José Manuel dos Santos

If you’ve read even one of these stories, thank you. You’ve been part of this journey, whether by engaging with the words, reflecting on your own life, or simply pausing to think. Writing is, after all, a conversation, and I’m grateful for everyone who has listened and responded.

This week something touched me, deeply, but I need to be protective of people I love to talk about it. For this reason, forgive me if at times you are curious about details that I am not willing to disclose. But I could not ignore this, as what hit me most this past week.

December is a happy sad month for me. My father and I were born in December, so was my daughter. But my father passed away in December, as well as a cousin who was like my second father, and no matter how many welcomed births I hear about in December, I am always melancholic and deep into my thoughts around this time of the year.

This is my reflection, about my day, a day in my life. I do not intend to pass judgement on those that think and feel differently, nor I am advocating this as a way of life for anyone else, but as I am here listening to classical music, having a drink and writing about my chaotic day, I feel relaxed but want to embrace my entire day, including the chaos.

This detailed explanation might make the whole thing seem simple, attainable. Nothing further from the truth, it is very hard to design and maintain. The result is that you end up feeling good when you are in the lodge, you spend hours in there, doing absolutely nothing that you can remember, taking it all in, creating memories that are deep down in your subconscious. And that is what matters. Well done.

It seems we have lost the battle for beauty and aesthetics, we lost sight of the value and function of emotion. I understand the impact of having architecture be the playground of creative architects sponsored by deep pocketed investors wanting to create their own obelisk, but I think we have gone too far to the other side of the pendulum, we have homogenized human experience and humans along the way. Bllahhh!

I don’t have complete answers for this, but I know this means we still have a lot of work ahead of us. And while John Maeda has done an incredible journey, we still must travel our own journey to change and transform the future in line with the vision for this new millennium, quitting is not an option.

You may have a name for people like me, the guy who has 15 shirts in four colors and 5 pairs of pants that coordinate with the shirts, and I rotate between them, almost always starting with a white shirt on Mondays, it mentally helps me to feel like a clean slate at the beginning of the week. I don’t even think in the morning, my head is usually at work very early, and the act of getting dress is routinely the same step by step process that includes shaving twice a week and morning chair exercises thrice a week. Yes, I am sure you have a name for people like me, I’m fine with it.

When I was 18 years old, I came to the United States for the first time, I can on an exchange program from AFS America Field Service and went to San Diego CA to do my 12th grade, after that I returned to Portugal. When I went back, plenty of people approached me with their assumptions and biases about the US, and I had to explain to them that the US was a very large country, with many contradictions and differences in both place and people, and that I had found the best and the worst of human beings during my stay. This friend represents the best of America, a fine American that I happily call my friend.