Out of Proportion

"What is fullness for you?" A short question that can open a world of meanings, sense, and thought. One question, many answers. Depending on cultures, geographical areas, and living conditions. It couldn't be otherwise.

What is fullness for a father in a slum city in the global south? Every morning at dawn he leaves his slum with a cart and a basket of lemons to squeeze. The little money he brings home will barely cover his food.

What is fullness for a child living under the bombs, who sees the landmarks of his city Crumble day after day, witnessing the death of loved ones?

What is fulfillment for a successful student in a metropolis full of opportunities? Solid foundations, talent, a master's degree from university, the world of work with goals to reach and realize. Family? Later.

What is fulfillment for a young man driven by great ideals? A choice of commitment, a clear outlook on life and things, the sincere conviction of being called to do something great, because life must be a masterpiece, or nothing.

So many nuances, so many points of view, perhaps none of them right. Because in this dance of opposites, the only thing we have lost is precisely our sense of proportion. Even when we speak of fullness. Devalued in poverty, overvalued in our opulence. Out of proportion in the loss of dignity of the world's underprivileged, as in the existential grandeur of the minority who are well off, a grandeur that very often seeks to become culture, even spiritual.

We must be honest: we are out of proportion every time we feel we are in the right place, almost as if we were chosen. We are out of proportion when we think too much and cloak our existence with too many meanings. We are out of proportion when we believe we have truths in our pockets to spread and when we think we have some kind of mission to accomplish, at the limit and beyond our humanity.

The true measure of fullness is perhaps simpler: it is Life itself, small, tangled, beautiful and good always and in any case, as long as we desire it. A life to do the good within our reach, without superstructures, without pretensions, without forgetting ourselves along the way.

We would be happier if we believed and started from the fullness that comes from the life that happens, inside and outside of us. There is no other way to perceive it and realize it. Those who have the gift of faith, sooner or later realize that God dwells precisely in this simplicity, certainly not in the injustices of history, but not in idealized expectations either. A great lesson to learn and cherish in order to live a full life.

NP October '25
Matteo Spicuglia