The bitter sea

 

The bitter sea I am sailing on, with all of you

 

 

This is Christmas, so it should be a time to spend with the family in peace. Yet it has been rightly pointed out that I have an increasing tendency to behave as a party pooper.

The specific occasion has been the unveiling of the new marvel at Pompei, a food joint marvellously painted1.

I barely raised my head before saying "Well, it figures, Franceschini, the Culture minister,  is running for the Quirinale so he must be seen at Christmas with some positive news flow. no one would think it's chance, it takes ages to restore frescoes to that level of beauty."

That earned me a scolding from wifey, who said that there was need for good news and that was one; of course, we can both be right at the same time in this instance. But my job involves some measure of if not divination, at least of throwing away all illusions hiding complex realities.

So, I had a bit of internal searching and absolved myself, as we all do to maintain sanity, with this conclusion: I have become bitter and cruel in my analysis of reality because it not only vibes with my personal experience, but because it works. Optimism sucks, or rather, UNFOUNDED optimism does. The trouble is that when you accept that, you get in a way Red Pilled2: you start looking at news from a different angle, you are more resistant to induced biases, you check news for nudges first and content eventually, which by itself is part of the problem: until a short time ago, I would have said “content later”, but apparently media have lost all restraint, or we lost all memory, or both... which goads me into deeper cycles of self doubt. Thank God for twitter, where I found similar soul searching in others, and we became friends. However, the emotional support has been counterbalanced with a much improved news flow... which was as bad as I thought if not worse.

It's a Godel world: whenever you try to explain as much of reality as possible, you end up in a loop of assumptions where one explain the other, and having a different and oh so much smaller set is a pain which sets you apart from the flock, like a black sheep. Moreover as in any emergency like Covid (See Dave? I heeded your words!) conformity and lack of critique are absolutely essential it seems. I am reminded of that almost daily.

Yet, It's been a bad year NOT for Covid. After all, it is a disease, and sooner or later it will pass. It might leave in its wake a number of deaths and troubles,or not,  but let me get you in a little secret: ALL epidemics are bad. The fact that we are not the food of any big predator any more doesn't change the fact that for Nature, we are food like anything else. We've traded physical abilities for an increased ability to use our brain to invent tools, and we still do. But viruses and bacteria don't care about that.

I always have fought against conformity for conformity's sake and against authority disconnected from the sense of responsibility that should come with it, and will do so to my dying day. But especially in Italy, authorities don't even bother to explain idiocies, they do it on the firm expectation that no harm will befall them. And they are absolutely right.

I am only queasy about what will happen after.

1 http://bit.ly/2WPpCDG (Check the videos, it's amazing).

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