Life is beautiful

We declare ourselves unsatisfied even though we are fine, instead of feeling happy not to be infected, we complain loudly because we are not free (very theoretically) to do what comes to mind, usurped by our nomadic idea of ​​democracy we wander around the home like trapped animals, in a global pandemic that has put entire nations to the test, we are privileged but eternally discontented, in a nutshell ... we are Italian, spoiled, mammon and always ready to sacrifice one's neighbor. The horrible year is over but the one that has just begun seems to confirm all our bad habits also thanks to the information, the television one "first of all", always ready and punctual to document the vicissitudes of the crafty ones who act in defiance of the rules, those of common sense first of all, and not the sacrifices and good practices of the majority of citizens who try to respect the deliberate provisions to counter the spread of the contagion. The unauthorized procession that parades defying all the prohibitions is more striking than the family that tries to empower adolescent children at home, the faces without masks that scream, insult and threaten pierce the screen more than the silent photograph of a resigned normality ; but these days I don't think this is the right and correct approach. What passes on television creates emulation and often sets an example and we all know well how the most transgressive and wrong models are able to polarize the attention and attitudes of that portion of society that is most disadvantaged and borderline. But one thing is certain, after a year of fluctuating pandemic, between illusions and betrayed hopes, we are all a little lost, bewildered, often depressed, a little paranoid and very confused.

Catapulted without escape into a totally unknown and unexpected dimension, we found ourselves measuring the extreme fragility of our being without the right tools to face the battle; the society of opulence and the superfluous stigmatized in a state of widespread well-being, did not contemplate in its paradigm of apparently limitless conquests a setback of this kind and of this magnitude. Forced to deal with our body and our ego stripped of most of our certainties, those about health above all, we are laboriously beginning to focus on a reality that is less comfortable and less conformed to our needs which has always existed but which, well hidden by easy illusions, we have always thought it did not belong to us nor could it touch and involve us. Pain, suffering and death, however terrible, have a value that transcends them and leads us to understand the beauty of life, the real, concrete one, made up of small things ... those that we have long since forgotten to recognize and appreciate.


Michelangelo Dotta
NP February 2021