Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Freedom & Solitude
"...I'm just jealous of my freedom. Which one day - I know this very well - will turn into loneliness".
Sunday, June 29, 2008
(Frightened by) The Consequences of Love
Away from home, the life of those people I love most streams away by itself, without my involvement. These people are my port but each time I'm back I fear to find it shut. If I had known before that 'leaving is a bit like dying' in the sense that you die in the hearts of your loved ones, maybe my choices in life would have been a little different. But then again, I would have probably felt the need to die anyway, to resuscitate over and over not to bear the responsibility of people's expectations.
As kids we expect our parents to be infallible and immortals: we grow up trying to accept the idea of them depending on us, and trying to feel strong and secure enough to help them now. Shouldn't a child feel strong, ready enough to play this role, any weakness in his parents would become an unbearable scream soliciting for help, a request the child would both feel desperate and inadequate to answer. I know this is a route for love to turn into hate, hugs into detachment, laughs into silences. Torn apart between need for freedom and need for protection, relationships are lines interrupted, lives suspended that could have been and will never be, memories that cannot be shared anymore and will end up vanishing from the mind.
People who betray others to feed their ego: so lacking confidence, so hungry for confirmations.
People who betray others in the desperate hunt for ways to react to disillusion, frustration, rejection.
People so scared of being abandoned that they abandon others first.
People who fear the venom of rejection so much that they poison themselves little by little, breaking others' heart when it hurts, but not too much, in the foolish fantasy that they will eventually turn immune to 'The Consequences of Love'.
People who pretend they are actually superior to common mortals. They hunt for experiences, the most extreme, in the aim to fully understand other humans. They never stop, they are beyond time and pain, they all go through without ever belonging to anyone, everything possessing, they loot love, they sack souls. They are like demons who take control of people lives to experiment what deception feels like.
As kids we expect our parents to be infallible and immortals: we grow up trying to accept the idea of them depending on us, and trying to feel strong and secure enough to help them now. Shouldn't a child feel strong, ready enough to play this role, any weakness in his parents would become an unbearable scream soliciting for help, a request the child would both feel desperate and inadequate to answer. I know this is a route for love to turn into hate, hugs into detachment, laughs into silences. Torn apart between need for freedom and need for protection, relationships are lines interrupted, lives suspended that could have been and will never be, memories that cannot be shared anymore and will end up vanishing from the mind.
People who betray others to feed their ego: so lacking confidence, so hungry for confirmations.
People who betray others in the desperate hunt for ways to react to disillusion, frustration, rejection.
People so scared of being abandoned that they abandon others first.
People who fear the venom of rejection so much that they poison themselves little by little, breaking others' heart when it hurts, but not too much, in the foolish fantasy that they will eventually turn immune to 'The Consequences of Love'.
People who pretend they are actually superior to common mortals. They hunt for experiences, the most extreme, in the aim to fully understand other humans. They never stop, they are beyond time and pain, they all go through without ever belonging to anyone, everything possessing, they loot love, they sack souls. They are like demons who take control of people lives to experiment what deception feels like.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Why I moved out from Catania to Northern Italy
After all this bad-mouthing about Singapore. I just thought it to be fair a bit of bad-mouthing about Catania, my Sicilian home-town.
I had a German colleague of mine, when I was based in Rome a couple of years ago, who once announced he would go south to Sicily, and asked me advice on places to visit.
I emailed him a list of things I like and dislike of Catania.
The 'cons' of Catania list:
1) Walking around is difficult: pavements are too narrow for people to peacefully walk, often cars are parked on pavements, and because no law is enforced for people to clean after their dogs, everywhere is littered with shit. Bike lanes are non existent. When it rains, water is not properly drained. This results in huge puddles (a bit more like ponds) that you may safely walk around if you are lucky enough not to get splashed or run over by some car.
2) Noise: cars are often parked either on the sidewalk or in two or three parallel lines. This results in people's cars being occasionally trapped, with the trapped-car-owner continuously honking in the intent of drawing the attention of the blocking-car-owner, who's possibly too busy buying bread or window-watching by the beautifully adorned shops to be bothered. Furthermore, here people modify their motorbikes' exhausts, to make their vehicles faster and get more easily noticed by passer-bys. This powerful mix of roaring/honking cars and screaming motorbikes makes the whole town a hell for anyone venturing downtown on foot.
3) Poor customer service: landing a job in Italy, but specially in the South, is no matter of merit. Private enterprises are often very small and generally face little competition: they tend to employ family members or close friends. Some of them serve as a cover for illicit business, as money-laundries or both, and couldn't care less about staying profitable. The Sicilian public sector is a 'votes container' at the local politicians' disposal: politicians secure people a job in the public service in exchange for votes. This means that once employed, these people are unmovable: in Italy no law is enforced enabling dismissal of staff for even the most serious reasons. The widest majority of workers in the South are employed in the public sector: the lack of risk and the lack of incentives for these workers cause a spread of idleness in both the public and private sector. It is funny to witness how the 'contractual power' is reversed in Sicily, with patrons happy to pay the highest price in town for a pair of shoes just to show friends and people around them that 'they are rich enough not to care'; or people almost begging in banks or post offices for the teller to take their case.
4) Pollution, pervasive concrete, bad eating habits and cancer: following a complete lack of urban planning and a misled decision making process, - aimed to short term boosting of wealth and power for the few, regardless the quality of life for the many - pollution has massively increased from the 70s to our days.
In the 70s, most of Sicily was taken by the urge of building. Construction, the most profitable business Mafia decided to embark on at that time, had to be quick and cheap: the need for green areas, seen as not profitable, was simply overlooked. Now my region is a mess of gray, amorphous concrete with massive urbanized outskirts stretching along the coast in such way that all towns are linked together and no countryside has survived. Because of the complete lack of public transportation services, the traffic of people commuting by car went mad and the whole look and livability of the towns fell to depressive levels.
I suspect that, alongside pollution, bad eating habits started surging in those years as well. More industrial products became available, and this new food, requiring easy or no cooking at all, with its immediate palatability, catered well to the masses. Also the poor quality of life, the lack of satisfaction, together with the little spending power has led many families to devote larger slices of their earnings to quick, cheap, palatable food. Any time I visit it strikes me the sight of cars lining up on Sunday mornings to the massive Auchan or Carrefour malls, where people often spend the whole day, eating junk food and buying things they don't really need and still get very shortly excited about. These 'trips' took over the 'gite', the hikes to the once beautiful countryside. I suspect that due to pollution and bad eating habits, cancer is massively spreading in the whole of Southern Italy. But when I was based in Rome, I searched at ISTAT - the governmental institute for national statistics - and couldn't find any reliable statistics linking number of cancer cases to place of residence. The only analysis I could find would only be based on the number of cancer cases treated by hospitals within each Italian region: which means little, since most Southern Italians seek treatment in Northern Italy hospitals.
5) Other day-by-day annoyances: these minor consequences of the aforementioned issues are part of the day by day experience:
- Bumpy roads: workers don't properly fix them, limiting their effort to simply fill holes with patches of tarmac;
- Wasting one hour looking for a parking spot any time you go downtown by car;
- Fighting with the omnipresent abusive valet who subtly threatens you to cut your tires should you fail to tip him;
- Cars and motorbikes never stopping at zebra crossings, and rather engaging themselves in the very attended pastime of swaying among 'pedestrian skittles';
- People working in bars never greeting you;
- People always checking you out in bars: the way you dress, the way you look, how rich you may be, always in the quest to suss out whether or not you are cool enough for the place. Many bars are regarded as 'VIP bars' and you may be denied access at the door should you not be on the 'guest list'. People actually believe the more a bar is "fussy" with customers, the more is cool and worth trying to get in.
- Here people are permanently horny!!! They keep talking about sex but never get enough by their standars.
-Physical exercise is not encouraged and often not viable due to poor town planning and lack of public facilities.
The 'pros' of Catania list:
1) Great pubs: any time I visit I almost believe I am back in Dublin.
2) Everywhere people playing and singing.
3) Great nightlife till three-four in the morning.
4) Great food!!!!
5) Some nice "ethnic" or "environment friendly" shops or restaurants that show you how much people from Catania are creative and curious about what's going on in the world.
6) Because Catania is close to an American Military Base, it's nice to see how much "Catanesi" (people from Catania) and Americans are getting close and making friendship.
7) Clear sky, beautiful warm sun for most of winter.
8) You can swimm and then drive up the Etna volcano on the same day and ski.
9) In winter, loads of "sagre" (food fairs): my favourite is the "sagra del fungo" (Mushrooms Fair) in a place called Zafferana, on the volcano.
I had a German colleague of mine, when I was based in Rome a couple of years ago, who once announced he would go south to Sicily, and asked me advice on places to visit.
I emailed him a list of things I like and dislike of Catania.
The 'cons' of Catania list:
1) Walking around is difficult: pavements are too narrow for people to peacefully walk, often cars are parked on pavements, and because no law is enforced for people to clean after their dogs, everywhere is littered with shit. Bike lanes are non existent. When it rains, water is not properly drained. This results in huge puddles (a bit more like ponds) that you may safely walk around if you are lucky enough not to get splashed or run over by some car.
2) Noise: cars are often parked either on the sidewalk or in two or three parallel lines. This results in people's cars being occasionally trapped, with the trapped-car-owner continuously honking in the intent of drawing the attention of the blocking-car-owner, who's possibly too busy buying bread or window-watching by the beautifully adorned shops to be bothered. Furthermore, here people modify their motorbikes' exhausts, to make their vehicles faster and get more easily noticed by passer-bys. This powerful mix of roaring/honking cars and screaming motorbikes makes the whole town a hell for anyone venturing downtown on foot.3) Poor customer service: landing a job in Italy, but specially in the South, is no matter of merit. Private enterprises are often very small and generally face little competition: they tend to employ family members or close friends. Some of them serve as a cover for illicit business, as money-laundries or both, and couldn't care less about staying profitable. The Sicilian public sector is a 'votes container' at the local politicians' disposal: politicians secure people a job in the public service in exchange for votes. This means that once employed, these people are unmovable: in Italy no law is enforced enabling dismissal of staff for even the most serious reasons. The widest majority of workers in the South are employed in the public sector: the lack of risk and the lack of incentives for these workers cause a spread of idleness in both the public and private sector. It is funny to witness how the 'contractual power' is reversed in Sicily, with patrons happy to pay the highest price in town for a pair of shoes just to show friends and people around them that 'they are rich enough not to care'; or people almost begging in banks or post offices for the teller to take their case.
4) Pollution, pervasive concrete, bad eating habits and cancer: following a complete lack of urban planning and a misled decision making process, - aimed to short term boosting of wealth and power for the few, regardless the quality of life for the many - pollution has massively increased from the 70s to our days.In the 70s, most of Sicily was taken by the urge of building. Construction, the most profitable business Mafia decided to embark on at that time, had to be quick and cheap: the need for green areas, seen as not profitable, was simply overlooked. Now my region is a mess of gray, amorphous concrete with massive urbanized outskirts stretching along the coast in such way that all towns are linked together and no countryside has survived. Because of the complete lack of public transportation services, the traffic of people commuting by car went mad and the whole look and livability of the towns fell to depressive levels.
I suspect that, alongside pollution, bad eating habits started surging in those years as well. More industrial products became available, and this new food, requiring easy or no cooking at all, with its immediate palatability, catered well to the masses. Also the poor quality of life, the lack of satisfaction, together with the little spending power has led many families to devote larger slices of their earnings to quick, cheap, palatable food. Any time I visit it strikes me the sight of cars lining up on Sunday mornings to the massive Auchan or Carrefour malls, where people often spend the whole day, eating junk food and buying things they don't really need and still get very shortly excited about. These 'trips' took over the 'gite', the hikes to the once beautiful countryside. I suspect that due to pollution and bad eating habits, cancer is massively spreading in the whole of Southern Italy. But when I was based in Rome, I searched at ISTAT - the governmental institute for national statistics - and couldn't find any reliable statistics linking number of cancer cases to place of residence. The only analysis I could find would only be based on the number of cancer cases treated by hospitals within each Italian region: which means little, since most Southern Italians seek treatment in Northern Italy hospitals.
5) Other day-by-day annoyances: these minor consequences of the aforementioned issues are part of the day by day experience:
- Bumpy roads: workers don't properly fix them, limiting their effort to simply fill holes with patches of tarmac;
- Wasting one hour looking for a parking spot any time you go downtown by car;
- Fighting with the omnipresent abusive valet who subtly threatens you to cut your tires should you fail to tip him;
- Cars and motorbikes never stopping at zebra crossings, and rather engaging themselves in the very attended pastime of swaying among 'pedestrian skittles';
- People working in bars never greeting you;
- People always checking you out in bars: the way you dress, the way you look, how rich you may be, always in the quest to suss out whether or not you are cool enough for the place. Many bars are regarded as 'VIP bars' and you may be denied access at the door should you not be on the 'guest list'. People actually believe the more a bar is "fussy" with customers, the more is cool and worth trying to get in.
- Here people are permanently horny!!! They keep talking about sex but never get enough by their standars.
-Physical exercise is not encouraged and often not viable due to poor town planning and lack of public facilities.
The 'pros' of Catania list:
1) Great pubs: any time I visit I almost believe I am back in Dublin.
2) Everywhere people playing and singing.
3) Great nightlife till three-four in the morning.
4) Great food!!!!
5) Some nice "ethnic" or "environment friendly" shops or restaurants that show you how much people from Catania are creative and curious about what's going on in the world.
6) Because Catania is close to an American Military Base, it's nice to see how much "Catanesi" (people from Catania) and Americans are getting close and making friendship.
7) Clear sky, beautiful warm sun for most of winter.
8) You can swimm and then drive up the Etna volcano on the same day and ski.
9) In winter, loads of "sagre" (food fairs): my favourite is the "sagra del fungo" (Mushrooms Fair) in a place called Zafferana, on the volcano.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Hugging bricks in Pavia
I found a comment from my dear and deeply missed friend Paolo Serra this morning.
Paolo was informing me how our friends back in Pavia were missing me, and how the people working at the ice-cream shop kept asking about me since an abrupt and deep fall in their sales.
Paolo was informing me how our friends back in Pavia were missing me, and how the people working at the ice-cream shop kept asking about me since an abrupt and deep fall in their sales.
I miss all these people, and places, so much.
I miss Piazza della Vittoria,
the main square and gathering place in Pavia, I miss the Chiesa di Santa Maria del Carmine where, under a beautifully starred sky, I first kissed a beautiful lady whose wit and creativity both in and off the bed never fails to surprise me. Most of all I miss my solitary walks on sunday early mornings, when the town is desert, and you only come across rare old ladies walking up the narrow medieval alleys to Mass.
I miss Piazza della Vittoria,
the main square and gathering place in Pavia, I miss the Chiesa di Santa Maria del Carmine where, under a beautifully starred sky, I first kissed a beautiful lady whose wit and creativity both in and off the bed never fails to surprise me. Most of all I miss my solitary walks on sunday early mornings, when the town is desert, and you only come across rare old ladies walking up the narrow medieval alleys to Mass.
It would be along one of those alleys that I would celebrate a ritual I am very fond of: after glimpsing towards the two ends, making sure nobody would come along, I would lean against one of the medieval houses, stuck my face and chest on the wall and, arms wide spread, hug the layers of red bricks. Bricks smelling of mold - attentively layered one by one by some skillful albeit under-paid people's hand - made out of ground, wood, water and fire. Paolo would be the only person allowed to witness my ritual, otherwise I would make sure I was alone on the street lest I be carried away to the 'San Matteo', the local and well reputed hospital hosting, among the others, a Psychiatric Ward.
In Pavia we would 'go for buildings' with Paolo. He has a deep love for constructions and materials and we would always be happy to stare at houses and buildings in Pavia. He would explain to me how shapes follow from structures and how structures follow from living and trading needs, technical and legal constraints, all of these incessantly developing along the history of a community. He was the one who introduced me to the reading of Adolf Loos, an architect who spent his professional life warning people about the importance of cultural identity and genuine human needs which should always serve as guides for the designer.
My favorite question I would ask Paolo was: why iron Vespas age better then plastic ones? How come their beauty ages better; how come wood ages better than concrete, for example. How come handcrafts age better than industrially made objects? I have some hints that it may all due to the role of chaos, chance. Maybe fractals and Fourier transforms are involved too. But I have always sucked at Maths, plus such concepts are in fashion among the very 'sucking-at-Maths' people and therefore I would stop here.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Arrived in Singapore: first impressions
I had been reading a lot about Singapore back in Milan.
From all that reading, Singapore looked like a place whose economical success was grounded on a pervasive and finely designed public campaign fostering people's fear not to 'fit in' and chronic 'appetitive behaviour': their urgency to 'looking forward to something', for the mere sake of craving something and drifting their thought from their fears. Fears and cravings seem to feed each other.
I observed that such an urgency is commonly routed towards shopping and eating: people spasmodic addiction to expectations towards the next movie, the next hit in fashion, the next posh restaurant is blatantly encouraged via a wide range of discounts, promotions, gifts, 'exclusive' memberships.
Once in Singapore, I found exactly what I was expecting, Changi Airport being Singapore's best metonymy: an endless theory of malls.
People here seem to restlessly struggle to fill the feeling of always lacking something: crowds of wandering people condemned to always desire without ever feeling happy.
From all that reading, Singapore looked like a place whose economical success was grounded on a pervasive and finely designed public campaign fostering people's fear not to 'fit in' and chronic 'appetitive behaviour': their urgency to 'looking forward to something', for the mere sake of craving something and drifting their thought from their fears. Fears and cravings seem to feed each other.
I observed that such an urgency is commonly routed towards shopping and eating: people spasmodic addiction to expectations towards the next movie, the next hit in fashion, the next posh restaurant is blatantly encouraged via a wide range of discounts, promotions, gifts, 'exclusive' memberships.
Once in Singapore, I found exactly what I was expecting, Changi Airport being Singapore's best metonymy: an endless theory of malls.
People here seem to restlessly struggle to fill the feeling of always lacking something: crowds of wandering people condemned to always desire without ever feeling happy.
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