Se non son matti non li vogliamo

My mom always used to say this to my sister and I to highlight the amazing talent that we both have in attracting or meeting weirdos....

I already wrote a post about my recent encounter with a weird man.....but yesterday I met another weird person....a taxi driver/philosopher....I just got back to Portugal from Italy and since I was deadly tired, I decided to get a taxi to come back home from the airport.

I woke up at 4am yesterday morning, so when I got into the taxi I was definitively not in the mood for a chat...especially considering that after 6 weeks speaking Spanish, English or Italian, any little knowledge or understanding of Portuguese that I may have had is basically gone....

In any case, I get into the taxi and this guy proposes me to make a deal...paying a forfeit for the drive to my place but I would let him chose the road to take, as he didn't want to be stuck in traffic....when he told me how much the forfeit would have been, I immediately accepted the deal as I almost never pay so little for the same ride, except if done at 5am. However, just to understand that he was proposing me a deal, it took something like 15 minutes.....

After that, instead of being discouraged by my little understanding of Portuguese so early in the morning, he decided to share his philosophy of life with me...He started by telling me that the worldwide economic crisis is real, but for sure there is also a world-spread mafia who wants us to believe that the situation is worse than how it really is.... (?) ....something like a world conspiracy....and we shouldn't care about what people or the media tell us about the crisis, we should live only according to what makes us happy and works for us, and as much as we can, we should behave independently of what happens around us...

since I was not sure to follow his line of thoughts, he decided to explain his theory to me by using a fitting example.....his example was the following....

- Couples exchange, which is a really common thing in France.....

Ok, now, beside the fact that I have been living in France for three years without realizing that couples exchange is such a common thing there, my ignorance on the subject may be due to my being very naif....However, since I didn't want to encourage him to give me further details on how he got this knowledge about couples exchange being a common practice in France, I just nodded with my head, hoping to continue the rest of the trip in silence....

But he must have read in my eyes that nothing he was saying made any sense to me....

So, his further explanation was:

- According to the church and the religion, we shouldn't cheat on each other. However, let's say that I am married and you are married (you was me in this case) and that I like you and you like me and that my wife likes your husband and vice-versa and we are all happy in having an open relationship in which we swap partners from time to time, as it is very common in France (again....can please a French person tell me if this is so common in France??? I was a bit surprise to hear this...), then we should go for it as life is short and we will all end up dead anyway....

Ok, I may agree on this one, but I still couldn't get the relationship with the economic crisis....which he further explained like this....

- So, if the media or people tell us that there is an economic crisis, it doesn't make sense to try to have a wise behavior to help things getting better, as they suggest, because since there is a world-conspiracy, we will lose anyway....therefore, since life is short, we better enjoy it as much as we can, spending money if we feel like and doing whatever we want.....

Right....it may be right that the media exaggerate the situation of the economic crisis and that we should keep the market going without completely stopping buying things and living....but spending money that most people do not have, so that they get indebted to the banks to which they ask a loan, without being able to pay them back after, will only increase the loop and the crisis.....stopping the economy is not a solution in my view, but also not being wise and keep consuming without restrain is not a solution either.....

In any case, independently of the measures to fight the economic crisis, I loved the example he used to explain his theory to me........