Since I was a toddler, I’ve always had to deal with an uncontrollable zeal, explore the less-known paths.
Beginning from the lush mountain hikes escaping from the city. Passing by the steamy passion I’ve had for psychology, politics and then art, in all its forms.
Coming to the present…
When I fell in love with the process of perpetually losing and finding myself by living in a different place every new year. To me, those bright mornings walking in a mysterious city on the other side of the world are the irrefutable proof that being alive is worth it.
I was born on the 6th of October 1997 in a provincial town near Rome called Viterbo. It has few inhabitants and even fewer interesting things to do. I was thoroughly bored by my routine, school, and peers.
Luckily it was in Italy, the land of history, beauty, slow food and fast cars. I enjoyed diving into the origins of my civilisation, picturing myself as a Roman general, and feeling blessed for being born in such a rich and profound culture.
Later on, eager to find my best place in society, I started challenging myself trying to feed my curiosity and intuition. Mostly, I was surfing the length and breadth of my beloved internet, consuming any content I found interesting on any subject that sparked my interest.
Today I am an average university student. I believe that pretending you are special when you are not, makes you unconsciously vulnerable, fearful, and myopic.
Tomorrow I may improvise myself as a politician, or an artist, or a farmer or a writer. And maybe, if after some years I will realise that I am no longer the master of my time, I will grab my backpack and move to Hawaii.
I don’t like titles, I’ve always seen them as a way to hide what we truly are. I’m a person like you, built to fail, suffer and fight against myself. My commitment is to not smuggle my personality behind a label. I want to be free to change and do whatever I believe is great work at any stage of my life.
I feel fortunate to be born in this era. During my childhood, I enjoyed all the things that make a tech-free life so natural, intense and real. And now, I can leverage the power of the web, those tiny magic 0s and 1s that travel around the globe at lightning speed, that let me learn anything for nothing.
Nonetheless, one should admit the trammel that affects all of us born in this era of free limitless knowledge and countless opportunities: it’s a little too late to explore earth, and a little too early to explore the universe. For an innately curious soul like I am, it is no trivial burden. Still, believing in the possibility of being part of meaningful societal progress, helped me abandon my nihilism tendencies and turned into a somewhat functional human being.
I firmly believe that hate is nothing but a confession of dependency, for example, I hated the Italian school system. Indeed, I understand that an orthodox education is key to personal fulfilment, but being forced to learn by staying quiet and still, obliged to study without getting explained a satisfying reason why, is definitely the worst way to receive it.
“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”
– Mark Twain.
I have also been thankful for not having always been an excellent student. I needed time to research and understand the principles behind what I was doing. If in my youth, I would have focused entirely on getting the best grades, I would not have had enough time to discover and heal myself.
I also regret not having studied as much as I could, It took time for me to realise the importance of developing a solid culture and method early on. During university, I had to spill sweat waterfalls in a hopeless attempt to compensate.
Consequently to the 2008 financial crisis, the typography of my father closed down due to unfortunate circumstances, and we had to pay out some debts. “We have to spend less” Mom said.
I was adolescent, and I took the “money thing” so seriously that I literally would not spend a penny on anything – even though it was obviously not necessary. If I were thirsty I would wait until I’d go back home to drink, thus I would not have to waste money on a bottle of water. In my mind, all of the things we had at home did not have a cost. At 12 years old I wasn’t thinking that my parents were paying a price to get them at the supermarket.
I started to get my hands dirty to somehow secure my own wage, I felt I had a role to play in helping my family. My mother saw it as a distraction, which for some time was, but after some months when my projects started curiously working out, she began to realise. At times I feel that the warmth and protection of my family raised me to be a child, not a man, and I had to fight to break free of that.
My philosophy was simple: “If I don’t earn it, I don’t spend it”. My father was a typographer so, inspired by him, I began as a graphic designer. I have been learning all I could on the necessary philosophies, styles and tools and I quickly became rather decent. I was earning a few hundred euros a month and at 14 years old every check had me thinking: “Having money isn’t everything, not having it is.”
It wasn’t long before I started expanding my skillsets from programming to consulting and the checks started to grow proportionately. I was becoming one of the best young digital professionals in Italy. I spoke at various events, and the most renowned Italian magazines were asking for my posts and case studies.
After some years of trying to find happiness on my bedroom desk, I realised that I was literally spending my life in front of a computer screen—it made me feel great, but the days were passing by and I felt I was losing the grasp on reality. I was stuck where I was born, but where I was born didn’t matter.
At 18 years old I decided to move to another part of the world, to Argentina, and there I understood that material possessions are just the most trivial form of being rich one can pursue.
New ubiquitous passions began blooming inside me, living in a new culture can be an enlightening and dazzling experience. I realised how much one can better oneself by studying the evolution of economics, law, and politics. But then, how could I understand those without learning more about psychology, sociology and history. Next, how could I not dive deeper in philosophy, biology and statistics. As you may have realised, to this day, I still battle with this down-warding spiral, happily so. Everyday wishing I had understood it before.
“An experience that changes nothing is hardly worth having”
– Martin Margiela
I realised that everything in the world has something to offer to you. It’s never the thing itself that is boring or invaluable. it is always how you relate yourself to that thing that makes all the difference. I expanded my interested and broadened my views, sometimes all we need is to take a backpacked trip in life. Through the unknown lands, you come to know yourself.
But in the end, we have to be honest with ourselves, life is not enough.
Life, at its core, is meaningless. Our existence will always be a just grain of sand in a massive timeless multiverse.
“Beauty is the symbol of the morally good”
– Immanuel Kant.
Sometimes the wind just blows in the right direction, and everything looks perfect from the outside, but we just can’t find happiness and serenity within ourselves. Art is – according to me, the most candid confession humans make to admit it. An artist strives to find an antidote to the futility of existence.
“Art is a way of possessing destiny.”
– Marvin Gaye.
A hug,
.
Written on 16/10/2018
