic situation is too complicated to hope for a quick or easy solution. Of course it's complicated, if you want to "fix" the problem without causing the large companies any pain or suffering.

A good solution will require good laws that are strongly enforced. Those good laws won't happen until voters make it so.

Enough of basic economy (anyway I am not an expert, just an idealist). One of these days I will return to the creativity issue.

Regards,

Proverb

Search. Get the feeling dictionary definitions of romance are closely tied to the editor's personal situation.

Free Dictionary Dot Com: Noun 1. romance - a relationship between two lovers; relationship - a state of connectedness between people (especially an emotional connection): "he didn't want his wife to know of the relationship".

Word Reference Dot Com: romance, definition 13: to tell extravagant or improbable lies.

Must be missing something.

Return to Dictionary Dot Com. Scroll down. There it is, close to the bottom. Overlooked the informal, verb, transitive, definition: "1. To make love to; court; or woo." Progress. No mention of adultery or lying.

Probe the concepts of court and woo. Seem goal oriented, an attempt to win something. Specific objective(s) uncertain but lurking.

A closer look. Courting and wooing possibly an attempt to win something from someone in particular who isn't particularly eager to turn that something over absent a certain amount of acceptable persuasion. Call that something to be won "affection" of one type or another. Romance: the act of persuading someone to deliver affection. Getting closer. Identify the key elements. Parties: courter and courtee. Goal: affection. Method: persuasion.

Interesting. Use of persuasion implies reluctance. An obstacle or hurdle. Something to be overcome. Courter desires courtee's affection. Courtee does not dispense affection freely. Must be won. Reluctance to dispense affection must be turned into a willingness to dispense. What persuasive techniques apply? Flattery? Bribery? Trickery? Too Chauceresque. Gross public displays of affection? Too Shakespearean. Leave tactical questions to a later date.

Missed key point. Above analysis assumes unilateral courtship. Mutual courtship another possibility. A bilateral exchange of persuasive acts. Much lower reluctance threshold. Different techniques apply: displays of desire, sincerity, and affection.

Unilateral romancing: hard sell. Bilateral: soft sell. Unilateral: goal is to win affection. Bilateral: goal is to renew, rekindle, or augment pre-existing shared affection. Two species of romance.

Have isolated the grand strategy: receipt of affection (physical, emotional, both, doesn't matter at this point). Basic strategy: persuasion. Tactics: Contemporary Romance, Part Two.

Case in point. Yesterday I tell the laptop to shut down (I now know I should have asked politely). It refuses. I wait. Get tired of waiting and pull the plug. User has the last word.

Wrong.

Password?

Never set up any password for this. No clue what the password could be.

That's alright. I have creative moments. Start entering possible passwords. Few minutes later creativity is gone and I'm shooting for luck. I'm a lucky dog, remember?

Every dog has its day. Unfortunately, not every day is its day.

I like to believe I'm on the rational side. This password situation has to be witchcraft. How else can you explain the sudden password requirement from having done nothing more than unplug this plastic child of Satan? Where's the science in that?

Proverb's at work. Too bad. Sometimes the machine innocent perform miracles by simply rebooting. I reboot. And reboot. But I am the Unplugger and lack innocence. Contemplate a final boot out the window. Refrain. Make coffee and regroup. Relax. Fight the early stages of email withdrawl.

Have to get online to solve this problem. Dig out the old COMPUTER. Dust it off. Caffeine taking effect. Move the beast and its old monitor into the study. Unravel cords and cords and cords. Plug this into that and that into this. Flip the switch.

The old beast works. I'm online in a few minutes. Search. XP. Reinstall. Clean install. Over install. Under install. Everything's possible.

Make that, everything's possible if I'm willing to run the risk of losing all "data". Ouch. Data loss. Can live with "data" loss. Can't live with losing all the photos Proverb and I took during our travels and wedding. Lose those, tell Proverb, and living will not be a clickable option. She'd ask if I told her I lost data. Define data.

More searching. Must be another answer. Something I can live with. Literally.

Charlie White.

He is my savior. Find an article he wrote last year about my situation (not the password demon, but recovering...excuse me, restoring Windows XP). That's exactly what I need. Restoration.

Article is written for non-geeks. Sounds good. Four pages of instructions. Sounds bad.

A handicap. Have the Portuguese version of Windows XP. Charlie White and I do English. Click here, click there. Great. Back to luck.

Four hours later. Success. Would give details, but don't want to relive it. Laptop smiles. I am back in the fold.

Dear Mr. Charlie White: thank you.

Here's a link to his magic document: XP Witchcraft for the Uninitiated. My title, not his. If you run XP, save this link. Better yet, print out the four pages of instructions in case you don't have a backup computer.

I now have the talisman. Can't wait to finish this article and unplug the little sucker. Last word...last word...last word...