A Portuguese fisherman was fishing for crabs, he would get them out of the water and put them on a big bucket without any lid. Passing tourists were curious of why he wouldn't put any lid on the bucket and why the crabs weren't running back to the sea. A man finally approached the fisherman and asked him: "Sir, why don't you put any lid on the bucket? Won't the crabs run away?" the fisherman looked to the gentleman and answered: "don't you worry, they are Portuguese crabs, as soon as one tries to climb and get free, the other ones will grab him by the legs and pull him down!".
Portugal is a small country, we're smaller than many (if not all) states of the US and with 10 million people we're fewer than some of the bigger cities on the world, but we're not a tight community as one would think, we are a sad (as in depressed) people and that shows in almost everything we do, from music to cinema, from writers to paintings. In everything and every way we express ourselves, there's almost always a touch of sadness, of melancholy and to a certain point, self pity and low self esteem. The cause of this may be that we were for so long a very very poor country, and controlled and closed to the rest of the world by a dictatorship up to 40 years ago, and for some people that dictatorship is still present in they're minds. I don't know if all this sadness and pessimism is in our DNA like some people claim, or, if this is just those bad years passed from generation to generation and that will eventually fade away as times progress.
Go to school. go to university, get a job and stay there for the rest of your life, impress you bosses and if you have to abdicate of your weekends or vacations that's ok, even if you do it for free, you should be glad that you boss knows you're a good employer and that feeling of pride should be enough for you...
That's more or less the feel that I have most people from my parents and grand parents generations think you should do. Meaning, happiness it's a luxury that we can't afford, and worst, don't need.
All this to get to this point:
This way of thinking and feeling is across most things we do, and most certainly the way we think and construct our future.
I was on my early 20´s the first time I felt for sure that I wanted to make a living on blacksmithing. It was a drinking night at Lisbon and on the way home there was a poster of a Knight holding a sword on his hands on some closed store window. The poster was of a faded blue hue caused by years at the sun, but as I stumbled my way home on those tight and wavy streets in the old part of Lisbon that image struck hard in my brain. Most guys would be impressed by the Knight in shining armor or the hero represented in that picture, but what made me stand there looking at that window was the sword, the romantic simplicity of medieval times, the feeling of "those wore the days". Something ticked in my brain in that instant (besides the beer) and I felt that that was the feeling I wanted for the rest of my live, work on steel, and have a simple live. That's it! Happiness in a nutshell!
Next day things were different, now sober, the smells were different, the thoughts were different and the feelings were different. The idea of becoming a blacksmith didn't make sense anymore, not because I didn't want it, but... it was not realistic, I needed a normal job and a fix income to success in live.
Ten years later and here we are, I'm finally smithing and thinking of going full-time someday.
And here enters the mighty Portuguese Crab! It's hard enough for me to overcome years of education where your live is suppose to be a tool for others to use (that's my interpretation on it), let alone fight against hordes of people telling me that I'm going to fail.
"You have a family and a kid now, you should find a stable job"
"You're just being romantic, real live isn't like that"
"Nobody want's to buy knives"
"Nobody is looking for blacksmith work"
"You're to expensive, I can buy it cheaper at the dollar store"
"Others are better than you"
"You're not that good"
"You're day dreaming"
"Not in this economy"
"Not in this country"
"It's outdated"
Sometimes they just give me that pity or condescending look or a sarcastic laugh...
It's even worse when I try to explain people how miserable one feels when there's a chance to make something you love and you just don't, or, if I try to explain that part of this is to set an example to my kid.
That last one is great
"You're setting an example of being a looser"
"Your kid needs food, not examples"
"You need to grow up"
"You need to work hard and teach him to do the same"
"You need to show him how hard the world is"
"He need to learn things the hard way".
The irony behind all this is that, I too was a Portuguese Crab, I firmly believed that the world is and it is supposed to be hard and you're born to work all live to have enough money to eat, pay your mortgage and wait for your retirement to do whatever you want to do with your live that makes you happy! People should be discouraged to build a company or to try to strive for them selves, it's almost cockiness to think you could make it, do you think you're better than me?!?
I have all that melancholic and depressed feel of the generic Portuguese man, that believe that life is supposed be hard, happiness is something you see in movies and you should be content of what you have, you're alive, you have a roof, that should be enough for you. I try real hard to change that and to ignore others, although sometimes it's really hard not to simply quit.
There are some that really are worried and concerned with me and my family and I appreciate it and am grateful to have such friends (although they don't use the above arguments), but most people it's like if it is printed in their DNA, you HAVE to put people down and discouraged them, specially if you're unhappy with your own live, or, you see that the dreaming, crazy and romantic guy has a real chance, I mean, "his doing things the wrong way, why should he be allowed to be happy if I'm working hard and I'm not?"
Only time will tell, but I'm humble enough to admit that I've failed and graceful enough not to shove it in someones face if I succeed.
