Italian
Side Effect in the language of pharmaceutical chemistry has a precise definition: it indicates an effect produced by a substance that does not coincide with the reason for which it was prescribed and taken. It is the side effect, the unwanted that travels alongside the benefit. Yet, this concept transcends the boundaries of laboratories to extend to every area of production and human experience. Our ingenuity drives us to conceive and create useful, even necessary objects, which can suddenly take on an unexpected and sometimes tragic significance.
Nature itself responds to this duality. It is spectacular to experience, but intrinsically dangerous. The sea is beautiful, but one can drown in it; the peaks of the mountains offer meditative and rejuvenating landscapes, but they hide the risk of cliffs. Even a simple knife, essential in the kitchen, can wound. Indeed, Heraclitus compared the bow and the lyre: made from the same material, but the former is made to kill, the latter to enchant.
This key to understanding offers a new perspective on the greatest mystery of existence. We often live with a fixed thought on death and what awaits us afterward. Some find salvation in faith, but even saints have doubted. What if we tried to imagine death as a side effect of life? A predictable collateral damage, certainly, but still unexpected and unwanted. By reversing the terms of the question, we can place life back at the center as the main purpose for which we are made, relegating the end to a mere secondary effect.
This dualism is also reflected in our inner psychological architecture. The renowned American psychologist Kristin Neff has long analyzed the contrast between self-criticism and self-compassion. Being perpetually critical of oneself generates a sense of inadequacy and discontent. Self-criticism is paralyzing and demotivating; the fear of mediocrity chains us to a perfectionism that proves to be only a source of deep discomfort and mental suffering. Perfectionism, after all, is the toxic side effect of ambition.
The way out lies in self-compassion, understood not as pity, but as the ability to tolerate and forgive our own and others’ shortcomings. It is the tool that allows us to console and to be consoled, giving us back the only thing we cannot stop: time. Accepting the side effects of existence, without letting them paralyze us, perhaps remains the most authentic way to honor the beauty of the most precious medicine we have: life itself.
