English Version | Editor's Letter: July-August 2026

We're in what's called the silly season. The heat makes us slower and lazier.

Fernando Pessoa said: “Oh, what pleasure not to fulfill a duty, to have a book to read and not do it.” But what if we tried, this summer, to make an exception and have the pleasure of having no duties and more than one book to read? If you have some vacation time, take the opportunity to disconnect, truly disconnect, to live, even if only for a week, like in a pre-smartphone and pre-internet era. 

Rúben Dias
Élio Nogueira

The memories I have of my childhood vacations are from a time when things moved more slowly, to the point of boredom. Of feeling the breeze while reading a book, traveling with a paper map in hand, the chance of getting lost and the thrill of finding something. Some people go to concerts today and watch them through a cell phone screen, because without that record they feel they weren't there, that it didn't happen. Some people travel through a screen or to it, without truly being there, without feeling it.

Mason Barnes
Luís Monteiro

For the past few weeks, I've been taking the subway to the Esquire offices. On one of those trips, I started observing the people in front of me; everyone was looking at their phones. I slowly looked around, and everyone was absorbed in staring at their screens. It looked like a scene from Black Mirror, a camera tracking shot where all the humans had their heads bent towards this small, magical window, which leaves them in a state of near-hypnosis. If I were watching the series, I would think it was an exaggeration, a visual hyperbole to convey the message. But it was the reality in front of me. I looked and "judged" others and the state of humanity. How different I was, until I realized that, just seconds before my observation, I was just another person looking at a screen. Just another person believing they were seeing something important, just another person believing they weren't addicted to their cell phone.

Rúben Dias
Élio Nogueira

Since then, on my subway rides, I've started observing others again like I used to, imagining their lives, getting annoyed again because there are still eight stops to go before I reach my destination, getting "bored" again, and in that boredom, I've started thinking about random things without really knowing how I arrived at those thoughts. The brain starts working again; it's not just a spectator among millions and millions of content creators.

Mason Barnes
Luís Monteiro

This summer holidays, reconnect with yourself, stop thinking for a few days about the state of the world, or what your friends are posting on social media. Pack Esquire Portugal magazine, grab a book or two, and take a vacation without any screens in between. Look at the world and the people around you again. And if you ever get bored, that's okay; our brains need it as much as we need vacations.

Translated from the original in Esquire Portugal's July-August 2026 issue. For full stories and credits, see the print issue.