Conoscersi e morire

Quando la maschera penetra nella pelle diventa parte del volto: testa e maschera diventano così parti di un'unica sostanza. A questo punto la separazione della maschera dal volto assume il senso di una decapitazione e la fine della finzione assume i contorni di una piccola morte: per essere pronti a conoscere se stessi, dunque, bisogna essere pronti a morire.

A world of snipers

The world is full of snipers which means it is full of people hiding in the shadows but ready to shoot at those who expose themselves. The haters are virtual snipers who shoot without showing themselves. And since there are a lot of repressed people around, even the web is full of haters: people who need to vent their personal frustrations through virtual violence, convenient and immediate; today, in fact, to hurt others is easy and comfortable: often just one click is enough.

A crazy and emotional ship

There is a ship full of passengers. Everyone knows that the ship will sooner or later wreck. It won't happen immediately, however, but in a while. In the meantime the ship proceeds with people on board who spend their remaining time in many different ways: there are those who dive into the sea to cool off a bit, some to distract themselves, some to become the most fit of all and some even to drown. There are also those who prefer to lock themselves in the cabin to feel safe and to spend a bit of peaceful time in their own space; this kind of people aim to build their own ivory tower in order to isolate themselves from the infinite ocean they have below and all around them, and into which they are about to dissolve anyway. 

If you wanted to focus your gaze more accurately on the heterogeneous and varied crew of the ship you would also see people who procreate and, at the same time, those who hang themselves; moreover you would see people who prefer to rest and others who would rather be busy by doing different activities. Beside them you can find people who love to spend their days by having lunch and dinner with others, talking amiably about this and that, without wanting to say anything in particular. There are also those who entertain others by giving any kind of lessons, such as history lessons, music lessons and even fitness courses. The fitness courses are the most popular in the ship: many people of the crew really want to keep a good and enviable shape.

We are talking about many different human beings who live in the same ship which continues to plow the waves while the dawns follow one another like precise strokes of a pendulum that diligently count the finite moments of a meaningless time with infinite horizons. 

Among the remaining passengers there are those who sell sandwiches, those who clean, those who play at the casino trying to get rich, those who pray to God with the secret hope of a definitive salvation and those who work all day long by complaining about the lack of free time in their life. If you look around and pay even more attention you may happen to see people who love to tell others what will happen the day after and what would be the right thing to do in order to increase the level of well-being of the entire crew; some of them keep yelling: "Things must change! It is no longer possible to go on in this way for fuck's sake!". The word you may happen to hear the most with deep resentment and indignant violence is "Shame!". On the other hand there are many people who are attached to the past and to the traditions which they strongly defend and promote with great conviction.

Then there are those who steer the ship and spend time discussing the best direction to follow by only occasionally touching the rudder that seems to be considered more like a trophy than a tool. There are also those who spend most of their time complaining about the weather and those who read newspapers with a visible intellectual attitude and who, through their proud and angry silence, seem to think: "The world is not as it should be! Society is not as I would like it to be! It's all their fault! I am not happy because of them!". 

It is a very strange and curious ship which is full of people the closer they get to the shipwreck, the more it feels the need to delude themselves, the need to vent their own fear and anger on someone else and the need to grasp the absolute with an incredible jump to escape from reality once for all. 

Anyway we were about to forget about those many weird and funny people who keep planning holidays: the meaning of their life seems to get a break from their life itself; most of them don't even really know why they always keep running and doing so many things because they never have time to ask themselves why they never have time: they are walking existential paradoxes trapped in a curious vicious circle they prefer not to know about.

Among the many different categories of people that would remain to be described there is at least one more who deserves to be mentioned: that of those who spend their time observing others, taking notes about what they see and what they think. A few of them (who sometimes, who more often) try also to have a rational dialogue with someone of the crew in order to bring a bit of joy in this crazy and emotional ship: they are called philosophers. Usually they do not have much success, on the contrary many respectable men of the institutions present on the ship, including several school principals, lawyers, teachers and administrators, consider these philosophers dangerous and feel a great distrust, a deep suspicion and a notable antipathy towards them. In this ship, in fact, dialogue and thinking are considered something inappropriate; something that often powerful people, when they can and when it's convenient try to discourage with different kinds of punishments, more or less severe. In this ship, indeed, if you want to live without major problems and without attracting too many disadvantages, it is better  if you do not think and if you do not dialogue at all, especially in public.

However, in the meantime, regardless of what each individual of the entire crew does or wants or thinks, the ship proceeds inexorably towards its own unknown, inevitable and meaningless goal.

The orphans of themselves

Many human beings have become parents only because they have never been able, not even once, to give birth to themselves.

(Work by Aphaia. To see more works of her go to Istagram and check @aphaia)

Reason and heart

Reason has its reasons which heart knows not of

A dying prisoner suspended between finite and infinite

 I am a limited being made up of organs, muscles, tendons, cartilages, joints, blood and cells. I live by following ideals that orient my life, that give it meaning but at the same time constantly ruin it. I would like to be who I am not. I would like to do what I can't. I would like to achieve what I don't have. I am a tightrope between dung and salvation, between finite and infinite, between the fear of nothing and the longing for everything; and the more this rope is stretched, the more it risks breaking. And so, between an attempt to reach perfection and the need to mend the continuous tears resulting from this tension, I wear out daily and inexorably burn myself. And as I aim for the top, perfection crumbles in front of me: and the higher I aim, the more it shatters. Each step I take is an attempt on life. Each jump I take is a piece that detaches from the chaotic puzzle that makes up my life. Each stroke forward is the crumbling of a dream. Thus, as I climb daily towards heaven, I slip desperately towards the boundless nothingness which is the grave of every ideal and the cradle of all existence. Physical collapse. Inner shipwreck. Dying life. And I wake up cyclically all sweaty and panting from obsessive dreams and each time I see myself for what I really am: a limping beggar, on the edge of a sidewalk, dying out of an excess of desire.

                                                 

The sense of swimming

 If I think about the role that swimming has played in my life, I must admit that above all it represented a sort of ritual, of habit, of constant. Repetitions of laps and movements. Going forward and going back, forward and back, forward and back again: one lap after the other. Doing kilometers without reaching any destination. Moving through the water to find yourself, at the end, at the starting point. Forward and back again, one more lap. To struggle to move your body in order to go nowhere. To research the infinite within a pre-established perimeter. A way of flying in the water. A moving meditation. «Tic-Tac-Tic-Tac»: another lap of the stopwatch. Going forward in order to return. Going back in order to leave again. A beneficial alienation. A sincere lie. A physical soliloquy. An incessant dialogue with oneself through water. Forward and back: another roundtrip. A wet dance in which technique is the way to follow, with effort and commitment, with perseverance and sacrifice, to enjoy the pleasure that only beneficial tiredness can give. One more lap and then another, like waves of the sea that rhythmically and incessantly dry on the shoreline. «Five sec... ...Ready? Go!». Setting new goals to still have something to achieve. To give oneself a purpose in order to have an excuse to move again. Getting tired to rest. Resting and then getting tired again. The pleasure of repetition. Repetition as a way to get better. Constancy as a condition to improve. «One lap slow freestyle and one fast butterfly stroke!». Swimming alone but with others. Feeling to be part of a group while challenging oneself. An individual sport but with a common language. Single individuals who form bonds among each other. Being together and meanwhile swimming alone. “Go slowly and go back fast!». Going forward and going back by respecting a precise order. Reproducing the same movements in space and time. Ten minutes; half an hour; more than an hour. One lap. 400 meters. Three and a half kilometers. Distances to be filled in a time that is supposed to be respected. Moving in space against time. Letting the body to flow through time by flowing in the water. An invisible and inner bucket of moist, wet and regenerating emotions. A sip of freshness. A breath of purity. «Eight times fifty meters mixed styles. Ten times one hundred meters freestyle. Four times seventy-five meters just legs!». Multiplications, counts and results: a way to apply the mathematics to the body and a way to forge the mind with discipline. A way not to get lost while letting oneself go in a liquid. Objective coordinates to orient oneself in a flow of sensations, emotions, physiological and mental reactions. To be alienated while you carve with strokes and strokes inside an enclosure of water built in the middle of infinity.

Human beings

A human being 

seen from the outside

is a human being 

like many others. 

A human being 

seen from inside

is a human being 

like everyone else.