A JOURNEY WITHOUT RULES

Tempo di lettura: 4 minuti

All right, here we go again.
My last flight was in March 2020. Then life moved online, and my travels between Italy and Bavaria were by car.
I had no problem experiencing what was fancy called ‘SOCIAL distancing’ but which in fact turned out to be just that: the physical distance, instead of giving rise to new forms of empathy in this society already severely affected by the chronic indifference syndrome, only amplified the existing. Those who were lonely remained in their loneliness, those who were not lonely found new forms of relationship.

We were already socially distanced, in many cases.

However, all did not go that well. Far from it. I still say that.
But hey, it was to be expected, social isolation doesn’t make miracles, it doesn’t give birth to love for your neighbour if you don’t know where to look for it. If anything, it brings out the nasty. The norm of appearance, of performance that has nothing to do with lived life, drove the contest of rainbows and motivational quotes hanging from the balcony. But it stopped there, for the rest it was simply a matter of expanding the ranks of enemies who are guilty of our misfortunes. Leading the hatred, the usual protagonists of hoax, sensationalism, fake news, cheap politics that we generally accept.

You know, during crisis times, having enemies with recognisable characteristics provides an excuse for those who have no desire to spend their time cultivating the minimum amount of knowledge they need to make a living, even if they are forced indoors to do nothing.
Resistance against all forms of culture is almost a social movement.
Having enemies makes it easier: during the pandemic were the people who ran in the street, those who walked the dog, the elderly and non-productive population – who were expendable to look after their housebound grandchildren – who were vaccinated before young people who were useful to the country and had to produce, and whoever else came to mind from one day to the next; once the pandemic was over, the enemies again became migrants, the poor, the frail, those who, instead of reminding us that life demands empathy, become the scapegoats of our human miseries.

Fragilities frighten and distract our attention from our own individual race. We have been taught that fragility and vulnerability are two disturbing elements that we must ignore, so we try not to see our own and minimise those of others. If we do not name them, they do not exist.
Post-traumatic stress disease: these words first came out of my mouth just a few weeks ago. I never said it out loud, but it is what I was diagnosed with after a long period of psychotherapy that started far before the pandemic. That’s why I couldn’t hope that everything would go well. The diagnosis came in 2019, but I had never pronounced these awful words, because doing it meant showing off exactly what I was trying to clean up every day with big smiles, devoting my time to other people, getting into situations where anyone could vent their problems to me and then disappear once my resources were exhausted. In a world characterised by the enemy syndrome and the most useless and stupid narratives of those who have made it through their own perseverance, exposing one’s frailties is not exactly what one wakes up with in the morning. If anything, one wakes up with that of not getting out of bed so as not to have to face that world outside.

Naming a problem basically makes us tell people ‘here I am, this is who I am now’, and I know what it is like to name a weakness and have it pointed at you like a weapon. And people had already done enough harm to me first through group abuse, infamous, frightening, then through isolation in the few times I had the courage to tell about it. The people who fully know my experience – because they listened to me from the heart – can be counted on the fingers of one hand, and then I myself wanted to exonerate them from seeing me traumatised again.
Everything is fine. It is the fear of losing people that makes us say that everything is fine. Then there are those who know that it is not all right, and they hold on to our hand despite the fact that we keep telling them that we can do it. There are only a few who stay every day to pick up the pieces. It is difficult I know, because I have picked up tons of other people’s shards.
The pandemic was a safe haven for me: the world was in that same state of isolation as me. My alienation was invisible. I told my psychotherapist “after all it is not weighing on me” I said “this is not a good sign” he replied. And I ignored his answer, I thought he was too inflexible. Maybe it was a strength of mine to be so comfortable. Instead it was my Linus blanket.

Today I am here again, in New York, and before I cross the street to 46th Street and First Avenue: I enter a coffee shop. I enjoy a hot coffee, pause to realise that I am participating in CSW67 and get a little excited, it was not an expected part of my trip.
It’s snowing outside, I’ve never seen a snowfall in New York. So much news.