The Duino Manifesto
The Existentialist Issue, February 2012 United World College of the Adriatic
Dear Readers, There comes the time when you are both very young and yet not so very young, when you are sitting at the edge of an actually tangible cliff face gazing at an actually visible (yet) obscured horizon, set apart from your international über-friends, potentially quite a very long way (and yet not quite such a very long way) away from what you call home, when you might, by mistake, or at least by ill-fortune, start to question what you are doing here, why you’re here and not someplace else and does it even make sense to ask those sort of questions anyway.
This issue presumes that you have had this experience, or that you will, soon, perhaps immediately after reading it. Existentialism certainly is the most ubiquitously relevant philosophy to, well, anyone. It is about you. It is about what you mean, if anything, and you probably don’t. It is about staring at that horizon, on the cliff face and having the choice to be anywhere else but there, but being there instead. It is about that deep sense of regret when you walk past an object on the ground and don’t pick it up and mull over that non-incident for the rest of the day. It is about to-hell-with-everything-I’m-going-to-go-to-sleep-and-whoever-can-do-whatever-they-want. It is about having the world at your feet, and having to do something with that responsibility - and as nth-teen year olds at a UWC, this is quite possibly our most pressing plight. It is about freedom. It is about free-will. It is about individuality. It is about, (and I mean this in the least esoteric way possible, believe me), being yourself. It is “really nice”. I hope you find this issue to be “really nice”. Thanks for contributing and buying and reading and pre-emptively, thanks for discussing and existing. Almost entirely sincerely, Ed.
Existentially Existentialist Existentialism has been a driving force in philosophy, influencing the life of many individuals, societies and nations. Since its first incarnation in the thoughts of Nietzsche and Kierkegaard, existentialism has evolved, embracing different ideas and spawning many different interpretations and different points of view on what the meaning of freedom is (hence touching a theme that is usually very close to the students of our college) as well as enlightening our struggles on the path of life, with its many hardships and unpredictable traps. Only strong, incorruptible and pure will we be able to foresee what choices have to be made and ultimately rise from the masses, overcome our insecurities and shape the world to make it fit our personal vision of how the Earth should look like – how the Earth should be. Existentialism can be defined as the doctrine of philosophy for which a human being is not only defined as a thinking subject, but, moreover, a human being is the sum of the feelings it has shared, the ideas that have enriched its existence, the choices that one has made during one’s lifetime to forge the individual that one has become. Briefly said, existentialism involves the meaning of existence, with all its feeble divergences and amazing miracles. Due to its nature, it is not surprising that even Buddha is indicated as a possible precursor of this philosophical doctrine. But existentialism is much more than this: it is an ideological war. Much before the horrors of WWII and the menacing Cold War, existential philosophers were fighting their own silent war; the ideas of their prime forefathers, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, were radically different, especially regarding their views on Christianity and religion. Again, the profound doctrinal differences didn’t preclude the success of existentialism, but rather allowed the many different sides of this branch of philosophy to flourish. Particularly interesting is the theory of eternal recurrence, where facts tend to repeat during a certain time period – that is due to the mechanical behaviour of human beings (as typified in Ouspensky’s literary opus) and only with an external interference we can finally be freed from the bounds of an oppressing world. Some individuals, however, are able to withstand the pressure and overcome their former selves; we call them Übermenschen or Knights of Faith. They are able to fall down in such a way that the same second it looks as if one were standing and walking; they are able to transform the leap of life into a walk, to express the sublime and the pedestrian that only these exceptional men and women can do: this is the one and only prodigy. And as such, the Übermensch is free. Free to choose. Being an existentialist equals sacrifice. And it’s not just Scheler’s selbstgegebenheit nor a weird application of Husserl’s phenomenology. It requires unexpected analytical skills and a never fulfilled dream, a passionate but haunting need to make the right choice. Although this usually leads to despair, the flame that keeps existentialism alive is still burning nowadays; a bright, yellow flame that has spread to other fields of sciences, humanities and politics. If Georg Cantor is the missing link between mathematics and existentialism, it’s no surprise that Carlyle’s great man theory was contemplated during Kierkegaard’s most successful years; after all, everything comes down to existentialism. Is it a funny coincidence, or a necessary need? Whatever the answer may be, we are always free to choose to follow the existential ideals, but after all, this is already an existential fact, so I suppose that existentialism implicitly lies beneath our skin. Erik Scheriani
Philosophy Trash This work's only aim is to make you laugh. Philosophy is fundamentally fun, especially after one has got a couple of concepts up one’s sleeves. It is something you can joke about, and it is always good to make people laugh; provided that one is not ‘violating’ ‘‘human’ rights’ or ‘offending’ ‘anyone’. If I do so, ‘I’ ‘apologise.’ Once after school, a friend of mine was finishing up her Internal Assessment, and we were discussing important issues such as morality, the meaning of life and other things that teenagers normally talk about. She then left for ten minutes and I felt inspired, continuing to write from where she had stopped. What follows is the result; full of heavy words such as Right and Wrong, Good, Bad, Freedom, full of heavy thoughts, most of them are meaningless. But what, one might ask, is meaning if (existentially speaking) everything is inherently meaningless? (Everything, one might respond, has the meaning we give to it.) The work starts with an explanation of Natural Law Theory. What is written in cursive is my friend's work, the rest is mine: "This calls our sense of duty: the means count, not the end. For example: I am 14 and I get raped, I fall pregnant, and I have a child, I might never be able to love that child nor take care of it. Looking at the consequences, abortion may be the morally right thing to do. Natural Law Theory, however, would argue that one simply cannot interfere with nature, nature being God, God being …
cool, cool being hot, hot being good, good being heaven, heaven being awesome, awesomeness being the meaning of life, the meaning of life being me, me being French, France being cheese, cheese being a girl, a girl being everything, everything being nothing, nothing being freedom, freedom being happiness, happiness being chocolate, chocolate being Nutella, Nutella being Jeanne, Jeanne being amazing, amazingness being love, love being the truth! Hence the Earth goes around the Sun, as it is true that I am Napoleon. Money cannot buy happiness, neither can poverty, but being rich is better. A picture is better than nothing, but nothing might be it, ‘it’ being a memory that you will never lose. What is it then all about? Simple as the scattering and the refraction of light, spectroscopy is the answer. Will we know the universe? Not for the IB. IB or not…IB? “Why do we IB?” asked the fuel, but it was WRONG. The master was RIGHT, when he said she would not come back. She had a choice: possibility, she was possibility. They all sound the same; but does a tree that falls in the forest, where nobody can hear it, make a sound? But there are many trees in the forest. But only one is true. Slam! The door? No, the wind. It's bad. Poor him who did not see her hat. It was intense, it was real, real like love. But it is not a song about love, it is not a song about the kitchen table either. The kitchen table is real, not like me. I have disappeared. But I still think, therefore I still am; Cogito ergo sum. I am Free. I am Freedom. Now I am the action, because I am what I do. No free will. Beyond good. All the same. Fish! Music, please - I need silence. Luca Sacher
Philosophy Ninja: Philosophy Ninja asked you existential questions. Below are some meaningful answers … Maja Šipek
Do our lives have a universal meaning? Personally, I’m trying to make a small difference in the world. It might just be sharing and exchanging my ideas. I really wouldn’t know about the universe, or what “universal” means. As long as life has a personal meaning to you, and as long as you are proud of the way you live, there’s no need to seek for universal approval. How do you know that you exist? Because I experience the world as I live. At the same time, I am a thinking substance- you are too, but we’re different. I exist because I am answering to existentialist questions. Because I question myself about a philosophical approach that seems to be compelling to idealistic, motivated teenagers attracted by the words “I am freedom”. Sometimes forgetting this approach is more complex than that, where subjectivity/objectivity and existence/essence get switched, creating unsolved dilemmas. Further, I believe I am existing right now because I am never static; every second is different. If and how I will exist when this issue is printed, I can’t tell. If I was nothing at the beginning and I follow Sartre’s concept of “You are what you do”, then I am constantly projecting myself towards something, towards becoming, shaping myself in the way I desire. Do I exist or am I existence in itself? Are you the same person as you were yesterday? Some of my cells probably have died. I’ve learnt something more today (we always do), so no. I am not the same person as I was yesterday. I actually am not the same person who wrote this. Why is the world the way it is? Because Nature made a mistake. She was not able to predict how much a single species could mess things up. (Nature might, however, find a way to get rid of her mistake)., I believe human greed and always striving for more is the main reason that the world is like it is now. Also, humankind represents the only subjectivity known, the only substance, groups of substance that “be-for-themselves”. The rest of the world consists of objects; they take our dominium on them. The problem only arises because the single individual always needs to have an object to exercise his/her objectivity, so other individuals become objects for us. Why is the world like this? Because we always want to be the subject, not the object. At the same time, we are seen as objects by others. This relationship does not allow for coexistence; it breeds conflict. Just look around yourself, see how many conflicts we have.
Where do we come from? From Space! (For more information Google about the Panspermia Hypothesis. 2011 is the year in which it was again brought to the attention of the public eye.) As for the rest of how we came to be, it has just been evolution. This answer might not be existentialist, but the existentialist part is that every answer is subjective. Plus, it doesn’t allow the presence of God. I think the relationship between Science and Religion in most of the cases is also one of constant conflict. Why can't we live forever? We would probably get too bored and start to mess around. We might come to know truths we don’t want to know or that the world doesn’t want us to know. We need to experience death. We surely wouldn’t make the best out of life, if we knew that there was no time limit. Last but not least, there seems to be a cyclical process: according to existentialism we come from nothing. We are thrown in the world. Most likely we are supposed to return to that nothingness and be thrown out of this world. If you could create a perfect day, how would it go? Waking up at nine on a Saturday, (I normally just wake up on time for Mensa and complain about how short Saturdays are afterwards), seeing every person that ever had an impact on my life, clearing all the doubts I have, doing all the things and having all the conversatiosn that for a reason or another did not happen. 24 diachronic hours are not enough, but I don’t believe in “perfection”, so no “perfect day” for now! Are wrong answers better than no answers? I believe that they are one and the same. At least a wrong answer might generate more reflection or discussion. If there are no absolute truths, can an answer be wrong in itself? Probably it’d be better to state that an answer might not be wrong, but just wrong for the one who posed the question. Can you tell the future by reading the past? You can make predictions but you can never be sure about it, especially in a world where so many decisions are taken in such a little time and where things change so rapidly.
Comic Angst Reetta Mataleena Seppanen
An existentialist walks into a bar… The event is meaningless. An existentialist walks into a bar… He leaves feeling nauseated. An existentialist walks into a bar … ( … )
Requiem for a dream Directed by Darren Aronofsky Produced by Palmer West and Eric Watson Written by Hubert Selby Jr. and Darren Aronofsky Cast: Ellen Burstyn, Jared Leto, Jennifer Connelly, and Marlon Wayans.
“I'm somebody now, Harry. Everybody likes me. Soon, millions of people will see me and they'll all like me....It's a reason to get up in the morning....It's a reason to smile. It makes tomorrow all right.” – Sara Goldfarb (Ellen Burstyn) stating a sentence to make you think out loud. It has a secret debate hidden in it, tries to yell out the significance or reason of one’s life. Are you who you are because of how others want you to be? Is that it – being accepted, as the final goal, the motive of why you, or I, or anyone else, is here? Darren Aronofsky, yet again, manages to show the film-critics why he stands as one of the best. A master-mind, he has created a truly admirable movie for all film fans and critics. Just characteristic to his style, you either love it, or hate it. This master piece is quite a challenge to watch, hard to digest, and difficult to actually imagine that it is plausible – true to the reality of the great world out there. By out there I mean around us. The film is adapted from the book of the same name written by Hubert Selby Jr. Essentially what Darren, the director, does is show us the world of drugs and drug addiction (and dealership) through his own personal lens. He introduces the main characters, Harry (Jared Leto), Marion (Jennifer Connelly) and Tyron (Marlon Wayans) and the carefree, spontaneous world in which they live. They live like there is no tomorrow - drugs are no taboo but there is always the urge to earn and to get more. The characters decide that drug-dealing is the fastest way to their goal, with no consequences in mind as to the harm to themselves or to anyone else. Sara Goldfarb lives a simple life as a widow, in a small town surrounded but what she thinks is best. She lives in her own bubble watching reality TV shows and finding them the most exciting things in her life. Because of the deplorable way of life she chooses to live, or has been trapped in, boredom is the word that a typical person would use to describe her daily life. Her son Harry, rarely visits, himself also living in his own drug-filled world, doing what he knows best, constantly selling the TV that also represents her entire, let’s not be drastic and say life, but her entertainment source. She lives off of it, and Harry lives off of what he gets for it. He does not realize the harm he does to his mother up until she is the one put in an awful situation that he previously undermined. His entire view on thing changes about his mother, but not about the way he is leading his life. It always tends to bring us towards the question of what we are living for. What is the main reason, why we are who we are, and how did we become that person?
Even though the relationship you can have with this movie is strictly a love-hate one (neutral is an impossible choice, just because it does not leave you without the impact that might make you think of whatever it was you did not want to think about), I must say that I give a full-heartedly recommendation for this movie, with your brain put on maximum concentration so that you can absorb Aronofsky’s thoughts through this incredible work of cinema. Never underestimate a movie like this by watching it just for fun. Films are to be enjoyed, but some of them are made strictly because of the message they convey. The only promise I can make is you will not regret watching this movie, it will not be a waste of your time and it will surely leave at least one tear rolling down your cheek or maybe with the more emotional people, unavoidably the fetal crying position and the never-ending brain storm of casual questions of great importance such as “Who am I?” and “Why am I here?” Milce Murdjeva
Are you bourgeois pathetic racist slime? Oh no! Of course I am not. I actually do worry about the poor. Yeah! Yeah, last Friday I even answered a question about them in my economics paper! I even say Aaaww and try to look sad when I see that Kevin Carter photograph of the dying little African kid. And Yes! Human rights, I love those too! I think all these brown and Arab people up in Iran should have them. I even attended an Amnesty international concert and signed some petitions without reading them!
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, I am kind of rich. But that does not make me a bourgeois just because I enjoy the fortunes that my rich father rightfully earned. He did, it is in no way linked to those crazy claims that centuries of colonization and enslavement of African uncultured indigenes made our current fortunes. Racist? Oh no way! I just think that I should be favored because of the mere biological coincidence that brought me up here. What is so wrong if those lower folks are kept down there on the south side of the Mediterranean? Did you not know that the rates of delinquency are higher in immigrant communities… That’s true for sure; you can check it on raceUnionwithoutTurkey.com! Firas Arfaoui
Rebuilding Philosophy People think they can do philosophy when their knowledge is limited to opinions. There is a beautiful passage in Plato’s Pheadrus about this: he says, speaking by the voice of Socrates against a bad teacher, that “you offer your pupils the appearance of wisdom, not truth, for they will learn many things without instruction and will therefore seem to know many things, when they are for the most part ignorant and hard to get along with, since they are not wise, but only connoisseurs of opinion” (274a-b).
Look at how beautiful and clever Ancient Greek, so the original text, is in this regard. Truth in Greek is ἀλήθεια (pron. alètheia, as it is written), which means “that is not hidden”, thus “what is evident”, if one wants to be poetic it is “that shines its light” or - very interestingly - “what should not be hidden”. One has to remember also that the aim of philosophy (as it was in ancient times and as it should still be now) is to find the common truth, something called ἐπιςτήμη (pron. epistème), which is “science” or “knowldege” basically, but deeply it means “something on which you can stay”, the basic and shared point of view to the truth, a kind of pedestal on which everybody can stand up and from which we can contemplate what we see to be true. Theoretically.
What is the opposite, the enemy of philosophy and of this research? Opinion: “I think so, you think in that way, he thinks something even different, it’s fine, we all are right, everyone is right”. I heard a weird conversation about odours: in one’s opinion, there are not good and bad smelling persons, because everyone has his own smell which is not pleasant or not, just as it is. Excuse me, but even shit has its own smell, and it smells like shit. But if you say that everyone is right, the truth is more than one, so it is not the truth, which is one for definition. If you say everyone is right, there is not a truth, therefore you are not doing philosophy - can you imagine something without a cause and an aim? It’s completely anti-Aristotelian, for something can exist only by virtue and in relation to its cause and its purpose.
The enemies of Socrates - and electing Socrates as the father of philosophy as he is, the enemies of philosophy - are the δοξόςοφοι (pron. doxòsophoi), those who know opinions and through opinion. Ancient Greek, almost certainly the smartest language ever, helps us saying that δόξα means at the same time opinion (the opposite of knowledge, wisdom, science), appearance (illusion) and fame, reputation. Therefore, who knows opinions has the appearance of knowledge, often just for fame.
It seems difficult to speak of truth and shareable concepts in the context of existentialism, which is by definition contrary to all metaphysics and ἐπιςτήμη. But we shall think about the basic concept of existence, the cornerstone of this ‘philosophical school’ (it is actually a collection of individual thinkers, in fact, who expressed positions derived from the discomfort of an epoch, more than members of a school of thought itself). To exist, from the Latin ex-sisto, i.e., in the definition of the Italian philosopher Emanuele Severino means “come to be built and remain, coming from something different”. Existence is thus not only becoming. It is the most intense and radical kind of development: it is the becoming of man. Kant summarized the questions dealt with by philosophy into three major ones: what can I know? what do I have to do? what can I hope? Years later, he rephrased his answer by saying that in fact there is only one sufficient answer, because philosophy has never ceased to deal with an eternal question: who am I? Exactly how it was written on Delphi’s Oracle: Γνῶθι ςεαυτόν (pron. gnòthi seautòn), “know yourself” - and you will know the world.
Every philosophy in the world starts from here. The man is the answer to the deadly enigma of the Sphinx - the labyrinthine man, that Nietzsche defines as a being suspended over an abyss. The poet Eugenio Montale wrote that he cannot describe the boundaries of existence, but only what we are not and what we do not want. Man exists because in him becoming is not based on defined characteristics since it is the constant transformation of his contours and essence. In conclusion, existence is the basis of the essence. The man is a possibility, so free as to be in anguish, as Kierkegaard wrote. Resuming the Danish philosopher, a precursor to existentialism, and the thought of the individualist Max Stirner, it can be said that the existing human reality is the individual, and in him alone - and not in what he shares with the rest of mankind - becoming is in the manner in which the individual decides to be himself. But the power of the individual is not the opinion: I am the only thing that I know for sure and I can save just myself. Luigi Pirandello and some other thinkers of the last century would not agree with me, when they say that we are at the same time “one, no one and a hundred thousands”, therefore it is impossible to define exactly who I am: we can have just illusions and masks, imposed by the society, the others and even ourselves. But this kind of thoughts will not lead us anywhere. Let us start from the Cartesian “Cogito, ergo sum” (I think, therefore I am). The thinking, existing single is - instead of essence, phenomena, reason, etc - the essential requisite of the true knowledge and of essence (“I exist, therefore I am”, in this regard). Different eyes looking at a common point on the same base - but I don’t care about the others, I (try to) know myself. It is not difficult to grasp the fundamental difference between the two. Existentialism tries to find a truth through the mist of this deceitful world. Thus existentialism is not the mask of opinion. This age is the era of opinions. We are not even called contemporaries, we live in the Post-Modern Age, where everything is uncertain, questionable, foggy, multiple, chaotic, where the δοξόςοφοι rule. Nietzsche has killed the values, as mankind killed God. Freud has destroyed our illusion of freedom, saying that there are dark sides of ourselves that we do not know which control our actions and our desires. Darwin has anesthetized our spirituality telling us that we were apes, still animals, nothing more. Marx shot our system showing its limits. Einstein said that time is relative, and Heisenberg that we cannot know for sure the location of certain objects, so small as to be unimaginable, which are not affected by our physical laws and, indeed, are dominated by the case. With strong thoughts annihilated - assuming without conceding that in the past strong thoughts existed - there is nothing more left. Instead, the weak thoughts, which do not allow mankind to reflect on being but rather on having, are those of television lounges where pundits express themselves about the human disaster with the complicity of our sadistic voyeurism. Multiculturalism and relativism made us in this way. The only two “new” strong thoughts whose birth has been witnessed in the twentieth century are single existentialist individualism of cynical men and totalitarianisms. The first model cannot work on a social scale for it requires that its context is exceptionable and generates existential malaise, and it is relegated to the sphere of the individual. The second one instead destroys the individual and creates united masses which are firmly convinced of their view, but it repeatedly failed with bad consequences. Are UWC values strong enough? Peace? Unity? What is unity? A philosophical nightmare: everything is melted together, without boundaries, everything is One, the so-called ἄπειρον (pron. {peiron), the indefiniteness. Everything is right due to multiculturalism, but in the moment in which we should find a common agreement how can we do if there are many truths, many equally valid points of view? What do we still have at the end? Can we talk about truth nowadays? Can we still do philosophy? If this is the challenge of our times, we must find a new collective impetus, something to believe in, a solid point, an ἐπιςτήμη, built up starting from the socratic question “what is it?” (defining common concepts) from which we can look at the sole ἀλήθεια. Emmanuele Zoppellari
The Octopus It was overcast when I met Dr. Pepper in amongst the throng, accompanied by the incessant, morbid, cacophonous litany of the bells of the hogs in clocks. The usual quintet of gypsies was playing some musts from the finest tradition of Italian advertising a few meters from us, and that uncertain winter day with its grayness seemed to have electrified the pigs. There was almost the smell of a barbecue. I didn’t feel very fine. Everything was certainly due to the abuse of medicines, in spite of any absolutely meaningful prescription, two days before. When the Doctor asked me to spend a few hours performing the pretty art of the degenerated bourgeois, allowed by our wretched means (all, or nearly so, provided by the good common morality), I was not quite convinced to follow him in the deed. Still, it seemed to me, as always, the best idea for that moment.
After a short tour through the streets of the lager-called-city, we headed resolutely to one of our urban strongholds, the Caranaue. I still remember precisely the time when, in a vile Casanova-fashioned attempt to lure a girl, who probably survived the persecution of beauty in the times. The times that were, she was who at that time for me was, a little arcadia amidst the anxiety that is native to this land. She looked at me astonished, she found my stubbornness incredulous. “Don’t you know Caranaue? Seriously?” She asked me to lead the conversation to neutral horizons. Since then, after the failure made with the glacial maiden, Caranaue became a milestone of our hangouts. It’s a very nice place for two latent misfits and always did the job. Taking a place at a table in the back, we began our “work”, happily indulged by some of the Pepper’s most frequently played at the time: Marvin Gaye, N.I.N. and Jimi Hendrix, unfortunately interrupted by the discharge of the battery of his futuristic i-Pod player. That All Along The Watchtower, Hendrix’s cover of the beloved Dylan, had been the coitus, the orgasm and the catharsis of that merry electronic gadget. Reached the conclusion that we wouldn’t have music anymore that afternoon, it was already too late for two “gunders” (as Pepper liked to call us and those of our rank), to realize what was happening involuntarily a few inches in front of our shoes and behind our eyes. “One of the most grotesque effects of hashish is the fear, pushed to the most meticulous madness, to afflict anyone. If you had the power, you would hide even the extra-natural condition in which you are, in order not to provoke the last of men unrest. In this extreme state, love assumes, in the spirits of those who are tender and artistic, the most unique forms and lends itself to the most baroque combinations. Unbridled libertinism can be blended with an ardent and affectionate sense of paternity”. (Charles Baudelaire) We started talking sotto voce, we were an isolated nucleus within plasma, externally sedated but schizoid inside, in its noumenon. The neuroticism was so ingrown in its nature that it ill-concealed its disrespect to the chaos. I felt it, or perhaps they were just paranoid sensations caused by the state in which I was falling under, but my colleague was no longer rationally involved with himself and was definitely unable to help me. The encirclement had begun indifferently. The indifference is typical of moss, vines and deserts, or at least that was what shines to the inattentive human eye. Even the Man is indifferent in his actions, shallow and frivolous, sometimes innocent in committing the greatest crimes and atrocities, distracted.
And here we were, surrounded, senseless. The gray in which everything was melting was right in front of us, pregnant with rants to be rejected to a more concentrated crowd on our right side. The fact that I could grasp only the input signals of these never concluded dialogues, where the listener seemed deaf and dumb, was worrying. The gray was there and did not move. Was it an attack ploy worthy of a great imperator of the classical age, or what? The Doctor had noticed it simultaneously with me and we were analyzing in-depth the phenomenon when the big achromatic phalanx of the army, as the evangelical demon Legion, incarnated in the womb of a pharisaical any guy that apostrophized us: “Can I move here, dudes?”. My conditions were seriously unstable, and I was upset for a moment, but I just responded sympathetically and slyly: “Sure! Do it! Do it!”. Suddenly the encirclement was broken and we were free again: the throng did not want to incorporate us, apparently. I had heard babbling somewhere, a kind of secret law according to which everything that is infinitely big is reflected analogically in what is infinitely small, in the small-scale realities. Applied to an animal breed perhaps we can speak of “genetic instinct”, of involuntary background, a fil rouge. I wondered then if these movements, tending for socializing, others, were not an attempt to force aggression aggregation: a clear and grotesquely hidden stepping stone towards the homologation of the rite. Pepper was equally thoughtful as I was on all those motions of the little social man, who innately fulfills the Will of his racial instinct. They were definitely paranoid disorders due to the state of “burlesque fear” in which we were spending our twilight hours. By the way, the tentacle was closed again, keeping its precise roles depending on the ring of which it was made. It was concatenated in an invincible league, ready firstly for pitiful proselytism, then to the non-violent ouster and eventually to the preventive setting for war, so that what was consolidated would remain the same. Since a long ago there was the talk of “prevention” in that boring 2012. No pebbles in the placid lake with the crystalline surface and the filthy bottom, no divers; the octopus was in the depth, was all around, while its tentacles were becoming buildings and structures. Monitor on ziggurats of flesh and human bones, of corpses of slaves in constant sacrifices dedicated to the apotheosis of the Octopus God. There, to the stars, beyond the asbestos fumes of the chemical plant! The situation grew heavy; we didn’t even want to imagine what some casual listener would have thought after hearing those hallucinations... We left Caranaue. We came back along the alleys where we were fortunately intercepted by Extreme Man and the guy that we call Hombre because of the withered-under-the-sun color of his skin. The state of unhealthy heartbeat was fading and a local group of insignificant “pseudartisticpseudostudentspseudeverything” brats grinned when they saw us in a mood, spacing their contemptuous dental arches at risk of imminent collapse to soccer talks worthy of the best “italianness”. Some very in university freshman entered and exited from the pub with the seriously pathetic air of all former high school students who are believed to have grown up with an exam. The cool ones, sure, there, showing off, but fortunately the frenzy was ending, the disinterest was coming again, returning part of us: the only thing we needed at that moment was a chair more comfortable than a wall. Emanuele Zoppellari
A Child of Existentialism As inappropriate as it might be for someone who should be preparing to be a beneficial addition to society, I can't help but ask why. To serve what purpose? Depending on my mood, the "why" is sometimes accompanied by a series of expletives, and more often than not, by the words "the hell". There are only three commandments I've ever been handed on how to lead my life: 1. I must do something that I truly enjoy. 2. I must be able to support myself with said thing. 3. Said thing must be of merit to society. There is nothing in there that I can say I disagree with. I'd be quite upset with myself if I found that I did. After all, it shouldn't be difficult to want to be "a good person". Isn't that why we're here? How do you live otherwise, thinking the worst of it all? But then there's an undeniable part of me that says, occasionally, what is the point? Because I can say I want to make a mark in the world; that I want to do something, to make a difference. The question, though, is not who cares if you aren't around to enjoy the status - I believe that your goodness living on after your death is of value, even if you aren't there to enjoy it. The question is when it starts to count. Is it acceptable if I've just made one person's day slightly better? Do I have to stop someone from doing something incredibly stupid? Do I have to stop society from going down a path of incredible stupidity? What does it matter if your name is in the history books? Who remembers you, and does that even count? And what if you're the one who ends up being the path of incredible stupidity? What are you supposed to say to that? And what - note, not "who" - are you supposed to be to achieve whatever it is you are supposed to do? (How are you supposed to know what you are supposed to do anyway?) Why can't you be a cynic, a realist, and optimist all at the same time? Which binary-living figure decided that they'd all be mutually exclusive mentalities? What's so wrong with wanting to be a child, and why is it so hard to go back to that relatively simple and straightforward reality? When did the world start looking so messy and how do you make it not? How do you view the world once more with all the promise of magic? And should you? Or do you pretend that you're old and mature - that you know and have seen it all, and sit yourself down in your wise role as the overseer who has forgotten not only what but how to believe? And if you become that on the way? For a pipe is a pipe.
On Freedom OR Happiness is Freedom is Freedom is the state of m i n
or that you can have the power to do you (or need).
d
belief (and indeed have)
what want Luca Sacher and Joshua Biggs
‘Capriccio’ for Solo Clarinet In January, I was finishing my application to study composition and I was having to write a few pieces for the portfolio I would send to the relevant university. One of the pieces is for solo (one) clarinet and will be made available shortly on the internet for those of you interested in hearing it (played by Joseph Samucha). Details will follow. The reason this is relevant is because the piece is arguably “existentialist”. It follows nontraditional harmony, (“sounds modern”), and is composed of several loosely linked, repetitive fragments of melody (“you here the same few things a few times in different ways that make you hear them differently”). The clarinettist is forced to use the extreme pitches of the instrument and different tones are used throughout which induce a disconcerting tension in the audience (“the clarinet should squeak once or twice and you should squirm as a result”).
The parallels with existentialism are therefore uncanny (!) and although I would not argue that the piece was written with existential intention, (because it wasn’t), it is an interesting viewpoint from which to listen to it. As the title insinuates, the piece in itself is meaningless play; meaning, however, can (hopefully) be found in the aesthetic. I paid special attention to “meaning” the middle section wherein the clarinet plays a rapid succession of ascending notes. The sound is (supposedly) comparable to the sound of a flock of birds taking flight. And that is a metaphor for everything and nothing. I hope you will enjoy it; I wanted you to hear it from the perspective of this issue of the ‘Manifesto’, because I think that adds something to it Joshua Biggs
A Note of Thanks to: The Duino Manifesto Creative Activity Matthew De La Cruz Diane Laing Maja Ĺ ipek Joseph Samucha Reetta Mataleena Seppanen
Milce Murdjeva Erik Scheriani
Contribuetos: Emmanuele Zoppellari A Child of Existentialism Firas Arfaoui Luca Sacher Joshua Biggs (ed)