The interview with Fiorenzo, the friend we met in Esposende, is very useful for those who are thinking of moving to Portugal and want to choose alternative destinations to the usual Algarve or the coveted Lisbon.
A very calm and sensitive person, Fiorenzo takes us inside the meanders of his choice of life with his relaxed style, like the reflective artist, technical designer and musician-composer he is.
This is a talk that we must listen to carefully because it helps us understand how changing one's life, and expatriating, for a pensioner has to do not only with issues related to reducing taxes, but above all with finding or even rediscovering personal paths linked to one's own growth and also to the search for one's own authenticity.
Change, we learn from Fiorenzo, is often not something accidental, but rather a reason that we have been cradling inside for a long time, or perhaps forever. So a favourable tax situation, if I may say so, can be that justification which is all the more comprehensible to others, the easier it is for us to explain, and can be the stimulus that allows us to cast off our moorings and head for shores that tickle our fancy and our personal search.
And yes, because when you are born and raised and when you have worked all your life in the same place, leaving, more or less permanently, is a journey towards "exotic" borders, where we lose our everyday life and give strength to energies that, although they belong to us, we did not really suspect to possess, because they are dormant inside the habits.
In Fiorenzo's case, this regeneration, the rediscovery of forgotten rhythms, the confrontation with an environment and with customs and habits that are different and far removed from his usual way of life, have reawakened in him a passion for music and composition, passions that he has always cherished and which in Esposende have led him to compose, in less than three years, more than eighty pieces or songs, for the simple pleasure of dedicating himself to his art.
Putting oneself on the line, engaging in commitments and arrangements that require time, ingenuity and patience can also lead one to re-evaluate one's own possibilities and energies, and to overcome prejudices that we have allowed to arise in others and in ourselves.
On the contrary, I would say that if this is not the opportunity we seize, the change of country can become fear, discouragement and disappointment. For those who are not in search of the new, the new that starts from within, the one that makes us become "other than ourselves", changing country can become a change for the worse in one's existence. Then, the relative economic advantages will not be enough to nourish a pro-active serenity.
Whoever expatriates, without taking the opportunity to change himself, especially if he does so as a pensioner, in the end runs the risk of leaving his job to find another one: that of living abroad to round off the gross pension. Like any job, in the long run this will be a chore from which he will be eager to get away for a well-deserved rest.
Fiorenzo moves around on foot and by bicycle, he is inspired by the countryside of the region in the north of Portugal where he has chosen to live and by its sea coasts, he delights in learning the language so as to be able to talk to the locals, he enjoys the rhythm of a relaxed life and the friendliness of the people, and then he transfers all this to his keyboard to create musical compositions.
Explaining all this to people who ask us for reasons for our choice of expatriation is not always easy. Much easier is to say something about the tax benefits. And yet, between the lines of this interview, one can see the most decisive and creative reasons for considering the choice of changing one's life as an opportunity to have one's say again, to be there, not to park oneself, to give others something of oneself, of one's most authentic self.
Changing one's life does not mean running away from a life one does not like, but rather finding the absolute and expansive pleasure of getting to know something else about one's life, contemplating different horizons and limits, repositioning one's starting point and stopping thinking that one is moving towards a goal.
To change is not to reach a goal, but rather to set out on a journey and to be able to see and appreciate with curiosity what we encounter along the way...
Thank you Fiorenzo for your words.
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5 окт 2024
