Opposites

Showing your strong points or hiding your weak points doesn't make you stronger, but it rather makes you weaker.
Showing your weak points doesn't make you weaker, but it rather makes you stronger.

Spoon river anthology - Schroeder The Fisherman

I sat on the bank above Bernadotte
And dropped crumbs in the water,
Just to see the minnows bump each other,
Until the strongest got the prize.
Or I went to my little pasture,
Where the peaceful swine were asleep in the wallow,
Or nosing each other lovingly,
And emptied a basket of yellow corn,
And watched them push and squeal and bite,
And trample each other to get the corn.
And I saw how Christian Dallman’s farm,
Of more than three thousand acres,
Swallowed the patch of Felix Schmidt,
As a bass will swallow a minnow.
And I say if there’s anything in man—
Spirit, or conscience, or breath of God
That makes him different from fishes or hogs,
I’d like to see it work!

Rome burns, or how is possible that Mr. Berlusconi is Prime Minister in Italy? /1

As an Italian citizen, nowadays there’s an inescapable question I need to face everytime I meet someone who’s not Italian. Friends, or just people who I’ve recently met, after the first basic questions, sooner or later get to the question that 40% percent of Italians would never wish to answer: “How come Silvio Berlusconi is your prime minister?” or “How could he win elections?” To me, not only as an Italian, but also as a simple civil world citizen (excluding Italy, obviously), there’s no question more painful than that.

In the last year I’ve been asked it so many times that I could refine my answer, the same answer given by the Times online, some days ago: “It is said — largely by Mr Berlusconi himself — that most Italian men are envious, and secretly long to be like him, even if (or probably because), as he admitted, he is no saint." (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article6828169.ece)

Also, the british newspaper tries to give at least another answer, by a more political perspective. Nevertheless, as an Italian painfully living his country, even if trying to escape from it as much as possible, I’m coming to more and different answers. In fact, I’m pretty sure that there’s not just one single answer to such a heavy question, but multiple answers, whose range is extremely wide, from very simple to very complex. I’ll leave the complex analysis to those who can do it, and who enjoy doing it more than I do. On my side, I believe many reasons are so simple that have been forgot. Unfortunately simple things can be easily underestimated, and because of this they can hide dangerous truths. Yet, I believe the reasons for which Berlusconi is where he is, despite what he says, or does, can be found in everyday life, and in everyday disfunctions. They are hidden in the glorious historical culture of this country. That culture doesn’t belong any more to Italian people. It is a gift given for free to contemporary Italians by their ancistors; a gift we didn’t and we are not doing anything to deserve, but which is so well wrapped that would be a pity not to use it to make money, selling it to those tourists who happily come every year to the peninsula. It is a gift that is not used anymore to enrich, or as a glorious starting point to improve and be example to others, but that is a golden chair on which italians can sit and lucrate.

Coming to the reasons why Berlusconi has been elected, here are some I can think of. I realize they sound very simple, qualunquiste, maybe stupid, but yet I believe it is also for these silly reasons, that this country it’s in such a wrecked situation.

Why Berlusconi has been elected as prime minister in Italy?

1) Because he resembles what many italians would like to be: rich, powerful, clever, capable of sleeping with many women (sad, but true)

2) Because in many train stations you can not buy a train ticket if you don’t have cash with you. Obviously there won’t be an ATM near, and if there is, it won’t be working

3) Because public libraries do not commonly provide any internet access

4) Because until a couple of years ago in many areas of Italy, especially those in the countryside, it was not possible to have an internet connection, if not very slow (through phone connection) and very expensive.

5) Because public libraries, especially those with more material, are painfully wrapped in red tape. You entering in the reading room? Fill this application form and leave a valid document. Do you need to enter this other room? Fill this other application. Do you want to see a book? Fill this application with the serial number of the first application. Do you want to hold that book (not checking out)? Fill another application. Do you want to hold more than 2 books? That is not possible! Do you want to check out the books? That is possible just in some specific times, and not all books can be checked out.

6) Because Italians just enforce those laws that are strictly senseless. One example? In the library where I'm studying in these days (sorry for the boutade...) you can not access the reading room if you are under 16 years old. Giovanni Papini denounced the same thing (exactly for the same library I believe) in its "Un uomo finito", published in 1913. I suggest not to change the law for the next 4 years, so that we can celebrate the 100th anniversary of stupidity.

Why?

I'm just back from two days spent at the beach with friends, some new, some old. Two days at the beach should mean fun, and they were fun, so, why am I depressed?
It is since yesterday that I've been feeling my mood switching from good to bad, from confident to scared, but I thought it was just a moment. Today it happened again, I spent some time by myself and it felt great. Now that I'm back, I feel like a hole in me, and I have the feeling that the balance that I had been bulding in these weeks has been disturbed because of something in these two days. I guess it's just a problem of conflict between hope and lack of hope: I try to be as good as I can with the first one, but I guess it doesn't always work that well, it's probably normal, I guess. However, tt was probably not the best then, to finish today to reread last Terzani's book, "The End is my Beginning." The book is beautiful, but the end of it is obviously sad. I can not avoid to simpathize with his family, next to him until the very last moment, their strenght, his strenght in front of death. It was probably not the best to read the following words, which should be accompanied by an instinctive sense of hope in the reader, feeling that I don't have in this moment. Terzani says: "And remember, I will be there. I'll be there, in the air. Then, from time to time, if you feel like talking to me, put yourself aside, close your eyes and look for me. We'll talk to each other. But not with the language of words. In the silence."
This post is not very coherent in his whole, but I'm tired and depressed, and therefore excused. However, I'm going to try to do something about this, because it's during this moments that one should look for himself, and not when everything is good. Again, Terzani says: "When people have a problem, instead than freezing, instead then being silent and listening to the voice of the heart, hang out, go in the middle of the crowd, go to the cinema, go to have sex, to get stunned, to forget. Instead than freezing. Until a day it arrives, it arrives..."

Tiziano Terzani: "The end is my beginning." My favourite quotes (to be continued...)

I'm reading for the second time Terzani's testament, his last book "The end is my beginning." Surprisingly, the book has not been translated into english, therefore all the quotes here are translated by me. I apologize for any possible mistake.
All quotes are taken by Terzani, Tiziano. La Fine è il mio Inizio. Milano, Longanesi: 2006.

"Books. They were my greatest friends, because there is nothing better than traveling with someone who already took the same way, who tells you how it was to compare, to catch a scent which is not there anymore, or which is not yet there [...] it is my hope that in fifty, or a hundred years, someone finds by chance one of my books among remainders or in an old library and, not knowing who I was...starts reading and recognizes me, recognizes a feelinf, something that he lived in that same country. In that moment I will live a small moment of eternity," (200).

"There is a path in life. The funny thing is that you realize it just when life ends. You watch behind and you say: 'Hey look, there's a yarn.' When you live, you don't see this yarn, and yet is there. Because all decisions you take, all choices you make are determined, it's believed, by free will, but also this is a lie. They are determined by something inside yourself which is above all your instinct, and then by something Indians call karma."

Dies slowly...

Dies slowly he who becomes the slave of habit,
who follows the same routes every day,
who never changes brand,
who does not risk to wear a new color and doesn’t talk to whom he doesn’t know.

Dies slowly he who avoids a passion,
who prefers black to white and the dots on the “i’s” to a whirlpool of emotions,
the kind that make your eyes glimmer, that turn yawns into smiles,
that make the heart beat in the face of mistakes and feelings.

Dies slowly he who does not overthrow the table when is unhappy at work,
who does not risk the certain for the uncertain to follow a dream,
who does not allow, at least one time in life, to flee from sensate advices.

Dies slowly he who does not travel, does not read, does not listen to music,
who does not find grace in himself.

Dies slowly he who destroys his own self-esteem,
who does not allow himself to be helped.

Dies slowly he who spend his days complaining of his bad luck or the incessant rain.

Dies slowly he who abandons a project before starting it,
who fails to ask questions on subjects he doesn’t know
or who does not answer when being asked about something he does know.

Let’s avoid death in small doses,
always remembering that being alive demands a much bigger effort than the simple fact of breathing.

Only a burning patience will lead to the attainment of a splendid happiness

Pablo Neruda

And what if I had seen the light?

Last night and this morning I was craving for some texts which give you a direction, an epiphany, something that changes your life. Today, while I was grocery shopping with my Mom, I was thinking, and realizing, that the reason one is unhappy is because we project the responsibilities to be happy out of ourselves. To better say, we assign something outside of us the role to make us happy, while we should be the main characters of our own happyness, to be be searched in ourselves, and not outside from from ourselves. All this, maybe as a chance, maybe not, seems to lead me in one direction, which would also answer the question of last night/morning: what texts could change your life, or which texts did change your life, or your way to see it?