I confess that it wasn't the first time that I accepted the invitation from Sul Informação to start writing an opinion column in this daily newspaper in the Algarve.
The lack of availability and many tasks, in addition to my identity as an Algarvian cleric, made me think several times whether it was opportune and whether it would be interesting for the multiple readers of this periodical to create this space. I accepted. I accepted, because I like to think about the world that surrounds me and more: I like to question this world and, above all, what exists in it that we don't notice, but it is the mark of the constant evolution of the human species.
I want to show and convey with what I write that everything that is done, everything that is built, has an influence on the way we look at the world.
Here, on this surface of the earth, something causes wind, which, from the pleasant cool breeze on a sunny afternoon, to the tornado that makes us close in isolation in the solitary shell of our existence, stirs what surrounds us and generates changes and transformations .
And, in this case, necessarily, the perception of the force and form of the wind is not the same for every living being. Each one faces their strength in a different way and uses or disuses it for themselves and for the construction that makes their own reality, also tailored to their needs.
This wind, which many will call other things – will, ingenuity, intelligence, creativity, imagination, etc. – is a breath that drives us forward, in search of the image in which we were created, at least for me, who am a priest and believer.
This wind is hope, which is disguised in each one of us so that life does not stop and the world smiles and people are capable of gestures of kindness and generosity. Or not, which is also characteristic of being human. Therefore, Only on the moon there is no wind.
For many, write to the Sul informação is to write for a newspaper that doesn't exist, in fact, for so many, the Sul Informação it is not even a newspaper, but a mere internet news site. They forget that, before Johannes Gutenberg made the enormous contribution to the creation of the paper press, there was already news, but in other supports, and that the press - in its broadest sense -, in the course of its already long history, was always viewed with suspicion, especially when new media emerged, such as radio, cinema, television and, surprisingly, newspapers.
Today, for a daily newspaper to exist, it is not absolutely essential that it has to reach its recipients on paper. By the way, dicionario.priberam.org (one of the most credible) is explicit in this, by stating that a Journal is a periodical publication and by not adding reference to the support in which it is published.
The real does not coincide with the physical (how many philosophers, physicists, doctors, pedagogues, among many others, who, over the centuries, debated these issues and reached more or less complex conclusions?).
Materiality is no longer a condition to define existence and time and space are not seen as static and definitive concepts. This contemporary condition allows us to create things that remain eternally or that are consumed at a glance, whether we can grab them or just look for them, in the magical world of the digital.
O Sul Informação it is, therefore, a newspaper. And not just a newspaper, but it is the biggest and most read daily newspaper in the Algarve and one of the most read nationally. Online information is faster, cheaper and more effective for people.
The objective and credibility of the news are not characterized, nor have they ever been characterized by the support that is used, but by the speed and proximity that is promoted to the receiver. It's the Sul Informação it reaches its receptors because it is windy, as it lives in our concrete and beautiful Algarvean land and not the immense vacuum of the moon. It makes the wind, shakes and changes the panorama of our communication. It builds and is built. And this is much deeper than it first appears.
And now, from now on, it gives me the opportunity to participate in this process, which I see as an honor and a responsibility. Here, with my little contribution, I hope to show that this is a land of creation, because only on the moon there is no wind.
Author Father Miguel Neto is director of the Information and Pastoral Ministry of Tourism of the Diocese of Algarve, as well as parish priest of Tavira.
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