Easter greetings multiply in text messages and emails as the world continues in its maelstrom of crisis, violence and nonsense.
We have already said it several times, the old world is leaving, with its tail flicks of the best monsters of the Myths, and the new one is being born, without clamor, with due calm.
Reflecting and talking with some friends, I wrote these notes, dedicated to the new builders who, as is normal, sometimes get confused in construction, distressed or desperate.
The new is born small. The plant is born from a tiny seed that becomes a ridiculous sprout. One day it will become a baobab that could crush Asteroid B612, to the Little Prince’s concern or delight, when the tiny seed turns into a rose. The sapling escapes big media [that are] busy trampling the Earth, forgetting that it is necessary to care for it.
Consistency is essential. We must think, feel and act in the same direction; no shortcuts are provided. But there is at this moment a fanatical coherence so we must make it clear that our coherence is combined with solidarity, [and] so [we must] treat others as we want to be treated.
Nonviolence is the key. The old world knows only solutions based on violence: security with more police and control, lack of jobs equals more slavery, international relations with sanctions and war and so on. To violence in its many aspects (economic, social, religious, political, cultural, physical) we can only draw a blank and practice, in the same fields, nonviolence, a young concept that is necessary to develop, to practice.
Beginning with each one*. It is not a program for others, it is a daily action of each of us. Our action is not indifferent; we are a piece of the butterfly effect. We can recognize the violence in us, accept it and transform it. It is not something to be done at the top of the mountain, it is a concrete action that each person will develop according to his vocations and abilities, according to his means. And it is not measured by the pound or by recognition, it is the humble and heartfelt action of those who believe in the possibility of a better world.
The Human Being at the center. The system wants to confuse the robbing desires of the 1% of the population with a purportedly violent and hoarding “human nature.” This view makes it possible to justify the Anthropocene, profit, and violence by saying that the Human Being is itself a predator. It intentionally does not clarify human nature, which is transformation, empathy and freedom of choice.
The optimism of reason. They called optimists fools, naive and idealistic. They invented the “pessimism of reason”: it is false. Reason, as well as the heart, says that the new outweighs the old, that things are advancing toward the best, and that the best is for everyone.
Acting together. The old world tries to divide everyone into schizophrenic individualism. It says one Wall Street employee has more power than whole peoples. Quite the opposite, it is the organized and tuned peoples who lead History in one direction or another; that “tragic, bewildering but ever-growing” history that will lead Human Beings toward a solidary, bright, spiritual future for all and of all.
PS: A text that inspired this article is Silo’s book Letters to My Friends published in Italian by Multimage.
