Whoever crosses into a new year without reordering attention doesn’t truly advance in time. Such a passage resembles movement, yet functions as a quiet withdrawal from oneself. Time passes, but the subject thins out. What presents itself as renewal often conceals a subtler form of disappearance. The new year produces the illusion of motion even …
Few nations in Western Europe demonstrate with such clarity that political progressivism and civilizational continuity need not be mutually exclusive. Walk through the labyrinthine alleys of Lisbon’s Alfama during the São João festival, watch Porto’s Ribeira district come alive with the rhythms of Fado, or step into the austere halls of Alcobaça Monastery, and one …
