I miss Italy.
I have a rather stock answer to the question of "What did you love about Italy the most?"
My answer, "The details."
This was before living in India, where details are likewise what I miss most, but with Italy, it was the first time that I had been exposed to such minutiae of detail. It rocked my world, to be crude.
I miss the details of everyday life being important.
Now, is Italy the only place on the planet where this is possible, being some pseudo-Hegelian dreamland of hyper-Self-consciousness? No. I am not so naive, nor romantic, (though I am both), as to think that Italy and Italians have cornered the market on details and the appreciation of the finer things in life, but it is impossible to deny there.
On a daily basis, I would find myself wondering and wandering through virtual and literal labyrinths of details, details, details that if noticed, would enhance my daily walk through life exponentially. A turn of the phrase, or the turn of the Jamesian screw of finding the patterns in the carpet, the carvings of the wooden molding, the door handle, the figure of a plaster-caste Madonna peering out the window over an abandoned piazza in Todi, or a Turkish figure on Bologna's piazza San Stefano who looks suspiciously like my Yoga guru, Bekir, there is always something in Italy that grabs the attention, stimulates the imagination, and makes one realize how important an attention to details can be.
Do I miss the details?
No, not necessarily, but it is the awareness of them that I miss. This, again, is not to say that Italians stroll arm in arm through the day pointing out the details of everything around them, yet, at some level they do, or at least, their culture lends itself to that. Like India, there is a difference of Time and Space in Italy that forces one to stop, take notice, and to observe. You can react, or you can enjoy.
For me, Italy was a perennial celebration of the details in life. Living in northern Europe now, however, I find that people have no patience for the detail. As in America, (again, a gross generalization, and there is much about America I respect, miss, and appreciate, though patience is not one of them), here, one needs to have something yesterday. But, the appreciation of the process, the bringing about and the becoming is no longer, if it ever was.
Life is a process.
Life is details.
I miss that on a cultural level.
What is the Here and Now if we are steeped in the Elsewhere and Next?
I praise and curse Italy for this. Ignorance is sometimes bliss, but it is also hollow, and hollow men are already dead.
Non lo so...
I have a rather stock answer to the question of "What did you love about Italy the most?"
My answer, "The details."
This was before living in India, where details are likewise what I miss most, but with Italy, it was the first time that I had been exposed to such minutiae of detail. It rocked my world, to be crude.
I miss the details of everyday life being important.
Now, is Italy the only place on the planet where this is possible, being some pseudo-Hegelian dreamland of hyper-Self-consciousness? No. I am not so naive, nor romantic, (though I am both), as to think that Italy and Italians have cornered the market on details and the appreciation of the finer things in life, but it is impossible to deny there.
On a daily basis, I would find myself wondering and wandering through virtual and literal labyrinths of details, details, details that if noticed, would enhance my daily walk through life exponentially. A turn of the phrase, or the turn of the Jamesian screw of finding the patterns in the carpet, the carvings of the wooden molding, the door handle, the figure of a plaster-caste Madonna peering out the window over an abandoned piazza in Todi, or a Turkish figure on Bologna's piazza San Stefano who looks suspiciously like my Yoga guru, Bekir, there is always something in Italy that grabs the attention, stimulates the imagination, and makes one realize how important an attention to details can be.
Do I miss the details?
No, not necessarily, but it is the awareness of them that I miss. This, again, is not to say that Italians stroll arm in arm through the day pointing out the details of everything around them, yet, at some level they do, or at least, their culture lends itself to that. Like India, there is a difference of Time and Space in Italy that forces one to stop, take notice, and to observe. You can react, or you can enjoy.
For me, Italy was a perennial celebration of the details in life. Living in northern Europe now, however, I find that people have no patience for the detail. As in America, (again, a gross generalization, and there is much about America I respect, miss, and appreciate, though patience is not one of them), here, one needs to have something yesterday. But, the appreciation of the process, the bringing about and the becoming is no longer, if it ever was.
Life is a process.
Life is details.
I miss that on a cultural level.
What is the Here and Now if we are steeped in the Elsewhere and Next?
I praise and curse Italy for this. Ignorance is sometimes bliss, but it is also hollow, and hollow men are already dead.
Non lo so...
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