003 - Don't look back

When everything seems to go wrong;

When every effort you put to live a normal life - "normal" to please society (parents, relatives, friends, employer, colleagues), but which you perceive as completely abnormal for the way you are - seems to drown;

When every thing you do to try to go back to "normality" ends up in a loss;

When the evilest thoughts start coming to your mind ("evilest" for your real self or for this fake society surrounding you? You do not even know anymore)...

...if the former points would best describe your current situation, then stop.

Stop thinking about how to best commit suicide. Stop thinking about how to best self-harm. Stop dwelling on the past passive or active actions that led you to this point. Stop pleasing the people around you, at least this time, and start focusing on yourself. Find out what you really need at this moment, these days, in this period of your life.

I know, it's a difficult task. Society around us is made up of people who do not mutually like themselves, if not by people who secretly hate each other. They - and you too - are all immersed in the mechanisms of capitalism, which can be summarized as follows: you produce, we give you just enough money to buy the useless and unrequested things that we make you think you absolutely need (whereas you would best live without), we earn a lot of money. This cycle has been repeating itself for over two centuries. And while the masters, the employers, the capitalists enrich themselves thanks to your work, thanks to the time that you provide them with, thanks to your efforts and to your sweat, YOU are losing precious time to try, at least, to live a better life, to find a better way, to find the truth, your own truth.

Unfortunately, I do not have a solution for you to interrupt this evil cycle of exploitation, you being the exploited one (together with many others). No, I do not have any solution for you, apart from this one: get educated. Read. Learn more about this system, about its mechanisms and logic. But, most of all, get to know the thinking of all those people who, like you do, have studied about the capitalistic society. They will provide you with their critical analysis of this economic and social system. They will inspire you. They may even give you the answers you were always craving for.

"Educate yourselves, because we will need all your intelligence.
Work yourself up, because we will need all your enthusiasm.
Get organized, because we will need all your strength."

Antonio Gramsci, 1891 - 1937

002 – Why it is important to be involved in politics

Everyone of us has specific points of view about specific matters (it also happens that people talk about subjects they do not know anything about; that, however, is another matter). I am not talking about universal knowledge or, in general, about actual facts which result to be always true. For example, I am not talking about doubting the righteousness of an affirmation like the following: “The cube root of 27 is 3”, or like “The epitaph on John Keat’s gravestone is ‘Here lies One Whose Name is writ in Water’”. I am rather talking about subjects whose righteousness may differ from individual to individual.

For example, I believe that everyone has the right to live their own life the way they wish. This means, among other things, that everyone must be guaranteed free access to health care and to education. That everyone must be guaranteed a place to live, to grow and to develop as a human being. That everyone must be guaranteed fresh, clean water and air. I believe that these basic, fundamental needs must be met regardless of the gender, sexual orientation, economic conditions, creed, ethnicity and political affiliation of the single individual.

As you may have noticed, these and many other points of view, or opinions, are subject to political debate. This is due to the fact that my concept of justice may not be shared by other people. There is no need, for now, to investigate the reasons for that. But it is appropriate to say that everyone has the duty to inform themselves and to be properly informed about every matter pertaining to their lives. In fact, it may easily occur, as it usually does, that some politicians make laws and policies which negatively affect the lives of a considerable part of the national and of the world population. Let’s take as an example the practice of land grabbing. Even though it is the first cause of diversion, depletion and pollution of local soil, air and water sources and indirectly the major reason for global warming and its consequences on a global scale, it only obeys national and local laws, because there are still no international regulations on the trade of land or of the products grown on it, such as coffee, sugarcane, rice, rubber and so on. Actually, there are some international declarations that may apply to this matter, such as the UN Resolution No. 1803/62, concerning the permanent sovereignty of peoples and nations over natural resources, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples of 2007, the “Legislative Guide on Privately Financed Infrastructure Projects” created by UNCITRAL (United Nations Commission on International Trade Law) in 2000, or the “Legal Guide on Contract Farming” developed by UNIDROIT (International Institute for the Unification of Private Law) in 2012. Unfortunately, however, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples of 2007 was subject to criticisms at the time of voting, since the representatives of Canada and New Zealand expressed major concerns about the contents of the document, while the representative of the United States voted against (of course…). On the other hand, the UNCITRAL “Legislative Guide on Privately Financed Infrastructure Projects” resulted in failure, because of the possibility for national governments of modifying and even delete entire parts of the text, which is reflected in the effectiveness of the document itself.

001 - Welcome

Welcome everybody to sic nostra labitur aetas.

Welcome to you, and to me as well.

It has been a long time since I wrote something about me, about my days, my passions, my world. In the case of this website, it had never happened before 🙂

Sic nostra labitur aetas, “thus passes our time”, but also “thus vanishes our time” or “thus goes our life”. This Latin saying can be found painted on some sundials, and not only in Italy. For example, in the town of Middleham, in the district of North Yorkshire, England, there is a house – commonly known as “the sundial house” – which is called like this quite simply because its facade has a sundial with this Latin saying painted on the upper part of the dial itself.

Another sundial with the same scary but anyway truthful message, can be found in Roccavione, a town in the province of Cuneo, Piedmont, Italy. In this case, the sundial is located on the facade of a house in Piazza L. Biagioni.

Sic nostra labitur aetas, ludit humana divina potentia (“Thus passes our time, the divine power mocks wordly things”) is the message written on a second sundial in the same town (Roccavione), but in a different place, that is in Via Giordanengo, No. 42. This second sundial was actually created first, since it is the oldest of the two. It dates back to 1798 and has been restored in 1993.

Yes, my dears. That’s the way it is. I would have liked to tell you how much the measuring of time in hours, minutes, seconds and so on, affected – and still affects – our life, but there is not much time left for me to talk about this subject. I could do that another time.

I wish you all a beautiful time.
Yours

Carla

Sundial in Piazza L. Biagioni, Roccavione (CN), Italy