Optimism, all we need is a little bit of optimism. Today the virus, yesterday ISIS, the day before yesterday the crisis, and before that the unsolved crimes. Media tell us bad, horrible news, we read them, we get depressed, we complain. And we gradually cease to notice that stuck between these dots of darkness there is a wonderful luminous world that surrounds our days.
The mechanism used by the media is now ruthless. The goal of any mass media is to make money. And to do this they need large crowds that use it. To obtain large masses, the simplest tool is to tell sensationalist stories that arouse fear and disgust. And so they filled TV lounges with monsters and newspapers and web sites with catastrophic news.
But in this there goes optimism. We allowed pessimism to steal our taste for beauty.
Optimism, all we need is a little bit of optimism
Italians are traditionally optimistic people. They reacted with a smile and sometimes with a hint of salutary cynicism to the worst misfortunes in history. Today they have been convinced by the new magic pipers that the world is a horrible place, that evil has conquered it and that it is probably also about to end because of the Pollution.
No pessimistic thought has ever been more perfect than this. But are we really convinced that this gloomy horizon that we scrutinize is the only truth? Are we sure that being pessimistic is the only option we have and that what the historical moment we live in is so terrible?
“It is a great miracle that I have not given up all mine hopes because they seem absurd and unworkable. I still keep them, despite everything, because I continue to believe in man's intimate goodness. "
Do you know who wrote these words? Anyone luckier than us, who didn't have to endure the crisis, the murders and viruses that TV tells us?
No. Anne Frank, a Jewish girl forced to live her first adolescence in hiding and then deported and died in Auschwitz.
Optimism does not depend on what surrounds us, it is a light that we must learn to rediscover within us. And then even everything that is outside, whether it is a war, a virus or a black day, will be illuminated with colors that we seem to have forgotten. Optimism. All we need is a little bit of optimism.
