JB, 2024
Every mask is farce, a mimesis
that confuses, conceals and that hopes
to make better of what is true, real.
Every mask is a child of some evil
Every mask indeed leads to a nemesis
boasting shortcuts, indulging desire
but betraying true substance
as could do a spare path
For a long time thus I wore that my mask
playing myself in second life
flaunting a girl polite innocence.
Now I plead for my unity, fullness
May, 2nd 2024
2. Judy – part two
But real life always is
consistency
of its call toward origin, truth,
to all is right, which is beauty
So life does not forgive those selections
that deny truth and right,
that reduce everything
to the prideful instinct of their worthless ambition.
Because I did want be from myself
yet each knows to be made.
I didn’t ask for my life, nor I did
not ask for really anything.
While disowning the creator, in fact,
I denied only myself, me. That.
Thus I lost myself, several times,
many times I returned like some wood
incapable of being and to love.
Many times I got back daughter too
many times I was blasphemy again
many times I was back only a puppet,
on my feet and hands ropes: only puppet
of another’s bad will.
Only a weak twig in an alien flow.
Hedonism took me roughly
only to have fun was then my hope.
I had sex even with no true love
and my spirit was the animal one,
when my soul died I was just a beast
sad and angry and violent too
I was led from my bestial instinct
Creator’s charity and mercy,
constant love and forgiveness
were so great towards me;
also now, when I know everything,
when I know that I’m free only if
I accept my true nature, now too
I return to be blasphemy, again,
even now He takes me and remakes
me Who wanted me and wants me perfect.
Only if I do not deny my
awareness I go free, across the world,
like a daughter who yearns for embrace
that gives sense to each thing and reveals
values that imbue any existence.
I am free with my Father by side,
made new and appropriate and perfect
as a woman as she really is:
towards Who made me and made each thing
a breath that includes everything
that saves each thing and understands all.
And that saves even this so poor me.
The end
2. Judy – part one
Before I was, I was loved.
So I was, then I was.
And that is why I was.
Because I was wanted, so I was.
I was done.
Because another wanted me, because another loved me.
I was called to life.
Before being me, He wanted me.
Because He loved me first, because He wanted me first.
So I was.
It doesn’t matter if I came from clay,
from a rib or a log of pine wood.
It doesn’t matter if were many years
and millennia and millions of eras
that made me woman coming from nothing,
working on genes and weird concoctions
of each organic complexity.
I took shape from a log of flesh, from
useless masses of flesh.
In a womb: there my body took shape.
Then they added my arms and my legs.
Into me
life was breathed: I had
without merit both words and a conscience.
I went out in the world in tears cry
And I moved to that breast and then
I had word and my skills as a girl.
Often I was just as a pastime,
like a puppet incapable of love.
Non capable of both good and beauty.
Anyway all this was not enough.
I was given a human conscience.
I was given my freedom.
Without merit, free gift,
after being I had everything.
I was made and I was similar
to the daughter He wanted. I was
so a daughter.
I was free: as an angel on Earth.
I was almost an angel on Earth.
But I chose pride as my interest
therefore malice and almost bad conscience
did want me free from all needful ties.
And he was so freed from each my bond,
no longer I was daughter yet
only enough for mymself.
I rejected my daughterhood, so
choosing my freedom flawed
like Eve did.
Because always sin is the same thing:
make myself as god and then trust it;
then I lost daughterhood.
I denied my true nature.
I only wanted to be myself.
I, a creature, wanted to be as if
I were made by myself,
an illusion that always can grip
in mankind
each afflatus to freedom in men.
And in women.
I, a creature, made me as my god.
I became my own father, my god.
So did Eve and do after her
every daughter of Eve.
So did Adam and all his poor race.
It doesn’t matter if I came from clay,
from a rib or a log of pine wood.
It doesn’t matter if were many years
and millennia and millions of eras
that made me woman coming from nothing,
working on genes and weird concoctions
of each organic complexity.
I took shape from a log of flesh, from
useless masses of flesh.
I, creature, made me as my god.
I made me as my father, my god.
I made me as my mother, my god.
I made myself my own only god.
to be continued …
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, 1669. The Return of the Prodigal Son (particular).
1. Pinocchio – part two
But real life always is
consistency
of its call toward origin, truth,
to all is right, which is beauty.
So life do not forgive those choices
that deny truth and right,
that reduce everything
to the prideful instinct of their worthless ambition.
Because he did want to be from himself
yet each knows to be made.
For the self made man is just only a joke.
While disowning the creator, in fact,
he denied only himself, him. That.
Thus sometimes he lost his creator,
and sometimes he returned marionette
and sometimes he returned a son
and sometimes he was blasphemy again
and sometimes he was back only a puppet,
on his feet and hands ropes: only puppet
of another’s bad will.
Hedonism took him roughly
only to have fun was then his hope
and his body became animal
when his soul died he was just a beast
sad and led by strangers everywhere
Creator’s charity and mercy,
constant love and forgiveness
were so great towards him
till he knew everything
and he knew that accepting his nature
was his feasible freedom.
And again and perfect he was made.
And again he was son and his father by side.
And then he was free across the world
And he was a man as
each man truly is made:
towards Who made us and made each thing,
a breath that encompasses everything
each thing saves and knows too.
And this poor thing was saved.
to be continued …
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, 1669. The Return of the Prodigal Son (particular).
As I said, this is the second part of my Pinocchio. In the meantime Jami Mills decided to publish the poetic part of my text in her beautiful online magazine, Rez magazine, even dedicating to it the cover.
I’m proud that Jami deemed my words worthy of such treatment!
1. Pinocchio
Before he was, he was loved.
He was only after it.
So he was.
Because he was wanted, he was
He was done.
He was wanted and was made.
Because another wanted him, because another loved him.
Before he was another wanted him.
Because another loved him, because another wanted him.
And he was.
He took shape from a simple pine log, from a useless wood part.
So his head took shape first, then his trunk.
Then they added arms, legs.
Into him
life was breathed: he had
without merit both words and a conscience.
And he moved and spoke.
But he was only a toy, only a puppet
not capable of love.
Incapable of good.
But all this wasn’t enough.
He was given a human conscience.
He was given his freedom.
Without merit, free gift,
after being he had everything.
He was made and he was looking like
a true son. He was really a son.
He was free like each man.
But he chose pride as his interest
therefore malice and almost bad conscience
did want him free from all needful ties.
And he was so freed from each his bond,
and no longer was son, yet alone
and enough for himself.
He rejected his sonship
choosing his freedom flawed.
He denied his true nature.
He only wanted to be himself.
He, a creature, wanted to be as if
he were made by himself,
an illusion that always can grip
in mankind
each afflatus to freedom.
He, a creature, made himself his god.
He became his own father, his god.
to be continued …
Pic made by Wizardoz Chrome, coordinator of the project “Pinocchio in Second Life”.
As I will explain better below, last January 13, 2024, at SLEA, in the metaverse, an appreciated performance on one of my texts took place; if you are interested, a short movie about it, recorded live, is also available. I now begin to publish the entire text, starting with the introduction. The other episodes will be Pinocchio’s monologue, Judy’s monologue and then the draft of the script and my thanks to all the friends who helped me with the show. I hope you’ll enjoy it too, or at least that you’ll find it interesting!
And will my father have waited for me? Will I find him at the Fairy’s house?
But while he was still far away, his father saw him and was moved with pity for him and went quickly and took him in his arms and gave him a kiss.
Puppets can only hope to escape the puppet masters and attain the prerogatives of man insofar as they recognise that they have a father and surrender to the strength of his affection.
Introduction
A friend asked me if I would be interested in participating in a series of events related to the world of Pinocchio; these events would be organised in SLEA (Second Life Endowment for the Arts), a virtual place in the metaverse.
I took my time before answering her, because this context seemed very far from my feelings and interests. In fact, hearing the name ‘Pinocchio’ to me, as to many, evoked at first and above all that long nose that becomes hypertrophic when Pinocchio lies, all in all an afflatus easily branded as moralism. However, when I realised what was Collodi’s true didactic matter, the words, these words, my words – be they good or bad – came to me as quickly as they sometimes do, and in a few hours this text was completed, at least in its original Italian.
Pinocchio’s story is about a creature who rebels against his creator, even though he yearns for his creator’s love; a story where Pinocchio nevertheless completes (or rather, begins) his own existential path by seeking and rediscovering, through errors and failures, his own sonship. With it, he also discovers his own fullness of humanity: at the end of the book, the puppet definitively finds his father Geppetto and becomes human and free: no longer subject to the control of other men. In short, it is only by accepting the bond with his father that Pinocchio can be free from the many ties, the puppet strings, with which others had hitherto forced him to move in spite of himself.
Well: what I have mentioned merges absolutely with my own human experience, so I dare say that ideally (that is also considering betrayals and falls, and all the conditioning deduced from history, place, social and cultural context, etc.) this characterises the path of every human being. Indeed, existential truths are either such for everyone or they are not for anyone.
When my text was finished, while I tried with enormous effort to translate it into English (the language best suited to SLEA), I remembered a book that had been kept in my library for years and which I had not yet read: Against Master Ciliegia. A Theological Commentary on “The Adventures of Pinocchio”, by Cardinal Giacomo Biffi[1]. I forced myself to study it before finally releasing my text, and I was surprised to see that – except for the extreme simplicity and approximation of my work, absolutely not comparable to the complexity and documented accuracy of G. Biffi’s learned essay – there was a clear underlying coherence between my poor words and his work.
So now I have the certainty that I am within the tradition of orthodoxy. I am a Christian, and it is clear here, but now I know that I am within the tradition of Catholic orthodoxy, and that is really a lot for me.
One thing, however, must be clear: this is not an apologetic text and I have no interest in proselytising with it: I do not want to convert anyone, only to say who I am. Rather: to shout it out!
to be continued …
[1] G.Biffi (1977). Contro Mastro Ciliegia. Commento teologico a “Le avventure di Pinocchio”. Jaka Book, Milano.
Pic from here
After all, a famous theologian, Romano Guardini, already said it well: In the experience of a great love, everything that happens is an event within its scope[1].
This is, ultimately, what we correctly call ‘love’, although its origin is certainly also an emotion, or it can be so, or at least it is often so.
Love is an impetus of the heart. It is an action of the heart, not just of emotion, not just of instinct, and it involves both emotion and reason. It involves our whole being.
Love is not suffered by resigning oneself to an instinctive passivity, however joyful. Love must be constructed.
Therefore, love is a fruit of a conclusion. It is not an end, it is not something that ends, it is not the death of emotion, on the contrary! It is exactly the opposite: it is a conclusion from which everything that follows originates and acquires meaning, significance, beauty, substance.
It is the choice of life, and it asks for everything.
It always asks.
It asks all the time.
Love to exist needs reality, needs a story.
Infatuation does not. It is consumed in an instant. It has no history and does not open a story.
So one cannot speak of love without looking back and remembering.
To confuse infatuation and love is like confusing a shooting star with the Pole Star: sure, they both exist, but they cannot be confused: the one, however bright it may be, has the duration of a flash. The Pole Star, in truth, even on the clearest nights does not appear as a star of the first magnitude but it’s small and dim, yet on this other the whole sky hinges, revolving around it almost as if pivoting.
Moreover, as every wayfarer knows, the Pole Star always points the path.
Without any ambiguity.
Love and infatuation can be experienced in parallel for a moment and only as long as there is no conscious comparison between the two. They have different purposes and both have their rights, so to speak, their functions, but these are very different and incomparable, incongruent. Love cannot be betrayed and infatuation cannot be denied, because it happens. It happens in spite of ourselves and that is all.
What really matters, once again, is to choose. To decide. To be. To be into it, consciously.
One can also phrase it otherwise: what really is important is to ensure that a crush is not a harbinger of pain.
For oneself and for other people.
Because illusions, even without taking on the consistency of a pathology, can kill.
Because life is not a dream, whatever Basil thinks of it[2].
Never.
And dreaming of it is a crime.
The end
Second Life, Gigli Isles, October, 19th 2023
[1] Romano Guardini (1938), Das Wesen Des Christentums
[2] Calderon de la Barca, see above.
Pic from here
A new idea slipped into her mind: was she trying to absolve herself?
Perhaps, was just this the meaning of her troubles and her consequent course of thought?
Did she want to remove a shadow of sin from her relationship with Mara? Did she first of all want to reassure herself about her own fidelity?
There was probably also such an ingredient in her reasoning: she might as well admit it frankly; however, that did not exhaust the argument.
Something similar had happened to her before, perhaps even with greater intensity.
She had been caught off guard by the sudden and overpowering awakening of emotions that had invaded and overpowered her, and when she had managed to curb and remedy them, immediately before something irreparable happened; the result had been a sudden awakening to reality, harbinger of pain.
Pain for herself, both because she had been disappointed in the expectations triggered by her instincts, and because she had to give up a relationship that was also intellectually fulfilling.
Pain for her friend, whom she had abandoned by making herself unavailable for many months.
Now, it was clear how disturbed she was, however, by Mara’s beauty, by her beauty as a person, and she did not want a repetition of the painful situation she had already experienced.
She had talked about all this with another friend, a wise and intelligent friend; she had discussed this subject with her at length, and she had pointed out further, enriching the matter with interesting arguments.
There was first of all the question of time: love always has its roots in the past, while infatuation – which can always happen – finds its spark in the present. Love and infatuation can coexist, but it is up to us to distinguish: emotion alone does not exhaust us, it does not take possession of us, except – possibly – for a brief moment.
Whereas love is a starting point, the origin of everything that will happen, on which our lives depend entirely, infatuation … a crush … has a completely different nature and consequences: infatuation has neither past nor future, it does not generate a story: it is, in fact, the flame of an instant, and only there does it burn, however enthralling and exciting it may be.
Love is something that must be constructed, rather than perceived. Better, perhaps: it must be constructed after its first perception, after the first cue. It must be assembled, it must be chosen with all one’s being. To exist, to be there, it must be constructed from pieces of things, of thoughts, of memories, of perceptions (even emotions, of course, even an infatuation, perhaps) that have already happened.
That have occurred.
Which have occurred, therefore, in the past.
All this, all this taken together is defined, composed, fixed, stabilised, crystallised into something solid, something enormous. Into something eternal. In something that demands everything and nothing less.
An infatuation strikes us by random chance, instead love must be chosen. And we must choose. To be volitional. Reasoning about things.
To be e continued …
Pic from here
Judy thus thought that it was probably in such a context that we happen to confuse infatuation with love, despite the fact that the two have so little in common.
Because infatuation, in fact, is a kind of unforeseen accident and has little to do with love.
“Love”: this word is so misunderstood, misused, overused and wasted, when it should be employed with care, caution, trepidation and modesty.
Out of all the inhabitants of this world, she had chosen only one and only for that person she used and continued to use the word ‘love’. Because that person had saved her life, not only metaphorically, and that was when, of all people, they had chosen each other.
That was the source of her discomfort, even with Mara. She liked Mara very much, yet she did not dare to use the term ‘love’, because it was not right. It was inadequate: no matter how numb and distracted her mind might be by her senses, she saw how different the reality of things was and her loyalty was therefore out of the question.
On the other hand, she felt attracted to Mara: this was undoubtedly true.
As she had often done, Judy thought again that the bottom line, perhaps, is that we too often confuse emotions with something far more complex and composite, which we traditionally, in our culture, call ‘heart’. The heart: the fundamental core of our humanity, of our being, of our person.
The heart, where both intellect and instinct, or rather: rationality and emotion, coexist and are connected.
Thus, while an infatuation pertains only to the emotional sphere, love involves the whole person: his or her heart, precisely.
For this reason, and not out of defence or moralism or malice, she warned Mara not to use the word ‘love’ in reference to the two of them. She asked her not to use that word but another: ‘friendship’. It was, after all, a question of respect for the truth of things, of respect for reality. It was about not distorting reality and not looking at it through the distorting lens of emotion alone. It was a matter of calibrating one’s gaze and awareness through the mediation of reason and its capacity for discernment.
It was a matter of living in that given instant, just in that present and quite in that given place, at that beach and not in that distant, mysterious and confused horizon, where everything and each thing could have been. Where the vagueness of the place and, above all, its remoteness and therefore its unknowable substance could give the dream the flavour and consistency of reality, of truth.
To be e continued …
Pic from here
Judy had to admit that she was troubled: her thoughts, or rather, part of her thoughts seemed to contradict her. Was she wishing for an impossible love? Was she dreaming of it? Was she longing for it? Was her desire for sweetness and tenderness actually pointing to something else?
Was she betraying her Love?
She decided that further investigation was necessary: ignoring a problem is not the same as solving it, and the subject matter of that problem was serious, or could be it.
She had to deal with it. She had to do it now. So, brutally, sincerely, with a shudder, Judy wondered if she had a crush on Mara.
She closed her eyes.
In her mind the caress of the waves still resounded sharply, but at the same time she was aware of the dismay that that vast, blue, flat surface aroused in her. Moreover, she also felt a sort of attraction and fascination for that distant, yet blurred, undefined, indefinable horizon… she felt captured, almost sucked in.
Trapped in a blurred vastness. She wondered if Mara too, as she gazed absorbedly who knows where, was locked in the same cage.
She perceived Mara’s breathing as a faint whisper and the movement of her chest continued to rock her gently. Fragments of memories of her early childhood coagulated into something wistful, nostalgic: into a kind of regret of lost intimacy and tenderness.
It was reassuring to be there.
It was beautiful.
Now, as had happened to her on other occasions, she felt a bit like Alice, when the little girl literally plunges into her own dreams.
Like Alice, she sometimes felt that she was detaching herself at least a little from reality and dreaming, releasing or even unleashing her emotions, under the overpowering impulse of the desire for sweetness and tenderness, for peace, for serenity, so that she felt good. Of course, she also did so under the impetus of her own instincts. That day, with Mara, it had happened again.
It had been like when, in March, the air is crisp and a gentle breeze caresses her face, revealing the incipience of spring and new life; then, all her senses are sharpened and even her flesh is aroused, renewing hitherto dormant turgor and old desires. So it could even happen that she felt attracted to someone, perhaps when a girl flattered her by telling her that she found her pretty, that she liked her, so much so that she foolishly thought she was really beautiful or, at least, interesting. Sometimes, especially at night and in her dreams, she would even turn on herself by fantasizing about particular eroticisms, so to speak.
Her conscience, however, was able to recognise the real nature of those moods and when that happened, she felt very weak and fragile. Foolish, indeed.
She mentally returned to the focal subject.
She was aware that she inhabited a very strange world, a world gone mad. A world gone mad and often populated by mad people. Yes: we inhabit a world that too often confuses fantasy with reality, so that fantastic, perhaps wonderful scenarios are approximated to real prospects, real opportunities. Dreams and desires are increasingly exchanged for facts and the immanent concreteness of situations. Opinions become truths. Cravings become rights.
The confusion between dream and reality was by no means new in the history of mankind, although it had never occurred with the intensity and pervasiveness of this century. The most striking example was perhaps given by Calderón de la Barca[1], when he described the fantastic life of the imaginary King Basil and his family. A series of dramatic vicissitudes leads the protagonist to feel with dismay the futility of all human experience: only death is certain, while all life is but illusion, a dream.
Cervantes, an illustrious compatriot of Calderón, was absolutely not of the same opinion; he fought in the battle of Lepanto, and lost a hand; certainly also for this reason he was well acquainted with the realities of life. In his monumental Don Quixote[2], Cervantes describes both the old Don Quixote’s getting lost in the fantasies generated by fairy tales and books, and the absurdities that the noble knight himself stubbornly goes through, steadfast in his convictions and illusions. It is only in the last moments of his life that Don Quixote finally understands and admits the hollowness of his own life, built on the vain and insubstantial foundations of dreams, and thus he reconciles himself with factual reality. Don Quixote’s unhealthy passion for chivalric novels forces his poor mind to completely misrepresent reality, including his supposed love for Dulcinea, a poor peasant girl that his illness transforms into the magnificent princess to whom he swears eternal love.
Existentially, therefore, nothing new had been discovered, even though television, films, mobile phones and social media made it increasingly difficult in the 21st century to distinguish between reality and fiction.
[1] Pedro Calderón de la Barca (1635). La vida es sueño.
[2] Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1605-1615). El ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote de la Mancha.
To be continued …
The skin of the angels 