National Food Collection Day

This afternoon I went to the local supermarket to volunteer for the food collection - that means wearing a yellow plastic mantle and ambushing people who enter the market, explaining them the goals of the collection, and giving them bags they can fill with a part of their shopping.

Three of the children of my Sunday Christian class were with me, and we had a lot of fun together. The three little girls tackled everyone with big eyes and smart smiles; me, I took care of the stiffest cases. When we had a moment of pause, we discussed the most interessing cases - people who ignored us, others who smiled and caressed the children...

But the fact that stuck me most was realizing how good it was when a reciprocal smile was exchanged. People I had never seen and would never see again, people with grim faces, busy and stressed and worried were surprised by the smile of a complete stranger; a smile directed exactly at them. Unexpected, unbalancing. Warming. The smile was always returned, often with something like a silent 'thanks': for breaking the grey narrow routine they were in - and a never written law of our society, which warns about speaking to strangers.
Making us forget the warming power of humanity.

Here's a note: never lose a chance to smile at passers by :)

The right time

Sometimes it's good to think about the basics of our lives, about things so everyday-like that we consider them as obvious, free. Carefully peering into the depths of a man's life is always a fascinating experiment, and something which made me think of choosing faculties like Philosophy or Psychology at university.

Anyway, today I rediscovered the importance of Time. Time's a very complicated thing, which overcomes man with its incredibile power, indifference, inescapability. But we're used to name it in more easily manipulated bits: past, present, future. Since we live immersed in Time, we're quite apt at knowing when do we live; but in the same time, we're so easily taken in.

To the simple question "When do you live?", anyone would answer: "Now, in the present". But can we realize the importance and the innumerable meanings of such a sentence?

Present is our time, and present means all the people and things we are near to precisely now. Here's a question: are you doing your best with those you're near to, or are you "saving energy" for some other times, places, or people? Are you focused on the problems and joys of here and now, or are you living somewhere or somewhen else?
We must remember that it's in the present that we meet other people; it's in the present that our ability to be happy and to make people happy is tested; in the present and nowhere else.

What about past or future? They're too often overestimated, I fear.

Past can and should be a foundation for ourselves: something like a rock to rely on when difficult times come; experience which can help us to carry on our choices in everyday life. But it is no more. Past won't come back, and this is a very good thing, because it means that our past errors don't have the last word on us: we always have the power to choose (at least to choose how to consider the events of life); and that every moment of our life is worth living, since happiness is to be pursuited every moment.
We must watch out, since past can often be a trap; we can however break the trap by realizing what past really is: the result of our present till now - you can see its slavery to present.

Future is mostly diabolical: it is no more than a ghost, easily swept away by a single thought, vague, often more fiction-like than real. And yet, it brings fears for the morrow, freezing and clutching people with the power of dreaded failures, preventing them from doing their best in the present, in this way corrupting their past too. Sure, it can be a propellent for hope of change, but too often brings a distorted hope, an indefinite one, set in an indefinite future. Real hope nourishes itself of the actions of the present, otherwise it is dream, rather than hope.

Time's a very complicated thing and something very interesting to investigate on. It is therefore possibile that in some future I'll write something more about it. :)
Till then, remember: embrace present, the right time to live in!

Shining Individual

According to a 20th century great philosopher, Hannah Arendt, every dictatorship is always in fear of the individuals under her: in fear of the incredible innovative power that every person has in him/herself. A possibly revolutionary innovation: nothing good for a tightly imposed and trickily mantained order. The problem is, people think. And thinking is the very first step for getting aware of the cage you're in; the second step is nearly consequent: trying to break out - or to break the cage itself.

Going further: every powerful man fears intellectuals, because too sharp is their mind not to know and call with their name every fault, regardless of how much sugared they are; and too pointed is their pen not to clearly report and denounce those faults.
Intellectuals are a problem - as long as they're free. You could buy some of them, of course; make others shut up; but usually there are too many of them. You need a money-savvy strategy to guide and defuse all these intellectuals. How can you do it?

Advertising!
To standardize desires as like as products.
Advertising!
To impose what's in this year [month][week], following universal-and-necessary (but unbelievably incostant) taste criterions.
Advertising!
To decide what even transgressions should be, so as to make them easily reachable, ready for the user.
Advertising!
To create a state-of-the-art standard way of thinking, so you can easily communicate with anyone.
(Communicating what, though, nobody cares. But you can speak with anyone, for sure)

Let's open our eyes - let's turn our head on,
to have the opportunity of consciously ('autonomously' is not the correct word) make our decisions;
to try and find our own answers (which are not necessarily different from the dogmatic or fashionable ones) to the never ending list of questions of life;
to avoid getting to the grave shoulders heavy with the weight of someone else's life;

The list could go on quite a lot; I stop here. Now it's up to every one of us.

Bloggin' up: me, too.

What I see now is something like this

Well, that's it. I'm up on a blog, pushing ahead the Web2.0 revolution.

Ok, if I am to tell the whole truth, I already have a blog, on the teenager den also known as spaces.live; and you could say I post on it (in Italian), sometimes. But what I have now in mind is to write in English - both to train my language skills and to offer to the big big world my little honest opinions.

So here's the blog: Life Snippets, as I write about life, but in small, digestible bits. Too large a mouthful could choke you, mum always told me.

I'll post here my thoughts and words, hoping this way (that is my own way) to make me clearer who I am, and to share consciousness as like as nice ideas.
To you, brother-readers, I offer them.