What you can have for money

For money you can have everything it is said. - No that is not true. You can buy food, but not appetite; medicine, but not health; soft beds, but not sleep; knowledge but not intelligence; glitter, but not comfort; fun, but not pleasure; acquaintances, but not friendship; servants, but not faithfulness; grey hair, but not honour; quiet days, but not peace. The shell of all things you can get for money. But not the kernel. That cannot be had for money.

Arne Garborg

Reasons for sadness in the contemporary society

Have a look at the society we live in; see how mediocrity and stupidity are everywhere - if you don’t believe that, just turn on the TV and you will see idolized people that are only capable of screaming into a microphone and even someone who can cook becoming a “star”, but not someone that can really give something to this society, that would probably be too dangerous for those who are in control.
All they want is to let people swim in their little pond of objects and fake happiness. Very few dare to talk about ideas, real books, and real art. If it’s not commercial, this means if it’s not a product, its nothing! But a product is made to be consumed, while art and ideas are made for your soul. Even religion has become a product – if you don’t believe that, turn on your TV again.
Fact is that in this society of madness we tend to forget who we really are: Angels with one wing, souls that resonates to a higher music, beings whose destiny is bigger than their understanding. We desperately need a new humanism. Until we will not go back to our humanity, we will not discover our nobility and businessmen will believe that they are the ultimate kings of this world.

Sergio Caldarella

Moral cowardice

"Moral cowardice that keeps us from speaking our minds is as dangerous to this country as irresponsible talk. The right way is not always the popular and easy way. Standing for right when it is unpopular is a true test of moral character."
(Margaret Chase Smith)

Seems that the society of money and greed force men and women to leave their humanity at the entrance: if they want to enter through the "golden gates", they have to leave their human values at the door and join the ranks of the wolves. The antidote to that was given long time ago by the German philosopher Karl Marx who wrote: «Assume man to be man and his relationship to the world to be a human one: then you can exchange love only for love, trust for trust».
(Sergio Caldarella)

The "others"

In 1916, in the middle of the First World War, John Middleton Murry, inspired by the writings of Leon Shestov, wrote in his introduction to Anton Chekhov and other essays that the modern man needs to «learn honesty again: (…) the honesty that cries aloud in instant and passionate anger against the lie and the half truth, and by an instinct knows the authentic thrill of contact with the living human soul». This also means that even the opposite is valid: in the society of power and greed there are “others,” that do not feel they need to learn honesty, those who believe that to be in power automatically means to be right, those who can consider true only what is believed by the many. In the blink of an eye “those people” immediately recognize the person that lives in the honesty that Middleton Murry invokes and by instinct they are immediately prone to reject and exclude who is different from them. If there is a major fault in the society of power and greed is that it tends to push forward the individuals with less values. The more selfish and humanly poor you are, the bigger are your opportunities to climb on the social ladder. Well, the result of this setting-out was well described in a few lines by the Roman historian Tacitus when he wrote: ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant, and where they make a desert, they call it peace.

Sergio Caldarella

Orcs and Trolls

«But Orcs and Trolls spoke as they would, without love of words or things; and their language was actually more degraded and filthy than I have shown it. (...) Much the same sort of talk can still be heard among the orc-minded; dreary and repetitive with hatred and contempt, too long removed from good to retain even verbal vigour, save in the ears of those to whom only the squalid sounds strong» (From: J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, Appendix F)

Dare to read this one!

Without indulging in lexiphanicism (showing off with words) we should admit that we all have our bad habits or cacoëthes (from the Greek kakos, bad, and ethos, habit). The English Dictionary confirms the existence of this unusual term and divides it into three forms with a Latin ending: cacoëthes loquendi, carpendi & scribendi, namely insatiable urge to talk, a compulsion to criticize, and the incurable itch to write. In every word there is also some magic -- the more words we have, the more we add to our thoughts and lives. Sometimes words tell stories hidden in their meaning, or evoke unexpected connections between things and places. Years ago I played the role of Dracula in a small European community theater and for the occasion had to simulate a staurophobia, a beautiful word meaning: “a fear of crucifixes”. Unfortunately this is one of those words you can’t really use in real life unless you have to play the terrible Transylvanian Count or some other vampire. But sometimes, by chance, you can learn a few useful terms by simple means or even by reading this article. To walk home, while in France, I would pass every day by a blue painted brick house with a weathervane on its slate roof; a rusted weathercock that cast a thin shadow down the street and on windy days would make a plaguing noise that followed me like pattering of rain. It was only during my last night in Paris that I finally learned the French name for that damn thing: girouette. So far this story could have ended in Paris if ten years later a political activist on a downtown sidewalk in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, wasn’t handing flyers to passersby, complaining against the “girouettism” of politicians. At first I could not understand what a French iron rooster had to do with politics, but later found in the Dictionary that this was also a legitimate English word, used to define the slimy attitude, widespread among certain politicasters, of altering their opinion or positions to follow popular trends. Before that casual encounter “girouettism” was known to me only as “flip-flopping”. Amazing how through words you can move from roof weathervanes to politics. The topic of politics is also a verdant field for word genesis and inspires new terms in almost every generation: Aristotle, clearly referring to Plato, began one of his most famous work on the subject, saying that men are “ζῷον πολιτικόν, zoon politikon“ (political beings): since then the debate rages on and nowadays some people argue whether we live in a mesocracy (government by the middle class), in a cryptarchy (government conducted in secret), in an androcracy (consisting of men alone) or in a logocracy (rule by words) more than in a timocracy (rule by honorable persons – Plato again). Personally I would love to live in a paedocracy, not in the negative sense of “being ruled by adults that still think like children”, but by the real children, because when children behave in a bad way, they are sorry for that, and sincerely apologize with a tender smile that makes you smile too.

(© Sergio Caldarella, 2009)