Life without poetry is not worth living.

It is just a brutal and banal travesty.

Find poetry in everything you do.

What is it that people want?

It is clearly impossible to answer this question, as there are probably as many answers as there are people in this world.

Or maybe nobody really knows what it is they want. Maybe we’re all just living our lives on an inertia that springs from our “survival instinct”, with no real purpose.

It takes a lot of courage to be “genuine”. It takes a lot of courage to do what you really want to do. And it takes a lot of courage to dive into it, when you finally get your chance.

Life is pretty straightforward, and yet everything feels complicated.

It’s the irony of human existence..

Knowledge is like money that allows you to buy anything without ever taking it out of your wallet.

I can’t help but notice that many of this and last year’s movies don’t have an original subject.

I find remarkable the fact that most screenplays nowadays are just transpositions of pre-existing stories.

We are being bombarded with comic-book heroes and stories: Spider Man [1, 2, 3], The Fantastic Four [1, 2], Batman Begins, X-Men [1, 2, 3], Hulk, 300, V for Vendetta, Superman Returns, & more..

There are the movies based on books: The Da Vinci Code, Harry Potter [1, 2, 3, 4, 5.. so far], Eragon, Zodiac, Flags of Our Fathers, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Lord of the Rings [1, 2, 3]

And then, the infamous remakes: I Am Legend, The Hitcher, The Departed, Gridiron Gang, & more..

It is often said that good screenwriters are very hard to find, and that is why some of them get paid even more than the directors themselves.

Still, I sincerely do hope that someone can come up with new, original, and never-before-seen ideas for movies in the close future. And I hope the comic book thing will be short-lived (although the numbers those kinda movies pull in at the box office give me little hope).

Anyhow, I am currently reading a few good books on creative writing. I will dedicate a whole post to the subject myself, if you so fancy.

See you then!

Whew, what an altisonant title today!

For the passionate readers out there, I give you a little bit of homework:

1 - Read Isaac Asimov’s favorite story of his, “The Last Question”. It will blow your mind away even though it’s relatively short. It will make your day, I promise!

2 - Listen to the song “Don’t let me down” by The Beatles (forgive my excessive capitalization, I can’t help it when I like something. So, take heed, if your name is John and I call you ‘john’, I probably hate you). It’s a very simple and yet beautiful song. You know those parts or riffs on certain songs that just make you smile when you hear them? Well, this song makes me smile from start to finish.

So it’s all for now. You are on the internet and this means the two following things to me: you have the tools to do your homework and you have the time to do your homework. So, go and, when you’re done, leave me a comment expressing your feelings, and telling me if you liked those pearls of the big oyster shell which is the human brain.

P.S. Some may argue that I have obsessed over virtually every Beatles’ song. And I won’t deny it. But that one really is a gem. Don’t be put down by my passion for the fab-four.. Don’t let me down!

Some days ago, I was walking back home.

I was very elegantly dressed because I was coming back from a ceremony.

A black guy sitting on a bench offered me the low-rent socks and clothes he had on a big black bag beside him.

I kindly declined and continued walking.

Right after I passed him, I heard him calling: “Hey, excuse me.. Excuse me!”

I took a couple of steps wondering if I should have just kept walking to avoid the embarassment of an insistent request to buy something, or if I should have stopped and have politely said that I didn’t need anything.

I opted for the latter.

When I turned back the guy was right in front of me, with his eyes crushed in an ineffable expression, muttering some words in italian and some words in english. Before he could even articulate one word I knew he was hungry. You could tell from every single move, from every single wrinkle on his face.
That was the first time I was actually seeing him.

I didn’t hesitate a split second; I reached for my wallet, took out 10 euros and gave them to him.
He literally fell on his knees, with eyes in tears, and started repeating loudly in english: “God bless you! God bless you!”.

I patted him on the shoulder, told him to stand up, nodded as to say “you’re welcome”, and left.

Why am I posting this here, you may ask. The reason is that every single day, most of us take for granted so many things (such as food, the roof over our heads, or even the bed we lay on), that we forget how lucky we actually are.
My suggestion (to myself in the first place, and to you, dear readers, secondly) is to be thankful for everything you have.
Start looking at what you have, day to day, from an outsider point of view.
See how many good things there are in your life. And that is as true for material things as it is for relationships and the people around you.
My suggestion, again, is to stop and look around you, whenever you feel the need for something:
you may already have, in your life, everything you need to be happy.

That is what I lack right now.

I have so many good things in my mind and yet such an hard time transforming them into reality.

I don’t know what to do with my own life and I feel like I am in a sort of ‘limbo‘.

Motivation, motivation, motivation.. Where art thee?

Right now, all I can do is expanding my cultural reach by surfing the net and strengthen my arms by doing some free climbing.

On a side note: I have read the census data of the average lifespan in various countries. In Italy, it’s 79 years. I have calculated that I still have some 21800 days to live, if all goes well. Would I really want to spend them just like I did until now? Not at all..

I have to be patient.. This summer I will have my final revelation, I guess.

To avoid making you delve into the deep mystery I have just cast upon you, I hereby post a great video. Listen to what, this man, Mr. Steve Jobs, founder and CEO of Apple, has to say. Wise words..

Technology is nowadays evolving at an unbelievable rate.
We are able to do things, today, that would have been impossible but a few years ago.

I am amazed by this growth. It excites me and it really is the expression of anything that there is of great and wonderful in the human mind.

But does the internet also impoverish art and knowledge?

Internet is the first utopia of mankind becoming reality: it is a totally free, self shaping and ever-morphing environment. Everyone counts as much as the other one and people really do have the power on the Internet.
It’s the world’s entire knowledge at your fingertips.
Think about it for a second. It’s like a miracle. Having everything there, RIGHT THERE for you.

Having such an effortless access to knowledge and art, though, could dangerously mean for you to feel like those things are of small value.

It’s just like what they tell you in marketing courses: a lower price doesn’t always mean more sales. You have to find your sweet spot: price your product too high, and no one will buy it because they think it’s a rip off, price it too low and you will convey the idea that it is of small value.

If you bought a book for 50$ you’re not gonna throw it away at the first boring part. You are motivated to keep at it, because you invested in it. It has a value for you because of what you spent on it. Be it mere money or effort to find it.

A lot of the music, games, books you get (illegally) for free on the internet have suffered this loss of percieved value. And that is way worse than any concern the RIAA may have.

You wanna kill a painter, a writer or a musician? Just watch, read or listen to their work once and trash it without even TRYING to understand it.

That is what I think is the only trap of the wonderful world wide web.

So, my message is the following:
Art and knowledge, for how cheap they may come, are always the most valuable things in this life. Their value is a spiritual value which calls for a payment in mental effort to understand and appreciate them.

Everyday we hear about a lot of bad things happening.

But we must also think of all the beautiful small miracles that we don’t hear about: people falling in love, feeling free, making a change, learning something new, apologizing for their mistakes.

Yes, bad things happen everyday. But good things happen every second.