Look inside
A reading of the present historical moment — 2021 — through eyes external to intellectual chaos. A human reflection, a thought born from a believing Soul, certainly in the way it relates to reality and pursues the values created and defined as the foundation of one’s own life.
Something Personal tells the story of a life of battles in defense of Truth, where the dignity of knowing how to be a man is at stake — a man with his flaws, but true, loyal, and attentive. Today, it is difficult to narrate a feeling, a lived experience, a suffering of the Soul, a deep complexity. Its understanding will be difficult, as the present is permeated by ephemeral creations, falsehoods, and attitudes aimed solely at oneself — attitudes that have found in the devil a rich field of expression.
A book for the most audacious readers, strong in feeling, capable of questioning themselves and going beyond the word in its literal meaning, instead grasping the sense hidden between the lines. A novel that places the Individual at the center, with inner conflicts, emotions and sentiments, passions and sensations, and a search for Truth in its broadest sense — without fear of the consequences, aware that it is always part of the battle.
I believe life is a journey, and a journey is an infinite sum of memories. The most beautiful landscapes are those imprinted in memory. Traveling means meeting people, and even if you do not share a common language, a smile and a gesture will always help create a bond. These are the memories that last forever. For these memories one must fight. For these landscapes, one must be Truth.
Prologue
“When the infinite spiritual fades beyond the horizon, human society has lost the beauty of the Self in favor of darkness.” [Ref. Claudio]
Human value, in its broadest sense and definition, has always been shrouded in the mystery of simplicity. A simplicity hungry for the Divine, which has gauged its spiritual depth. It is not change itself that we must seek, but the humility of value itself. Today, we possess sufficient historical perspective to recognize that it is precisely among these things that we find the meaning of our passage on earth. I can discern, amidst the whispering of the wind, the place where value pretends to truly exist. In my opinion, true value—where the word encompasses all that is the spirituality of the individual—lies in the fact of being there, simply there, standing or sitting... in that precise moment.
A new, normal state of mind. A new, normal relationship between the rational dimension and the religious dimension.
It is a concept much shouted about, but very, very rarely re-proposed effectively in the substance of one's own spirituality. Many set themselves up as educators and trainers; many set themselves up as Catholics; many write about it in books; many boast of its value. What hypocrisy, what cowardice, what meanness—yet it is part of the squalor of "daily life expressing violence" which, in the absence of deeds, blasphemes with its presence at the church. [Meaning the church of the devil]. A fictionalized life [coloring facts by adding elements of pure fantasy and falsehood] that leads them to believe in their Catholicism, in knowing how to educate the future, in knowing how to train children through sports or school. After all, it is enough to assume that going to church and saying two Hail Marys defines being Catholic and thus being saved in the hereafter.
Regarding this squalor of the damned [those who have made it their life's purpose to destroy], I recount a war of intellectual honesty where an "unaware and Catholic" people retreats, as always happens in this country. History tells and witnesses the oddities of a part of this nation—turncoats, always, up to the current historical moment that confirms this sense of disaster. The "Italy problem" is social, assuming one wants to see the truth without seeking blame in political figures or others, as they are merely the expression of a temporary mandate of convenience from the common folk (regarding politicians), or the expression of a tolerated convenience with an eye toward "other trainers" upon whom blame is shifted. People become indignant, expressing a sense of false humanity as soon as the "convenience" runs out of value, revealing the problem in contrast.
The standards we set as essential in our choices dictate that we should observe immediately whether we are facing real or unreal facts—we could also translate this as facing deeds or words—and sliding toward the narrative that follows, anyone would read them as at least "unusual." Now, I believe that those who do not question themselves are negligent, complicit in silence, cowardly, or simply irrational toward themselves and, obviously, toward reality and truth. Even if the lack of rationality in addressing such issues is the most frequent occurrence today among people ready to hide behind cognitive refusal, as these remain dissonant hypotheses to their own "moral sphere"—a philosopher would say, "fake morality," I assert.
I read "moral distortion of judgment," which would perhaps fit as an appropriate and less "vulgar" definition for those who dwell on a superficial reading of the word. But I also read that a non-conclusive stance—even if linked to the idea that "one could not reach this point as it is contrary to moral and spiritual ethics" (though reducible to mere utopia for the majority today)—induces one to consider a fact impossible. But... this is not rationality. It may be jarring, but rationality is not hiding; rationality is the search for truth.
I open a small excursus on rationality and religion/Christian faith, highlighting that the Christian conception of the world and of man sets the conditions so that faith produces thought and widens the horizons of human reason. Privileging this theory, I believe it is duty-bound to always keep in mind that a fact can be plausible, or very true and little "resembling," when certain analysis factors would lead to validating points dissonant from the claims of one who loves to circumvent. Especially if one dedicated time to observing closely—and I write "dedicated" (congiuntivo) with a smile on my lips because for my son, for his future, for me, and for my future, I would never use the imperfect subjunctive [implying it shouldn't be a mere possibility, but a certainty]. I do not impose "belief" solely because I say or write it, but I would at least advise taking it into consideration and starting to be a bit more curious, to simply be rational. Otherwise, the only conclusion defined as possible might manifest as completely wrong; and if that were the case, we would need to stop for a moment to understand what we have become and where we are going.
It becomes useful to look inside ourselves and ask if we, as a society, are perhaps making a mistake. Because certain errors to which we remain blind, hiding them within a "sacred prohibition," lead sooner or later to winning the prize attributed to those who go extinct by virtue of their own ignorance and superficiality. To deny something publicly or socially is always a form of affirmation where the guilty are the victims... marvelous. Fear is a narrative of years of mass control; manipulating is now a daily simplicity—it is enough to insinuate doubt through the violence of defamation or other means, and the game is done. Often, however, the very one who screams "pig, pig" the loudest is the pig themselves.
I have written my own thoughts, reported documents, and narrated events. The truth of this writing is that we know little of what we accept daily, and some would like us to know even less. I quote a famous phrase by Franklin Delano Roosevelt: "In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way." I hear a shout from the distant hologram: "We have little chance to act." Perhaps, but at least thinking and asking questions is still a freedom I allow myself, and I share them, in my own way, with those who want to listen... and this... bothers someone. A large part of society has been trained to repudiate questions, to foam with rage at our questions as if they were too indiscreet. And here I close, letting the thought run naked and pure on a historical phrase by Oscar Wilde: "Questions are never indiscreet. Answers sometimes are."
Chapter 1
Interpreting Thought
Silent times. "Words" and the "Poetry" of Life, above all, are the most effective ways to break the silence.
It is strange how the sequence of reading analyzes impure reality. If we look closely, what scandalizes us is never the facts; it is the words or the images that we write as "corrupted" in our daily qualification of people and events—such as, for example, the blasphemy uttered in the exclamation of the rude person simply because "it bothers us." It is strange that it is the word, that "pig [God]...", that is crucified and not the meanness and mediocrity of our habitual actions, nor the unconditional acceptance, for convenience, of the "corrupted" true expression. Of course, he designs his persona and builds a monument to it with important words—never lived, but important to the ears of those who stop at the simplicity of a word that must not be really true, just consistent with what they want to hear.
No one seems to notice that the symbol of Him who is—and whom you yourself have recognized as God—has been relegated to the flames of the "lost," given that one's own philosophy of life in reality completely denies His teaching and doctrine. Fantastic is the meanness of those who process during holidays along the "Catholic" path, perhaps living their daily lives in the opposite values shown by the Holy Trinity; but it seems "cool" to go and blaspheme in Church [the real one]; it fills them and makes them feel right with themselves. [Do not blaspheme with words—it is not allowed, it is annoying; it remains permissible, it seems, to do so with gestures in daily life.] I have always found it anomalous, this standing up as paladins of the word when one's own philosophy of life blasphemes every second of its breath in relating, behaving, and presenting oneself.
I wanted to put on the cover the image of an open door of a farmhouse from yesterday—a door that invited entry, narrating ancient legends and truths of past life where everything was effective religion, perceived and breathed; authentic values in a handshake, in wielding a spade and scattering seeds, because yesterday work reflected life, trained for life, and was spiritual health in its enormous humility and its broadest sense. A "graphic" reading that today is often taken up and used for deception; in fact, I write "speaking air," used by sporting realities to call youth to themselves as a definition of their own social and economic power, by certain institutional figures who have descended into the depths of hell to seal their own view of life and to personally accompany the souls of the mean who have sold themselves to indifference.
These figures, who today replace the Divine in creation through a sport that does not train, does not create freedom or personality, nor improves the gifts that God, through DNA, has given the individual, but "stops" the "genial and proper" growth of the boy and creates—in the image of the frustration and failure of the bench [in most cases]—a "fragile conformist" equal to many others, with unimaginable future damage for the youth. Through those institutions that use the power of the constitutional text, the oath of the uniform, the sacred oath sanctioned by and in the profession to recreate the world in their own image and will [hence the use of the strong and vulgar word "fucking" (fottere), but strong and vulgar is the action of the mediocre], they will find ample space in the Final Judgment to carry out the tasks dictated by their intellectual mediocrity. [Firmly believing in the "afterward"].
Instead, I highlight a sign: The Right to Truth—a sign I also read on the walls of courthouses: "The law is equal for all" [a joke recognized by those who frequent such places], which appears to have vanished from the soul of the common folk [those who sold themselves to the church for "a few coins"], hurried today toward materiality and egoistic presumption, which I hope becomes a perennial punishment tomorrow after the last breath. Because from this current falsehood and meanness, violence and blasphemies of future life are born and grow. A sign for which I have always fought... I. The common folk simply fill their mouths with it. [And you will find much in the various chapters about the daily "blasphemies" accepted in silence].
A number on the back, 11, which defines in its positive sense "the path of spiritual awareness and knowledge beyond others' understanding, associated with open-mindedness, idealism, intuition, and vision." A number that should accompany the life of any of us, especially if placed in educational sectors for children... what a pity! On the back cover, I insert a match which, falling to the ground, releases the flame of the underworld—the path already taken by the multitude—and which, on the front cover, encompasses the Cross of Truth. That Truth which was lost, perhaps never sought, sold for a crumb of power, for a coin, for a whim that will disappear tomorrow. The World does not belong to us; we simply live it, we touch it for a moment, just like the colors of the wings of a butterfly that vanishes in the blink of an eye.
Chapter 2
Intellectual Solitude
Solitude, a perennial human nemesis, indeed immemorial. The first thing God defined as "not good."
The sad, very sad truth about us human beings is that now there are more humans with less "being" than ever. Solitude, despite its pure antiquity and its familiarity, masks its insidious capacity to be individual and social disintegration. Although it is confused and hidden by familiar and related phenomena such as boredom, depression, anger, envy, and alienation, solitude is identified as the most devastating malaise of the era. Mother Teresa of Calcutta categorically defined it as the problem of modern times, even if unconscious.
There are many forms of solitude, a long classification both conceptually and experientially: metaphysical, communicative, ethical, existential, emotional, social, cultural. A division that is neither exhaustive nor exclusive. As proof, there exists a solitude that I would define as "the absence of the presence of the other" — the desired other — which creates a lack or a loss within the solitary self and leads to that feeling of emptiness, to the lack of something inside oneself; but it is not of this solitude that I wish to "narrate."
I would like to dwell on a type of solitude that, perhaps with a non-stereotypical approach, I would propose defining as "intellectual, moral, mental," and I would not limit it to the word "ethics"— man's behavior in the face of the concepts of good and evil — even in its most extensive meaning, as I would like to go into detail (a thing dear to me), splitting the classic hair until it becomes invisible.
Solitude consists of a complex of negative emotions and perceived negations of one's being. Compared to the first type of solitude, the one I wish to deal with presents the sufferer as a nonentity devoid of intrinsic value. Such a feeling of intrinsic worthlessness as a human being must be distinguished from the sense of solitude I mentioned earlier ("the absence of the presence of the other"). This is a solitude in which one feels devoid of value due to external sources, whether attributed to respect, achieved esteem, or otherwise. In any case, the lonely individual feels like a nobody—or at least, like a special nobody, an important nobody. [An important and useful concept for understanding the whole book.]
This is a solitude that is experienced as a desire for what is expected, for what is wanted and anticipated implicitly, intimately, as legitimately belonging to oneself as a human being: the realization of one's sociality. Solitude, thus translated, becomes the annulment or invalidation of one's existence. From a physical point of view, the oppressive and excruciating pain that solitude in a broad sense creates spares no part of the body, although such symptoms may be felt especially in the head, chest, and stomach.
The pain of the solitude I narrate expands the signals; it also annexes fatigue and exhaustion, which are its habitual components. As for its negative emotions, such solitude involves not only the symptoms contained in feeling and attributions of self-control but adds sadness, shyness, shame, guilt, anxiety, frustration, anguish, and despair. In terms of motivation and behavior, it can, on the one hand, numb and paralyze to a point of pure passivity; on the other hand, it can push the person into a state of panic. Furthermore, if solitude is not addressed—that is, if it is denied rather than lived, analyzed, and accepted — feelings of anger and resentment can worsen and foment hostility, aggression, and violence.
According to Honoré de Balzac [writer, playwright, literary critic, essayist, and journalist (1799 - 1850)], of all the varieties of solitude, ethical solitude is the most terrifying. As understood here, ethical solitude includes the solitude inherent in freedom, choice, and responsibility, as well as in the formation of value, implementation, and commitment. Hence my personal translation into "intellectual, moral, mental."
Equally, there exists positive solitude — a wise and essential solitude that does not express exteriority or ephemeral fashions; conversely, it interprets reflection, silence, and introspection. A "solitude" as a subtraction from the noise of the Soul, a moment of great formation... something else entirely compared to what has been highlighted until now. [From the book '2018: Life, Sport, and its Stercus']
Hoping to have outlined the abstract point—being a "felt, perceived" point from which the thought of my writing starts—I delve into the chapters, but always with an eye attentive to the concept of intellectual solitude, to which I assign a perhaps subjective but relevant interpretation if taken as true and carried into the morals of the chapters.