Tue, September - 7 - 2010 |
(on a truly global perspective)
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“This
is a singles-only supper!” said
Daria with a sudden explosion of laughter.
She
and Angela were setting out plates and glasses on the long table in the dining
room. We were going to have supper
in the midst of the paintings. On
the counter top in the small kitchen, I was working on dicing onions, carrots,
celery and rosemary. Water for the
pasta was already heating.
I
had never thought of this situation from the open prospect of this word.
Single! Well, in the
meantime, I had become single. I
wasn’t sure if this was something I should be happy or sad about, now that a
term had been given me to describe my current status.
I’ve always disliked definitions.
I get this feeling that they’re little traps.
Plus, this word seemed to suggest a sort of permanent status, like the
barracades of an exiled land. My
God! Of course, Daria is right.
Angela and I, in this moment were without significant others, someone to
call my boyfriend, my girlfriend. So
what? Wasn’t there much more in
life?
In
the past few weeks, my life has been very intense, full of surprises and
animated by creative inspirations of the highest level.
Friends have mutiplied around me. It
would be better to say that I was an artist in one of his most intense and rich
moments. This was a better way of
defining myself.
“There
aren’t any men up to our standards,” said
Daria. “It’s hopeless.
Half-assed men. Super
focused on their jobs, on their careers, but without the courage to face the
challenges of a relationship.”
“You
know what I say? Don’t lower
yourself,” asserted Angela.
“It’s depressing. Under
sell ourselves by putting up with creeps just because it’s hard to find
someone who stands up to our expectations.
You lose your self-respect. At
the end you become bitter, then lost… ”
It
went without saying that we would end up talking the whole time about our love
lives, about the difficulties challenging relationships, about past wounds.
But slowly and surely, in the heat of the argument, a theme emerged the
taste of which filled me with energy and vigor.
Just like the taste of some foods that emerges only after a few minutes
of eating them and then brings something stable and substantial to your senses.
Or like it is with some wines: a
flavor that emerges only after but that allows you to feel the full sensation of
the message it contains…
God!
Suddenly there’s the sun as I write.
It’s already a new day. It
started out gelid, glacial, the day turns itself inside out like a little sock.
And yesterday seems to me, in my memory, a moment of intuitions dense
with nutrients. And I sense once
again that after taste that has gone and entwined itself in my existence.
What
I see is how much problems in love lives, an abbandonment, deep disappointment,
open up the territory for a rediscoverment of the self, a reallignment with the
calling that lives in you, a flow of genuine energy that crosses a chanel of
refound integrity. A forgotten
territory where you can reestablish your relationship with Life, in all of its
parts, globally.
In
my head, those heated discussions entwine themselves with a conversation I had
with Bruna a few days ago.
Bruna’s
work involves talents. I believe
she wants to find a way off the beaten path that leads to human dignity that
overcomes a sense of imprisonment and the greyness of routines.
She does it for others. She
does it for herself.
She
said, while sipping her white wine we used to lighten the risotto alla
trevigiana: “We’re researching
and researching, we’re creating list after list…”
She handed me a sheet of paper that contained a long list of names, each
had a talent written along side of it. She
cited Gardner, the multiple intelligences guy.
“Ok,”
she said, “Today we know that intelligence is not only that which concerns
words and numbers…Lots of other things make up intelligence.
This has opened horizons…
The
methodologies for identifying, classifying,and listing talents has multiplied.
Myriads of tests can be taken to determine how much you have of this or
that talent…”
It
seems to me, however, that this thing about talents, which began as something
fresh, intuitive and liberating, is getting weighed down, is getting blown out
of proportion. I’d like to see a
return to intuition that puts everything back in flow, that relaunches the take
on talents, that rekindles the enthusiasm…
And
the old parable about talents popped into my mind.
The term “talents” is most likely around in our language thanks
to this story. A young boy had
received from his master one talent. With
this treasure in his pocket he doesn’t know what to do and is worried.
He thinks above all that someone could steal it from him.
He knows that what he has is really worth something and wants to save it
from being stolen. The best thing
he thinks to do is to hide it. He
digs a hole in the ground and puts it there.
The
next scene is the moment of truth. The
master wants to see what the boy was able to do with his treasure.
Satisfied with himself, the boy hands his master the exact same thing he
was given. See?
Here it is. I still have it.
I took good care of it. See
how smart I was?
But the master is unimaginably angry. You didn’t understand anything! With a treasure like this you could have found a way to multiply it by one thousand percent. Damn! You stupid boy! You wasted an opportunity that could have made you rich and could have enriched the whole world. At the very least, even if you didn’t know what to do with it, you could have given it to someone who could have invested it more wisely. Instead, what did you do? You buried it in the ground. Bad, my son. Very bad.
Let’s say that this word and the problems surrounding it entered into our western culture by means of this story. This metafore sparks some thoughtful reflection and many questions.
The
context is that of an extreme moment of truth (with our creator, with life, when
facing death) on the meaning of our existence.
The moral is that what you are, what you receive (everything) should be
invested or grown in some way. The
background is a scenerio which requires hard work, care and intelligence to make
this happen. Simply safe-guarding,
conserving, and keeping what you have in one spot isn’t enough.
Grow or die. Sterility is
cursed.
The
law of life depends upon the concepts of growth and creativity.
Not upon conservation. If
you stand still, you don’t stay in the same place, you go backwards.
Simply because the universe goes forward, it marches on.
But
even asking certain extreme questions: what
is the meaning of my life, what have I done so far, what will I leave behind
when I die, what will I think and say on my deathbed…and other major questions
of this nature we ask ourselves in critical moments of our lives.
I think that the asking of these questions as to what we’re
accomplishing provides us with the right context in which to confront our
discussion about talents.
Talent
is thereby born in an open context in which one asks himself what he can do to
invest and make grow that which he has, that which is.
Instead of asking, “What talents do I have?,”
I suggest asking yourself, “Am I taking advantage of the talents I
have?” or, “How can I make the most of my talents?”
And that’s how that which is, that which is hidden in the background,
or even that which seemed like a defect, becomes a resource for…
Even not having a woman or a man who even begins to come close to meeting our standards…
From the book “Da qui a li. Strategia del desiderio” – (from here to there. Strategy of desire) in search of a publisher in the USA….
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