I went to lunch the other day with some people, and the conversation centered for a few moments on how could I possibly live in Italy and be so ignorant of, or not doggedly interested in, what is going on around me, including Italy's rich language, culture, etc. (I have to point out I am doggedly interested in the national religion, Food, and its faithful practice, Eating.)
By extension, how could I write things and post to this blog and not know what is really going on in Benano? After all and reportedly, the center of the world.
I have wrestled with these questions before, living superficially as I do, once I am sure in a poem a few years ago. Anyway, here goes, again. Call it in the interest of knowing about and accepting more and different perspectives on the varieties of living-experience.
First and fundamental. Interests--what characterizes and drives people--center around questions, or quests.
For one of my acquaintances, an emigre from somewhere else in Europe and now an Italian citizen, characterizing the quest goes something like this. "How can I understand and appreciate deeply the language and culture in which I live with an emphasis on history and art?"
His answer is to focus on just those things--Italian language, Italian culture (and Culture), Italian history, and Italian art. Necessarily these interests take my acquaintance into artifacts, whether physical or recorded, as well as social interaction and self expression. One purpose of pursuing what this person does has to do with immersing himself into where he lives, especially appreciating its richness--in its details. His self expression is art, natch'ly, as well as showing and selling his works (iron sculptures). His world is in large measure place-people specific, Italy and the Orvieto area, and the integration of same into his work.
For whatever reasons, and they are I assume complex, beyond a sense of belonging, this person tenaciously holds onto the country he has adopted and which fortunately seems to have adopted, or largely accepted, him.
It is also clear, his world is more than the most obvious interests I can see and hear, those I have highlighted here. How could I possibly know more, or the Truth? We always hold partial realities.
For my part my question/quest goes something like this.
Can I increase my general and specific knowledge in the areas of science and epistemology, phenomenology's relation to absolutely accurate understandings of selected things, including the person-as-subject, and writing's role in all of these?These interests/quests take me into an inner world and personal or private study, often observations, of the realities of self and others as expressed in words meant to be heard or read. Thus the central aspect of my studies is expression; however, my expression, my words, are for "no audience." They are not other-directed. I invite no one to view my personal evolutions unless for some reason they show an interest, or I carry on temporary and relatively singular relationships for specific purposes--like this one here, just now!
Life is more than such serious stuff . . . but having said that, the reason for pursuing what I do is greater and greater understanding of the depths of human and spiritual potential. My world is not place specific, unless place provides the impetus for subjects to be looked at oh-so-carefully. This explains why I can reside, as I have, in my own and other cultures without getting too close to or too deep into them.
Living in different places affords me a buffet of delicacies I can taste and experience, to delight in and entertain myself with when not doggedly pursuing my callings, and the obligatory visit to the great mosque of Food (home) for the daily ritual and high celebration (lunch).
With the exception of the above characterization, the one before my own, I am not confident, or presumptuous enough, to attempt definitive articulations about stuff and other people, although it is tempting at times. For fear of getting it miserably wrong, I refrain, or restrain, and internalize. After some fermentation, I can employ the insights I gain, and I hope greater understandings, in getting along in the world and its different localities. The world and each of its corners are other--foreign, alien, to be coped with. The premise is that this is so whether one is born-bred in a given place or not. Landing here and the fact of being equalizes us.
The conclusion to all this is, whether found in a poem or prose or just a randomly uttered thought or a casual something one notices and comments on: People are different and they get about different stuff.
And that different stuff on the one hand makes for a rich stew--life is beautifully messy. On the other hand stuff divides us one from the other fundamentally, sometimes tragically.
Will I ever be Italian, or more Italian or German or French or whatever than I am right now? The question is improperly framed, and irrelevant.
So cultural note one ends with what each of us does to make life just uniquely so, or to thrive pursuing his or her own.
