It’s obvious, I know, but if someone told us 3 years ago, that soon after we would have gone through all this in such a short time, we wouldn’t have believed it.
Would you have thought that a pandemic was to come in the XXII° Century? It has thrown us back into a new dimension: slower, more intimate, more digital and asocial for sure. It has increased our vileness, it has radicalised positions that were extreme already, on both sides. It has challenged our personal relationships shutting us down h24 in house with partners that we barely knew, because previously we were seeing them at dinner time and not frequently. We forgot our being stylish changing tailleurs for pyjamas and jumpsuits. We’ve been living for months in the spirit of the minimum effort. But the pandemic also brought us back to a slowness we were missing. Suddenly we’ve been bonded to give up the speed we were living with before, when we always headed to the maximum performance. It brought us back to more human time management. But mankind is not fit for loneliness: it is a fact. It would have been far wiser to get back all of the above without the need for a pandemic.
Regarding where I am located, the famous “Pianura Padana”, would you have thought that we would have faced an entire summer with temperatures around 35°, never below, and winter without snow and rain as a pure illusion? Well, we will probably never get rid of fog, unfortunately, but this is another story. This scenario was forecasted originally for 2030, but thanks to our push, we are already in 2030. Nevertheless, there are still people saying that climate change is nonsense.
As proof of the fact that the fork between hyper-rich people and poor ones is increasing, of the fact that frequently the first ones don’t do anything to hide their “ignorant indifference”, we have recently assisted to incredible shows of theirs. Private flights to reach an exclusive place up high in the mountains to drink a luxury aperitivo, giant swimming pools filled up to the very top with the same water our kitchen gardens were missing and, needless to say, Jacuzzi. While we, poor mortals, were turning the taps off to save what we could. We gave up filling that small plastic hole that our children call the “swimming pool”, to avoid spoiling water and preventing our same children from getting a bit of refreshment from the heat.
But on the other hand, it is well known that the world needs morons! (While begging your pardon for this vulgar slide, I leave you the choice to decide who is the moron between hyper-rich and me).
Would you have thought we would have had heads of Government with dictatorial ambitions again? Same as regimes bringing the world back to the Middle Age (with my biggest apologies to the Middle Ages, as probably the time we live in is far worse). Would you have thought that we would have seen the Taliban back in Afghanistan with consequent bloodshed and destruction of women’s rights? Would you have believed that an arguable head of Government would have turned to dictatorship, invading a neighbouring country and menacing a whole continent? Then, whimsical like a child, he would have leveraged the most dangerous weapon, and his most effective trade commodity, to keep silent the most powerful institutions in the world?
Would you have believed that in Italy, in 2022, every 3 days a woman is killed? The source of this information is not a gossip magazine, but our Minister for internal affairs. What’s the fault of women? What’s ours? Evidently, the only fact of being a woman is a fault and not a sexual feature only. Probably our fault is not doing what our men would like us to, the fact we do not want to belong to someone, we do not want to wear a veil. We do not want to be considered as the origin of sin, to embody the evilest temptation. Really, are we still at this point?
Would you have thought, that here in Italy, we would have gone back to voting our Parliament knowing we would choose the lesser evil? We miss strong personalities, and prepared, wise people. We miss real ideologies and clear programs. If, by chance, someone embodies all of the above, then for sure we will cast him/her aside. They have put together aleatory alliances only focused to maintain their power and seat. Would you have thought that we would have found again on those seats, aged and under investigation people, who can barely talk without spitting their dentures? Would you have thought that we still have to choose among them, even because the remaining scenario is terrifying?
It was not perfect, but we were living in a wonderful world and we did not know it. I now ask you a question stolen by the text of the song I am suggesting: “is there hope for the world to go back to usual heights?”
Cinzia Costi
