We live

We live in one of the many possible universes. This is what modern physics teaches us. But often we don’t know what to say to each other. Especially during the celebrations we’ve been looking forward to. When we are all together, thank goodness for the clichés of greetings, the usual jokes that still make us laugh, and the gifts we exchange. Gifts that by the end of the festivities we have to deal with because we don’t know what to do with them.

Because the end of the year is not the end of the world, even if we live it as if it were. Everything is allowed. We sing, we dance, we flirt. Then everyone goes skiing. Of course, those who can, and not many these days can afford it. Reality shows on TV are so inauthentic and unrealistic that they seem to belong to another universe, which is the wrong copy of ours, and we have to keep it because we have no other choice.

And to think that it would be enough to accelerate a bit when we are at the farthest gravitational point from Earth, and we would find ourselves projected into space, increasingly dark, at the speed of light, in the most deafening silence there is. That of our thoughts that do not leave us, of unnecessary anxieties, with the desire to scream and let go.

Some time ago, I liked to think of myself as an astronaut destined to go to Mars. A journey of a year or maybe more. Who would I take with me? This is what I asked myself every time I met someone. This one, yes, would be great. That other one, no, for heaven’s sake: it would be a disaster to share a cramped cabin traveling through space to an unknown destination.

What were the characteristics of the people I chose? I went by instinct. However, I was well aware of who I dismissed and knew why I didn’t want them with me. I excluded insipidity, banality, and pretense. I preferred a severely autistic person to a witty intellectual, a broken drug addict to a “good” girl, pronounced with a narrow ‘e’ like in the north or a broad one like in the south.

I met a dear old friend, with whom I spent some time talking. He told me something unusual: he had given himself ten more years before leaving everything behind. It was the time he was interested in having, more than the things he would have liked to do. And this was to avoid leaving with regret.

Resist a few more years, and then stop. But stop what, if we are constantly pulled from one side to the other, saturated with fake news and attempts at fraud, scared of the dark and encounters with strangers who can tear you apart. We have no choice: we must live.