I recently learned that today, August 31st, is World Blog Day (not to be confused with International Blogger´s Day, which apparently happens on August 5th).

And I´m truly happy that there´s a set day to intentionally celebrate blogs, as one of my many identities, for years now, is that of a blogger, and it´s one I´m very proud of.

Coincidentally, earlier this week, I found this book by Pedro Mañas at home, and read it: The secret life of Rebecca Paradise. The protagonist makes up a whole new identity for herself through her blog (or her glob, as she calls it). I really liked this book, and it comes with a message, so I recommend it to all boys and girls.

Next month it will be twenty years since I arrived in Ireland (OMG, twenty years!) and started my first blog, which was also called Binarywords and was written entirely in Spanish. Back then, blogging was in fashion: it was something relatively new, and some of my friends also had their own blogs... For me personally, it was great to get to reflect on my day-to-day in a written format; it really helped me through those years of change and growth (and chaos!), and it´s still a massive help today. I consider it invaluable as a tool. But the best part was that, through blogging, I discovered a creative outlet I didn´t even know was available to me: we could say that I found my voice.

Nowadays, the internet has evolved greatly, and content publication formats have changed, but the human need to express oneself and launch one´s ideas into the world is still the same, so new ways of blogging have been invented, as well as new platforms. The mainstream trend nowadays is microblogging, that is, short format, often using videos, reels, etc., to make the information more attractive and easier to digest. I must admit that I´m still old-fashioned when it comes to this: I prefer my blank page every week, to be able to write to my heart´s content, and then let the readers find what I wrote, be it because they were looking for the content or just stumbled upon it.

By the way, speaking about platforms, I´m currently trying to integrate this WordPress blog with my Substack account, so that articles get published automatically, as they already do in LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. I´m afraid the integration is going to have to be manual, but still, I think I´ll be able to publish through that medium as well. I´ll keep you posted.

In the meantime, if you feel like exploring more than two hundred articles already written here in the glob, the easiest way is heading to the archive, you´ll find them all there. Thanks for reading me!

A little over a year ago (thirteen months, to be exact), I wrote a blog post with the title Closed for vacation, from the same place where I am right now: my happy place (thanks a million, Javi and Fátima, for welcoming us these days).

In that article, I wrote about the many changes I was going through at the time, and the new phase that was beginning for me and my family.

A year (and a month) later, again I feel it´s been a hectic year, full of changes, and with even more changes on the way, some of them chosen by us and being planned for, and some that I´m sure will come along to surprise us.

(I´m a year behind with my photos... This one is from last summer, and it still doesn´t do justice to the gorgeous sunsets in this place).

Next school year is going to be interesting, with two university students at home (we´re so excited about you joining us, Isabel, we will sorely miss you, Quique), and a few other things I´ll tell you about in due course. For the moment, we still have the month of August to enjoy.

Not surprisingly, I found a quote that I think fits perfectly with today´s topic. I heard or read somewhere that we don´t come to this life to be happy, but to solve problems, and I completely agree, though I also think that through those problems we solve and those challenges we overcome we acquire the ability to be happy, no matter our circumstances.

The measure of success is not whether you have a tough problem to deal with,
but whether it is the same problem you had last year.

John Foster Dulles

Yesterday was the longest day of the year (in the Northern hemisphere), followed by the shortest night, and the girls and I marked the occasion by going for a walk on the beach at sunset.

(Photo of Malahide´s beach yesterday evening, with the sunlight seeping through the clouds.)

According to what I learned in school about the seasons of the year, June 21st marks the beginning of summer, but for places with Celtic tradition, like Ireland, we´re already halfway through summer, as the season started (according to their calendar) on May 1st. The story in Shakespeare´s famous play A midsummer night´s dream unfolds precisely around this date, as the title indicates.

In any case, the summer solstice is an occasion that many cultures have been celebrating for centuries. In Spain, the "christianized" version of this day (probably taken from the Celtic festival of Grianstad) is Saint John´s Eve, where fire is the protagonist, whether it´s in the form of bonfires or fireworks.

Today I had the privilege of participating in a small summer solstice celebration, with St. John´s water and sound bath included (thanks, Isabel!), and I´m thinking about preparing a micro-bonfire in a bowl tomorrow night, like in the old days... Why? Because these rituals help us to get grounded: they allow us to momentarily get away from the rush and the noise of daily life, and look inward, listen to ourselves for a little while, reflect on this first half of the year and think about our path going forward.

It´s time to feel renewed, to close some cycles and start new ones. To decide what we want to keep in our lives, what we want to attract and enhance, and what we want to stop holding on to, so that it can go away and let us move forward.

And you? What do you want to keep or attract at this moment in your life, and what do you want to free yourself from?

If you have ever tried to meditate, you will know that the early stages of the practice consist mostly of focusing your attention on something (for example, your breathing), inevitably getting distracted a little while later, realising you got distracted and focusing your attention once more. Again and again, as many times as necessary, in order to progressively train your mind.

To all the expert meditators among you, who have already overcome that initial phase, congratulations! That is still a pending task for me, so I´m not able to tell you firsthand what happens afterwards (and I suspect it may not even be something you can express with words). But it occurred to me that this training of the attitude that´s needed for meditation can be applied to many things in life: the ability to quietly return to the path when we notice we´ve gone astray, without judging ourselves or beating ourselves up, simply course-correcting and continuing to move forward, without getting stuck in guilt, self-justification, complaining, or victimism..

This is the thought that crossed my mind this evening, when I finally spent some time doing yoga after a very long streak of "not having time". Instead of going on about not having been practising (which, I confess, I tend to do quite a lot lately), this time I got myself out of that spiral, took out my mat and just started, without overthinking it. And it felt great.

(This photo is from the notes I got at one of the training courses I did with my first yoga teacher, back in the 1990´s. Thanks, Carsun!)

I once heard or read somewhere a phrase that said something like practicing yoga is the same as not practicing it, and I remember feeling quite confused by this idea at the time. How could they be the same? It didn´t make sense.

Then, as time went by, I found some meaning in it; I don´t know if this is what the author intended to say, but it did help me back then, and it still does. We know objectively that yoga has many benefits; some of them are more visible and immediate, like the flexibility and physical fitness it helps us to achieve, and others are deeper and more subtle, only appearing with continuous practice. Well, it turns out that, at least in my experience, the moment you become most aware of all those benefits is precisely the moment when you lose them, after having given up the practice. So, from that point of view, regardless of whether you practice yoga or not, you get to learn; you learn that keeping up the practice (or resuming it) is the best thing you can do.

I´d like to take this opportunity to thank all the yoga teachers I´ve had the pleasure to learn from over the years, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU (and apologies if I´m forgetting someone):

• To Carsun, for teaching me the basics of hatha yoga, pranayama, and so many other things, and above all, for awakening my curiosity about the world of yoga and the path to get to know myself better.
• To Mary, for those lunchtime classes at the Xilinx gym, I really enjoyed learning to flow with vinyasa.
• To Lisa and all her team at The Elbowroom, for taking such good care of us during pregnancy yoga, mum & baby yoga and yoga for families, and for giving us the tools to take a more natural approach to labour.
• To Martina and Stuart in their beautiful Carlinford studio, a retreat I would love to return to someday.
• To Karen and her classes in Adamstown, an oasis from day-to-day hassle until the pandemic shocked us all.
• And, in virtual mode for the last five years, to Adriene, my partner during countless home yoga sessions, whom I very highly recommend (her videos are in English).

I´m delighted to have returned to my yoga practice again. As Adriene herself often says, the hardest part is to take out your mat every day and show up, and today at least, I´ve achieved that... So what if I get distracted in a few days and it gets parked again? It´s OK, I now know that I can come back. And I will come back, again and again, as many times as needed, because it´s important to me, because it´s worth it.

What about you? What´s that thing you want to start practising again? And what are you waiting for?

A couple of weeks ago, our beloved C4 Picasso decided it was finally time to retire. Eva and I were in Galway with some friends, leaving the city centre towards the Dublin road, when the car kindly let us know (in its particular way, by beeping and flashing lights) that it had no intention of making the way back on its own wheels. So we had to switch to plan B and find an alternative way to get home (which by the way was a success, thanks to the tow truck operator arriving quite quickly, the train station being only a 15-minute walk away, Irish Rail´s regular Galway-Heuston service, and Fredi and Muriel, who came to pick us up in their two cars).

Here´s a picture of our Picasso on the street where we had to pull over and call a tow truck. I got this weird feeling that the car was saying goodbye to me...

A long time ago, I heard or read somewhere that, symbolically, a car represents our own life and the path that we choose to walk along. It is true that, in the last year or so, there have been many changes in my life, and all this time I´ve been thinking about maybe changing to a newer car, but I never taking the step.

Now, finally, the moment has come:

Let me introduce you to our newest acquisition: another Citroën, this time a C5 Aircross. I´ve been driving it for three days, and I love it! I´m getting used to it very quickly, it´s such a smooth drive.

As they said in that old song, to everything there is a season (by the way, I just found out that the lyrics come from a Bible passage, the beginning of the book of Ecclesiastes). Sometimes, we´re so embedded in our habits and routines that we find it hard to acknowledge something has already ran its course, and it´s time to let it go, so that you can continue to make progress.

Thanks a million, dear Picasso, for the 12+ years we spent together. The memories (and a handful of photos) will stay with us.

P.S.- If you´re also going through a transition phase, and could do with a few words of encouragement or a reminder of what´s important, I invite you to have a look at the very first post on this blog, which by the way was written exactly four years ago: This is your life.

This weekend, all over the world, the Muslim community has celebrated the feast of Eid al-Fitr: the end of the month of Ramadan and its corresponding fasting practice. To all of you celebrating, عيد مبارك (I hope Google Translate got it right; it should say Eid Mubarak, which is the customary greeting for this occasion).

Also, in Ireland, today was Mother´s Day (the fourth Sunday in Lent), so here at home we´ve had our own little celebration: homemade crepes for breakfast, a game of Catan and homemade pizza for dinner. (Thanks a million, girls! My best present ever is spending time with you three.)

(Homemade heart-shaped pizza made by my daughter Eva. Amazing, right? She´s brilliant at this.)

What would life be without celebrations? Each nation, culture, religion, and even each family has its own celebrations, and even if they look different from the outside, below the surface it´s the same idea: as human beings, every now and then we need to take a break, get together with our loved ones and enjoy and be merry, often as a reward after challenging or difficult times.

So, similarly to how the feast of Eid takes place at the end of Ramadan, the Christian Easter takes place at the end of Lent, and is in turn a celebration of spring and the blossoming of new life after the winter, same as the Hindu festival of Holi, which took place a couple of weeks ago... And so it goes, on and on.

Each celebration brings its own traditions, which connect us more deeply to our history and our people. Having said that, let´s keep in mind that times change: life evolves, and we evolve with it. That´s why I believe we should feel at liberty to choose, adapt and create traditions and celebrations according to our circumstances and values. Allow ourselves to honour our roots and at the same time extend our wings.

What are you looking forward to celebrating? And how are you planning to do it?

In Spain, in the old days (same as currently in Ireland), car registration plates included a one or two-letter code indicating the county each vehicle was from. Cars from Cáceres, where I was born, had the "CC" code. I still remember the registration plate for that yellow Renault Mégane Coupé I owned back then; I had such a great time with it (we nicknamed it "Tweety"): CC-8836-U.

So, for me, "CC" is a way to identify Cáceres and its province (just to clarify: a province in Spain equates to a county in Ireland; the equivalent to an Irish province is a Spanish region, or "comunidad autónoma").

(Photo of the medieval city of Cáceres last time I visited, in December)

But "CC" also means other things; for example, the number two hundred (200) in Roman numerals. Because ladies and gentlemen, this is article number 200 in the BinaryWords blog.

In May, I´ll reach four years of sitting down to write almost every week, usually on Sunday evenings and into the night. Yesterday, my friends asked me if I didn´t feel lazy sometimes when it was time to sit down and write... Of course, there are times when I don´t feel like doing it, much more often than I would like to admit. But in the same way as professional athletes don´t feel like going out to do their training every day, and they do it anyway because they know it´s really important to stay consistent despite the effort required. As someone very wise reminded me yesterday, consistency is the key.

And the key to consistency, at least for me, is not giving myself the option not to do it (save emergencies, of course, but it has to be a real emergency, which hasn´t happened to date). Otherwise, as you already know, if one thinks too much about doing something, it´s never a good moment...

To be honest, I´m no longer able to imagine a Sunday without writing a blog post. I choose to do it because it´s important to me, because I find it nurturing and fulfilling. It´s the way I´ve found to express my creativity while reflecting on what I learn along the way, and I share my learnings with you all in case you find them helpful. I write for all of you, my readers, but first of all, I write for me.

By the way, nobody has ever asked me, but in case you had any doubts, I do NOT use ChatGPT or any other artificial intelligence to write my articles. In my opinion, it would completely destroy the process I just described.

And when I sit down to write, sometimes the article turns out to be good, and sometimes, not so good. Occasionally, I feel inspired, and I end up writing an extra long article; some other times, I struggle to fill out even a couple of paragraphs. All of this is also normal. The key is to keep going, to keep creating. And to get used to the fact that, once the article is published, there´s no way to control who´s going to read it and who´s not, or who´s going to like it and who´s not. It´s a great opportunity to learn to let go of control, and trust that the information will reach whoever it needs to reach, whenever it needs to reach them.

About this topic: I remember hearing in a training course that, when one works on content creation (whether it´s a blog, a podcast, videos, etc.), sometimes there´s an article or episode we think is going to be very successful because we´ve invested lots of time, effort and resources on it and we´re very happy with how it came out, and it turns out it gets very few visits, when maybe there´s another one we put together quickly, almost sloppily, and for whatever reason, that´s the one with the most visits and the most success, much more than we were expecting. I thought that was a really interesting phenomenon, which goes to show how unpredictable the whole thing is, and (hopefully) helps us to relativize it, both when our publications are "successful" and when they´re not.

Having said that, do you know which is the most popular article in this blog? I have no idea why, but it´s this one: Arab Proverb, in which, by the way, I talk about Cáceres, my home town, closing the circle.

P.S.- If you feel like checking what other interesting articles there are around here, have a look at the the blog´s archive page. And thanks a million for reading me!

P.P.S.- Now editing the article, I realize the spell checker I use for my translations uses artificial intelligence for sure... It´s everywhere! I´ll continue to try and escape from it as much as I can.