The Press no. 21/2000
It’s kind of the moment of truth, when you have more time for yourself, when you can choose where to go, what to do, who to talk to, what to read, what to listen to. Busy time, summer, even though it would seem quite the opposite. More than duty or doing, it is time of being, where what you really care about comes to the surface.
We are witnessing repeated assaults that seek to reduce the vacation to a prime time for vacuum-pushed escapism. Gossip rages, the chatter that dwells indifferently in the shade of a beach tent or in the more serious newspapers. The TV news overflows with pseudo-cultural trinkets, polls and statistics, more akin to the topics of certain little dialogues that one embarks on at the beach, just to pass the time or to show the guy in the next umbrella that we do know. The Olympics are still a long way off and, to fill the void, the obsessive pinwheel of the pink chronicle no longer knows which bestialities to fall back on. If soccer is in hibernation, Zoff’s very sweet statements are magnified. And in the abulic somnolence of our domestic politics, they are like manna rained from heaven the Pontiff’s utterances to refresh debates. Fortunately, before long our afternoons will be flooded with the films of Totò, the only blessed, miraculous point of certainty in Italian summers.
At the risk of sounding ancient and démodée, I still believe in the primacy of the person. Vacation time is the supreme time of personality, a time when more freely and quietly one can become or regain consciousness. If there is no vacation from life and growing up, I would like a summer that becomes a path, a step in the journey toward greater maturity of self, toward a greater sense of self. All the opposite of frivolous lightheartedness as that which overflows from the screen, never so garrulous as on these warm evenings.
And then, if time is given to us with more abundance, it can become a propitious opportunity to make the choices we hold dear or to take back what the hustle and bustle of daily work has prevented us from enjoying. Perhaps a while ago we left some good books on a shelf that we rarely frequent. Or a record that we have heard too hastily requires more intelligent listening to have a chance to become a piece of the soundtrack of our lives. Summer arenas replay that film we missed last winter. And museums, which in this formidable Italy can be found even in small towns just a few miles from seaside or mountain resorts, remain open at night. How wonderful.
But if, in spite of everything, we end up with the usual pink newspaper in our hands to pour our snooping attentions toward the real or fake boobs of actresses or delude ourselves behind the usual love story, no harm done: we chose it. And this is the sign, perhaps even the symbol, of who we are.
