The beauties of being a Southerner

On arriving to Italy I was at once immersed again into its plush and vibrant culture. Immediately I was engulfed by the hustle and bustle of Napoli, surrounded by the stereotypically greasy Italians with their gelled back hair and sunglasses, by pickpockets and some of the biggest con artists in modern day Italy. As we were driving from the airport to my grandparents’ village in the province of Avellino, we passed a poster sign that read “oggi sei fortunato, prezzo speciale!” which reads today’s your lucky day, special price, referring here to petrol (which happened to be 1.14 euros a litre- that is about 39p less than the going rate in England- just in case this prospect can entice you car lovers to move to the motherland of sport cars- with cheaper petrol deals?) I automatically knew that this was some wily trick and that the sign was probably replaced every morning. My cousin turned to me and said why do you think they would go to the effort of replacing that sign every morning? Can’t you see it’s tattered and torn- it’s probably at least 5 years old and has never ever been moved. It felt good to be home.

We all have our preconceived ideas about the Italian culture- albeit from American film culture or Dolmio pasta sauce adverts, but it seems to me that in many Hollywood films the majority of Italian men are portrayed in one definitive manner- as slimy, animalistic predators, with their crisp starch shirts, designer belts and sunglasses. True it is that they exist and probably have an 80% chance of being called Antonio or Francesco since those are the most popular male names in Italy, but still I am never failed to be enticed and mesmerised by an Italian man. It is in times like this that I feel that the English language lacks words for expression and that in some ways; it just simply can’t express the same concept that another language can. Speaking two languages (admittedly my mother tongue being infinitely better than my Italian) this is something, which I have often taken for granted. If I can’t find the words to assert myself in one language I look to the other- and if I still can’t find it, well then I just make up a word for myself (When I was younger my sister and I often used to say “edwardo” which renders something along the meaning of an object or person being weird but also simultaneously interesting- only recently did I find out that “Eduardo” is an Italian boy’s name so perhaps this is not the best of examples…) Two of my closest friends- both from Eastern Europe, once told me that their own mother tongues (Bulgarian and Hungarian) have more words to express items and concepts than the English language (for example there is a word in Bulgarian that distinguished between fish bones and chicken bones- and no the word is more creative than just adding “fish” and “chicken” to the word bone). At first I was sceptical and didn’t really understand what they meant, but finally I think I can relate. The word “sprezzatura” in Italian is what is used to describe a certain nonchalance attitude or a studied air of indifference. The only other English equivalence, which I can think of, is the English (or rather American) concept of the ‘European man’- a cultivated and smooth talking man, one who is the master of his emotions. During my first year of university I pretty much hard-core fancied this Italian guy- it’s only on reflection of being in Italy and surrounded by so many other Italian men that I realised that the reason why I was hung up on him for so long was not so much the fact that I fancied him as much as it was that I am completely and utterly in love with the Italian culture and as a consequent- everything Italian. Living in a small town in Scotland, authentic Italian produce is not that easy to come by and so when it fell in my lap with my arms opened, I felt the need to grab the opportunity with both my bare hands. I mean you could have thrown a bloody vesper at me and I would willingly have made love to it.

I think what most western cultures don’t acknowledge- and especially in the UK and especially, especially in places like London, is that the Italian nation is a culture whose principle goddess is beauty herself. They worship anything beautiful- food, architecture, sports, and women. They appreciate that they are blessed by being surrounded by beautiful creatures and they are simply not shy to let this be known. Once an acquaintance of mine at my secondary school was recounting an incident of how this ‘creepy’ Italian man saw her sitting in Starbucks or whatever badly overpriced coffee shop she was frequenting (and don’t you worry I will definitely be getting onto il caffé) and proceeded to enter into the café and pronounce that she was “bella” and then simply left. Her conclusion from this whole experience was that he was trying to ‘get in my pants’ but I honestly don’t think that this was the case. I ensued to question whether he asked for her number or facebook or in any way implied that he wanted to ‘get with her’ or see her again, to which she replied with a face-slapping “well no… but he called me beautiful..”. At once I knew that the English knew nothing about the appreciation of beauty. He was only admiring and articulating his thought in the only way he had been taught to- to let the girl know she was an object of pure pleasure. The English still have a lot to learn.

The Italian language along with Spanish and French makes up what we called the ‘romantic languages’- by strict definition, because they all derive from Latin, however the Italian language is romantic  in the other sense too; you do not simply speak the language, but when you open your mouth you’re practically singing a heavenly song. I mean what other language can make the word spazzatura- which means rubbish (food discard etc), sound so seductive? Or what other language can jazz up the sound of doctor’s appointment, elevating it to the level of an appuntamento –a formal appointment. Even if you can’t speak a word of Italian, just to say mi dispiace, ma non parlo italiano sounds like you’re humming a scared incantation. The language is just so rich and full of the long, unhurried and accentuated –oo’s and –aa’s. The slowness and luxury with which the words are spoken almost seem to reflect the leisurely and laidback pace of life itself. There’s a saying, which goes “dolce fa niente”- the sweetness of doing nothing. The Italians are truly the masters of this- you could leave your house at 10am in the morning for uno espresso o un cappuccino (yes, we’re getting closer to the coffee…) and peer down at your watch only to realise it is already 1pm- pranzo! I don’t even need to mention the fact that all businesses close at midday for their siesta and don’t reopen again until late in the afternoon- if they even reopen again that is.

And finally onto the coffee! There are countless coffee shops in London- from the chain branches of Starbucks, Costa (and I just have to say, I detest Costa’s coffee) to the little hipster and indie coffee places found tucked away like pockets of gems in the cave mine of London. My guilty pleasure is probably a chai latte (and it look me the longest time to admit that I liked it because I’ve always felt that it’s a typically American instagram-esque girl drink) but here in Italy they don’t have any of these crazy new inventions of coffee like ‘London fog” (a rich creamy, lavender tasting coffee that they sell in my uni town)- frappucino’s and skinny lattes simply don’t exist- and that’s because the coffee here is as pure and unfiltered (not in terms of texture) as possible. You’ve got to love that earthy smell you get from the machine grinder when you order an espresso shot.

I think I ought to mention now that I am describing my personal experience from my summer trips to my grandparents’ village in the south of Italy and the surrounding regions. The north of Italy, with cities such as Venizia, Firenze e Milano might be the economical and architectural power house of Italy but the south is in the running lead when it comes to the food aspect. Not only is it SO much cheaper than the north (which I found out the hard way when we were travelling over spring break, that a basic plate of pasta in Venice cost minimum 20 euros) but it is also so much better too. I admit that this is probably personal bias- come to think of it this whole article is probably very bias. My mother has often commented “I’ve never seen a person so in love with the cultural that they’ve been born into” and I think she’s right. I wouldn’t ask to be born into another culture, even if I was offered a million euros and a micro-pig. This is one blessing in life that I can never get tired to being thankful for.

I can already foresee that the next couple of weeks will be filled with indulging on pizza, pasta, formaggio, and binging on gelato, cioccolato, crema caffé and whatever other fattening (but not fatty) food I can get my hands on. A good friend of mine once told me that no Italian man will have me because they like some meat to hold onto in the bedroom, and I’m simply just a bag of rattily bones. Perhaps this trip will do me some good, and beef me up some what- at least if I’m going to get fat, I can rest assured that it will be on top quality food.

Attempt #2- Depression in Western Culture

If you have read my last blog post, perhaps you will think, like myself, on re-reading it that my thought process was all over the place- and that is precisely because it was. I don't feel that I've captured particularly aptly or assuredly the sentiment which I was trying to express in that post, nor have I really got to the heart of the matter. And so, this post, is sort of my second attempt, if you would like. 

In my last post, I talked about the power of the mind and how it has such a great authority over our wellbeing. This, I still hold true. But what I really wanted to communicate has only just come to my own attention through reading Eat, Pray, Love. I had watched the movie over the last Christmas break, unaware that the story was a true one, until I was looking up a particular reference about the Augustum online and realised that the quote utilised in the movie was lifted from the book itself.  The movie, I am sure at the time I first watched it, had all the Hollywood Blockbuster relishes which tick my box (indulging in italian culture, spirituality, the search for love- the list goes on), but upon reading the book, I can faithfully say that it does not compare in the slightest. In fact, sadly all that Hollywood pizazz, actually takes away from the raw message of the story- a story of finding one's purpose in life as well as a tale about the recovery from depression- a topic which intriguingly has become so mundane in western society, yet simultaneously almost developed into a taboo, not to be mentioned in conversation for the desire to keep a light-hearted and jocund ambience in our perfect figment of humanity. I would highly recommend reading the book over the film, although all due credit to Julia Roberts' phenomenal acting and Javier Bardem's charismatic 'Brazilian' allure. 

Quick aside- I remember reading an article in secondary school, from one of those student tailored magazine which are meant to 'broaden' your horizon or what not. The article basically stated that the purpose of human life is to find a purpose and the fact that this is in some ways impossible to completely reconcile our lives under one given purpose means that we're never without one- and so our purpose becomes to find a purpose. 

Actually- this little rambling incision, now when I think about it, does seem to hold pertinent applicability to the main point of this blog post. There are times when I've experienced bouts of 'depression' at not having a thorough sense of direction in my life and I have no doubts that this is not a singular struggle. But I have my reservations about using the word depression, as I feel like in this modern age it is so easily tossed about without considering the gravitas of the word being uttered. 

Perhaps more dangerous than this however is how freely antidepressant drugs are prescribed without the root of the depression being diagnosed and how increasingly unchallenged it is to take these drugs without other remedial treatments employed in alongside to aid the healing process. I do not think I could stress myself how dangerous this can be, and nor do I think it is fully my place to pass judgement on this (given that I have only been a witness of the impacts and have not actually experienced the consequences first-hand) and so the following passage is an inserted extract from Eat, Pray, Love, in which Elizabeth Gilbert explains the repercussions and her qualms with antidepressants: 

(Pg 51) "I took on my depression like it was the fight of my life, which of course it was. I became a student of my own depressed experience, trying to unthread it causes. What was the root of all this despair? Was it psychological? (Mom and Dad's fault?) Was it just temporal, a "bad time" in my life? (When the divorce ends, will the depression end with it?) Was it genetic? (Melancholy, called by many names, has run through my family for generations, along with its sad bride, Alcoholism.) Was it cultural? (Is this just the fallout of a postfeminist American career girl trying to find balance in an increasingly stressful and alienating urban world?)..."

(Pg 53) "He put me on a few different drugs- Xanax, Zoloft, Wellbutrin, Busperin- until we found the combination that didn't make me nauseated or turn my libido into a dim and distant memory. Quickly, in less than a week, I could an extra inch of daylight opening in my mind. Also, I could finally sleep. And this was a real gift, because when you cannot sleep, you cannot get yourself out of the ditch- there's no chance. The pills gave me those recuperative night hours back, and also stopped my hands from shaking and released the vise grip around my chest and panic alert button from inside my heart...I do know these drugs made my misery feel less catastrophic. So I'm grateful for that. But I'm still deeply ambivalent about mood-altering medications. I'm awed by their power, but concerned by their prevalence. I think they need to be prescribed and used with much more restraint in this country, and never without the parallel treatment of psychological counseling. Medicating the symptom of any illness without exploring its root cause is just a classical hare-brained Western way to think that anyone could ever get truly better. Those pills might have saved my life, but they did so only in conjunction with about twenty other efforts I was making simultaneously during that same period to rescue myself, and I hope to never have to take such drugs again. Though one doctor did suggest that I might have to go on and off antidepressants many times in my life because of my "tendency toward melancholy." I hope to God he's wrong. I intend to do everything I can to prove him wrong, or at least to fight melancholic tendency with every tool in the shed. Whether this makes me self-defeatingly stubborn, or self-preservingly stubborn, I cannot say.

But there I am."

My family has a history of depression and various members of my family have suffered at different times in their life. I think the fatal mistake lies in treating depression as an impersonal illness that can be cured simply by a quick, chemical fix. Depression is much more complicated than that because it is so deeply intertwined with our thought processes and perception of self, and I guess that my previous blog post was my initial attempt to comment on our society's flaws in underestimating and subordinating the power of the mind in an increasingly physicalistic world. 

I fear that this post has become yet another streaming of my conscious thoughts. I make no apologises for it however, because somewhere between writing this post, I felt a relief in using this as an outlet, even if is is just a conversation with myself. Perhaps it seems narcissistic to want to record one's thoughts for later reflection and given that this is written is such a way with a conscious audience in mind, there is no doubt that i've halted my thoughts short. I favour this however to be therapeutic to see how one's opinions develop and change overtime or simply in another frame of mind. 

The power of the mind- Is the mind more than just a physical brain?

It is no new revelation that humans are egocentric creatures, and although many of us prefer to disregard this simple fact with acts of ‘humanity’ and charity towards genus not our own, it is ultimately the unadorned, primitive truth. I am not purporting that we ought to cease to care for our environment and other organisms- in fact if anything we ought to humble ourselves in the knowledge that our lives are so heavily contingent on mother nature’s provision, on the very florae and faunae which we so usurp. Nonetheless, it is important to acknowledge that we like to detach ourselves from other animals, often erroneously believing that our ability for consciousness eradicates our primitive nature and civilises us to an inaccessible level. Ironically however, our greatest strength appears also to be our greatest weakness. Whilst we see ourselves as being the centre of the cosmos, the top of the food chain and fighters, second best to none (perhaps this serves as an inbuilt survival mechanism, in which case I guess we may be ever so slightly excused), this misplaced sense of supremacy over all, including oneself and over others, repeatedly causes us to overlook a sovereign force within our very own physical makeup; the power of the mind. True it is indeed that a physically healthy body may live for a hundred years, but such vigour can be cut short by the mind’s instability.  The battle of the soul is an age-old contest and one, which is not unfamiliar to most of us- the mind is so often filled with caverns of illusions, which the soul readily credits.

Though the saying goes that your harshest critic is yourself, I do not think that this is necessarily true (for there exists those who in fact are able to attribute no perceivable fault to themselves). We are only the harshest critics in so far as we do not match a peripheral ideal, in which case we are not sincerely scrutinizing our true selves, but rather merely the fragment image of ourselves in that particular archetype. In matters such as these I always seem to find myself regressing to ancient sentiments for counsel, and why not? After all these issues were just as prevalent in the ancient world as they are now in the modern, and the chief mistake we make is trying to distance the two. Aristotle once stated, “I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self.” Fighting the external enemy does not require one to muster much courage when you really think about it, but it is forcing oneself to sojourn, reflect and control one’s volitions in an domestic battle, that is far more exhausting, for eventually it become a battle from which you cannot flee.  It is this very knowledge of inability to escape, which makes it all the more harder to face and renders it easy to mislay control over the mind. Returning further back in time, Socrates’ analogy of the charioteer and the two horses most famously demonstrates this. The wild horse represents the body’s carnal lusts (sexual gratification, ravenous appetite etc.) whilst the tame horse is emblematic of the honourable man who has achieved eudaimonia- the ultimate state of the soul as being contented, salubrious, prosperous and first and foremost, virtuous. And finally, the charioteer, who theoretically is meant to control both these horses, symbolises the mind- or the capacity for reason. The body and its capacities are worth very little if they cannot be controlled by the mind and though we have the facility and the choice to allow our mind to control our actions, our bodies and their desires, it is up to the individual to impose this authority.

The question, which next arises as we digress further into this discussion, is whether the unconscious mind is more powerful than the conscious. To define the conscious mind, would be to associate the part of the brain, which allows us to create new and original ideas. The unconscious mind on the other hand is a pre-programmed part of the brain, which is fixed in its behaviour and patterns. I guess one could say, it is to some extent a kind of ‘computer’- put in crude terms. It is very easy to implicate the unconscious part of our mind as being responsible for our actions, especially when scientists suggest that our subconscious mind is the driving force behind our actions, and the conscious one merely the messenger. I’m not entirely sure where my own thoughts lie in regards to this matter, but I think that to ignore the great weight that our subconscious mind can exercise over our conscious could prove precarious indeed.

I feel that I have thus far portrayed the power of the mind as a malevolent force, when of course; this is not always the case. Undeniably, it is a powerful force, which at time lies and is deceitful, but it is also a force, which when controlled and directed, can produce outstanding results. I recently learnt water divining- it’s a very spiritual and primitive way of allocating water, a process which takes a lot of mind power to master.  I still have a lot of practice to even begin to call myself half-decent at it, but the process so far has been incredible- it has really made me question my sense of perception and perhaps deeper than this, my relationship with my mind.  It has probably been one of the rarer times in my life that I’ve felt completely in sync with my mind, both of us working towards the same goal of locating water. And I know that this probably sounds pretty cheesy, but it took something as simple as that to make me realise how un-reconciled we are sometimes with our mind, and how much conscious effort is required to fully connect with it.

A good friend of mine recommended a book to me, entitled Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe.  
The book is about customs and traditions of the Igbo tribe in Nigeria and explores how this society is disrupted and destroyed by the British colonialism and Christian missionaries. When reading this book, I came across a concept that has stuck with me since. This notion that each individual has a chi or a personal god in which when the individual says yes, the personal chi also says yes as well. I personally didn’t take this chi figure to be an actual personal god but rather a sort of persona of our mind itself. The relationship we have with our minds is probably one of the strangest and most intimate ones, and the only parallel, which I can seem to draw is that of lovers. The mind knows your strengths and weaknesses the same way in which you know its own and as much as the mind is able to lie to us, so too are we able to coerce it into agreeing with our own beliefs. If you keep telling the mind that something is impossible it will believe it readily.

It always seems that is moments of great importance language fails to express my thoughts and seems insufficient to the point of dissension. But anyway, as Horace once said: dum loquimur, fugerit invida aetas- while we are speaking, envious time has escaped.