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Panta rei (English version)

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Panta rei

Panta rei, everything flows and changes. These Greek words so simple but also so strong together form the title of a book I have loved since I was a young girl.

Luciano De Crescenzo, an IBM engineer devoted to philosophy and classical culture, is the author of this bestseller known all over the world. With a fast, ironic and never banal style, De Crescenzo has given the philosopher Heraclitus the opportunity to express with his words his thoughts on what is the change outdoors but first of all in us.

“I look at a photo when I was 16 and look at one of today. God, how I changed! Then I wonder: but when did it happen? At night? While I was sleeping?”(Taken from“Panta rei” by L. De Crescenzo, ed. Mondadori)

Changing is part of us and we cannot avoid changing. Each cell in our body changes and dies in order to permit to other cells exist in a constant and seemingly infinite process (at least until our life ends).

“Nature doesn’t stop for a moment: it flows continuously under the push of contrasts. There is no object in the world, animated or inanimate, that it doesn’t change over time. […]an iron bell rusts, a rock erodes, a tree grows, a body ages, and so on.<>, everything runs.” (derived from “Panta rei” by L. De Crescenzo, ed. Mondadori)

To change is part of us and it makes no sense to oppose it because it can bring opportunities and possibilities. There is no certainty of this, but human life, because of its uncertainty, is unique.

Therefore we should see only seek to see that range of options that might help us to change, to improve and ultimately achieve the so desired personal “panta rei”. So we can be born as new people and look with richer eyes that vast horizon of possibilities and changes that is life.

Maria Domenica Depalo

 

Quesito numero ventotto:

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Stavo guardando il trailer di un film in uscita, “The Place”, quando sono stata catturata da questa domanda che sarà il nostro quesito quotidiano:
Cosa siamo disposti a fare per ottenere ciò che desideriamo?

I was watching the trailer of “The Place” when my attention was captured by the question that will be the daily one:
What are we willing to do to get what we want?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDQwNVp65HY

 

Photos, images, pictures and their power to narrate

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Photos, images, pictures and their power to narrate

Colours, lights, shadows, human figures; natural, urban or suburban landscapes: the imagines have a lot of different subjects.

But what do they tell us? What kind of emotions do they cause in the spectator? What do we think when the synesthestic  whirlwind of emotions embraces us? Everything we watch is connected to our senses and determine reflections.

“Photos are like papers. Only when I see them, I understand that they probably have a sense. Because the photos never tell what is represented, they are suggestions. […] I don’t ask my photos to tell something in a precise way; they only speak”, says Josef Koudelka (from the interview, see below).

Those sentences can be applied to paintings, to sculptures or everything our eyes watch. Because nothing is static. Everything is a continuous narration that deserves to be seen and told.

You should read the interview  Il mio sguardo libero  to the Czech photographer Josef Koudelka, realized by Michele Smargiassi, in Storie in la Repubblica of 29/10/2017. You have the possibility to visit his photos’ exhibition in Museo Civico Archeologico in Bologna until 19 november 2017.

Maria Domenica Depalo

 

Quesito numero ventiquattro

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Affidiamo il quesito di oggi ad Anthony De Mello che con la delicatezza delle sue parole affronta il tema della libertà di essere se stessi e dell’influenza dell’altro sulla propria persona:
“Se consentite a voi stessi di sentirvi bene quando la gente vi dice che siete O.K., vi state preparando a sentirvi male quando la gente vi dirà che non siete in gamba. Finchè si vive per soddisfare le aspettative di altri, bisogna stare attenti a come ci si veste, a come ci si pettina, al fatto che le scarpe siano sempre lucide – in breve al fatto di soddisfare sempre le loro maledette aspettative. E lo chiamate umano?”(cit. da “Messaggio per un’aquila che si crede un pollo” di Anthony de Mello, Piemme Pocket)

Our daily question belongs to Anthony De Mello who talks about the freedom and the possibility to be who we really are but also about how we are influenced by the people surrounding us:
“If you allow to yourself to feel good when people tell you that you are OK, you are preparing to feel bad when people will tell you that you are not. As long as you live to realize the expectations of others, you need to be careful how to dress, how to comb, that the shoes are always shiny – in short, to satisfy alwaystheir damned expectations. And this is human, on your opinion?” (from “Messaggio per un’aquila che si crede un pollo” of Anthony de Mello, Piemme Pocket)