Almost never have I bought a book by chance that I did not like the editorial project or, at least, the cover image. Sometimes I was disappointed, but less than what statistics could confirm.
Meknes’ Medina, part of the poorer market. I'm looking for a book.
Any book, I tell myself, as long as it allows me to have something to read during the long journeys on public transport from one place to the other and in the evening, after walking all day in the African sun.
Read MoreI left early the “Small Country”, just because I felt suffocated and constricted, even though I soon discovered that any “Country” defined as such, has its own limits.
I was born and raised in a part of this planet called Italy.
I bear a Passport issued by the so called “Italian Republic”.
I’m therefore considered an “Italian Citizen”, at least according to the actual denominational system even though I never fully understood what it really means.
I would like peace to be a resource and not a weakness, and that a greater degree of freedom and tolerance that we have sweated over the centuries is not lost because of our ineptitude.
Metaphorically speaking the full belly and the peace have made us beings without “balls”. On the one hand, the Western style has colonized the world while his exhausted body is rotting.
Read MoreThe reality is that when you have the sensitivity and the proper attention you can become what you want.
The summer season is ending and I would like to use this space to thank all those who contributed in making our 2018 season the best ever, in terms of quality and quantity. Our Bellaria style doesn’t follow the stereotype: "I won’t do anything that is not my job role" rather, it is a "bubble" in which those who enter are available to do what needs to be done.
Read MoreNowadays older people are perceived as stuffed animals that should last as long as possible even to the detriment of the quality of life.
A good friend of mine (Max Monti) often reminds me that it’s not that growing older equals to being wiser, it’s simply that one is physically forced to be more conscious in order to survive. That is, if you’re older and lead the same lifestyle as you led in your twenties, you risk to burn the candle extremely fast.
Read MoreWe are complex beings in need of thousands of small specialist “sub-religions” to believe in.
Human beings have always needed certainties to subdue and control the fear of the unknown. We do not know who we are, we do not know why we're here, we do not even know where we are. Truth is, we know nothing and no matter how hard we try, every discovery is pregnant with a new mystery, every peak we reach only reveals to us a chasm and an even higher and seemingly more unreachable peak.
Read MoreThe lack of responsibility is so viral that reaching the "person in charge" of anything is almost impossible.
Ours are times of dark dis-empowerment. The bureaucracy is an impenetrable wall built specifically to avoid giving grips. Think about when you have a problem with some services. You make the call and whoever answers the phone is never the person in charge with whom you can vent your frustration, rather it is a just "shield".
Read MoreTo call it a Festival doesn't do it any justice, Bliss is its own entity, growing and changing like a wave, always moving.
Bliss Beat Festival will begin the day after tomorrow and our happiness is increasing by the minute.
Read MoreAnything we may classify as “real”, more often than not it’s simply the idea that’s been best advertised.
I take inspiration from a great science philosophy book written by Paul Karl Feyerabend (who I believe to be one of the brightest mind in the world) to write a couple of things about learning methods. Science studies, analyses and “understands” reality by separating one event/element from another. Said method totally fakes reality making it the shadow of itself.
Read MoreBut there is also another portion of people, luckily very small, for which yoga doesn't do them any goodand that perhaps should devote themselves to something else.
I love watching humans interact in an unfamiliar environment.
I love observing the dynamics and the energies that develop between the long-term or short-term guests, the friendships, the kindness and the spirit of mutual protection that are born between most of them.
When spontaneity is missing, a pattern arises, an obvious effort to look interesting, crushed by the burden of constraint.
The need to be seen, heard and respected seems to go hand in hand with trivial expressivity. Every day I hear hundreds of thousands words though very rarely I hear something worth listening to.
Read MoreIt's true, here you get the feeling the time slows down to let you breathe, yet it passes so quick that “tomorrow” it will be time to go home and start again.
It’s been a few weeks since I arrived in the earthly heaven called Cascina Bellaria.
Far away from the city frenzy, from the meltdowns of those who fuss about “making it” and the arrogance of those who believe to be on the trail, I find myself immersed in a thoroughly unique space-time bubble. I don’t miss my usual comforts (ok, perhaps I miss my sofa a little), I don’t miss the chaos, I don’t miss the happy hour in the city centre, nor I miss the penetrating and unrepentant pollution.
Read MoreIn politics those who win are not those who have ideas but the ones focusing on the fear/promise of security
Every day we have new rules, restrictions and prohibitions in the name of peace and security. Music clubs and art galleries close down, crushed by bureaucracy, costs and rules. In the name of safety, it is almost impossible to sell local products because everything has to be packed in a single plastic dose. Every restaurant must have tables and charts on intolerances, contents, cross-contamination procedures.
Read MoreSince I understood that blaming others and the world is useless, I feel I enjoy the present more and I am proud to be able to smile even when things don’t go as planned.
I’m at the post office. The usual Thursday afternoon’s post office vibe, with a dozen plus crowd waiting their turn and 5 employees working. It’s hot and air con has not been switched on yet. Two kids run around and a dog wails.
I take the number for the despatch queue (careful not to get another queue number or else!). Two minutes pass, no number is called, no one at the counter. Employees keep their eyes on the computer screen and nothing happens.
One should not "love" but Be in a sensitive space in which all problems, worries, disagreements may enter without lingering.
It is not always simple: daily life often risks crushing even the noblest of feelings. Digital sociality, which is not very social, takes depth away from everything. Pleasure, pain, enthusiasm, a whole range of feelings are condensed and crushed in an emoticon. Love is not a feeling based on an idea or a model.
Read MoreSitting is essentially a simplified space, daily life is an endless move.
It is Charlotte Joko Beck to claim it, in a book that brings a direct voice, without frills, in a zen-flavoured clean black and white.
“Daily Zen” is the most unlikely I have read so far. Maybe that's why I still have not gotten to the last page, even if I've been handling it for many years. A book that denies its writing while respecting it, making it disappear in the moment after the reading.
It looks like ignorance is far more contagious than its opposite sister is.
What’s happening is quite clear: sensibility, intelligence, compassion etc have shrunk to the limit. Is mankind regressing? I don’t know, although I am not sure things were better or worse in other times. It’s just that nowadays, with digital sociality, the sad regression is far more visible and viral.
Read MoreBook: Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep? - Philip Kindred Dick (1968)
Movie: Blade Runner - Ridley Scott (1982)
If you’ve only watched Blade Runner and haven’t read the book that inspired it :“Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep?", I strongly recommend you read it as it is so much more that the already way-above-the-norm movie.
Read MoreI ask all of you:” Is it really worth to live like this?“ I beg you to avoid coming up with bland excuses such as “There’s nothing I can do about it” because it is just bullshit, you can always do something about it.
Long time ago, for a longish while, I commuted by taking the train every day to and from Turin. At that time, as well as having a quite busy job, I was studying at University and I would work and revise for my exams without giving up my social life. I’m not saying it was gruelling, but it was challenging and, in spite of my young age, I was certainly experiencing a stressful and hectic life.
Read MoreIn what’s often considered “a life-time moment of clarity and business-like enlightenment”, Patanjali sold his house, goats and wife and set off to write the “Sutras”.
• ‘ I’d say we’re in business again!’ - exclaimed Patanjali.
• ‘ what’s next on the agenda? ’ - asked Pradipika.
• ‘ You’ll see…‘ - stated Krishnamacharya
• ‘ Done’ - …Bikram
After a couple of weeks in a headstand, a finally head-soared Patanjali realizes about the annuities the Rishi were smartly pointing at already three-thousands years before and delayed, if not, but by the fat pigsty-headed and greedy Brahmins bloating in between.
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