Journalled on Sunday, 9 November 2025 | Flamengo, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: 24 degrees, warm, sunny and overcast.

It is Sunday. Nowadays, I love Saturdays and Sundays, especially for a swim.

Just the fact that I don’t have classes and can get up whenever I want is truly amazing. This, however, does not mean that I do not get up early and do what must be done. I continue to blog, edit videos, work, and, of course, exercise. But at a more leisurely pace, which in itself is a form of luxury.

I woke up today to rain. It had rained all night, and it is still raining on and off this morning. I did my usual exercise routine in my studio flat, which I sometimes call the potty. I put on my swimming trunks under my shorts, put on a T-shirt, and went down to the pool.

What surprised me was that when I left the building and went into the courtyard to reach the pool, it was much colder and wetter than it had seemed on the balcony at home. My potty has a tiny balcony, but since it is protected from the elements, it does not fully convey the real sensation of the weather outside.

Even so, I was not going to give up and go back; the pool’s guardian, the lifeguard, was sitting under an overhang near the main communal building serving the pool. I asked him if I could open a giant awning umbrella over a table by the side of the pool to shelter my stuff while I swam.

It is a rule to shower at the shower beside the pool before entering. For some reason, the water in the shower is always much colder than that of the pool.

After taking a shower, I go to the far side of the pool, the deepest part, and dive headfirst and arms first into the water, swimming as far as possible underwater before coming up. It is usually 3/4 of the pool, about 15 metres underwater, which is not so bad for an old man.

I should not dive in, but use the ladder to enter. The guardian knows me, and we have a kind of understanding. He looks the other way when I’m about to do it. I also feel that slowly entering the water from the ladder is a kind of slow torture, whereas diving in is just a single instance of thermal shock, and that’s it.

There’s no return. You cannot stop it mid-air and go back, or even give up. If the water is too cold, it’s too late; after a couple of seconds, it will be normal.

The instant thermal shock of the cold water quickly passes, and then you are OK. I often see people using the ladder, slowly descending into the water as if it were pure torture. The difference in temperatures and the slow descent prolong the torture to the maximum.

And even when you’re in the water, I think going in slowly still doesn’t let your body get used to the temperature. Even after entering, you still feel the difference in temperature, pain, and suffering.

I think this is a bit about life. If you take too long or are too slow to do something, especially something that is not to our liking, even though it is something that we have to do, it is worse to do it slowly and reluctantly, as we are prolonging the pain and suffering and probably reducing the effectiveness of whatever we are doing.

It is just better to jump, dive in, get it over and done with, get over the shock, accept it, live with it and continue.

I also think that speed has a lot to do with the overall quality of our lives. The faster we can implement and resolve issues without excessive delay, the more successful we are and the higher our quality of life.

Because of the rain and the large droplets falling on the surface of the water, the pool created bubbles from their impact, which was really quite surreal to see while I was swimming.

Some of the most amazing things we see in life are quite simple in essence, in situation or in location, but are really, truly amazing when we are living them.

I would never have imagined that swimming in a cold pool on an overcast day in Rio would be so enchanting, with enormous raindrops forming bubbles on impact with the water.

How crazy is that?

I did 20 lengths in the rain, with a truly surreal sight of bubbles forming and popping all over the surface, which made my day.

Again, after diving in, the pool’s water was much warmer than the shower’s, and again, what we imagine, especially something negative, is usually much less than reality itself. Our minds can be, at times, our own worst enemies.

The rest of my Saturday was spent doing my usual duties, going for a walk, and stopping by Guarabira’s bar for a non-alcoholic beer on the way back.

9 days without alcohol.