Silvio, I'm amazed at this beautiful ode to your dad, and to life in general.
The paragraph about the certainty of how life should be lived hit me so hard. It perfectly encapsulates what I've been feeling lately, where I was certain how life should be lived and slowly realizing I really have no clue, and LESS clue as time goes by... reassuring to know it's normal, and grateful that you put into words this abstract feeling.
Thank you for gifting us this story and musings, all us readers are graced by them!
Thank you, Oscar! The interesting thing, to me, is that you have to hit total certainty before being able to understand that only by accepting uncertainty and opening up to it life becomes meaningful. I always appreciate your thoughtful comments. :)
“[Personal evolution] is about abandoning dogma and having the courage to ask stupid questions and an infinite number of why’s and feeling lost in uncertainty and finally accepting all this as the normal state of living a human life.”
Such a beautiful sentiment I’ve been trying to grasp in my own writing these last few weeks, Silvio. And thank you for sharing those moments about your father with us. He sounds like he was lovely - and what a beautiful last conversation you had with him. Another great piece! 🙏🏼
Thank you so much, Grace. Glad this concept resonates. A little bit of a Socratic Paradox there. It did go this way for me, but I think it comes natural after a while. Or maybe it doesn't. I don't know, it felt like that for me. Thank you for your nice words! :)
Such an amazing reflection Silvio. What stands out to me is the look at what's good for the living vs what's good for the dying. As always, you capture so many beautiful nuances in your writing. Bravo!
A beautiful story and experience of loss in your life, thank you for sharing.
I recently had a conversation with a college undergrad and asking for life advice. I will be sending him this article, and highlighting this sentence in particular.
‘Now I can proudly and comfortably and freely say that I don’t know anything.’
Thank you, Kelly! It might be early for a college undergrad to embrace a state like that. My own experience has been that I had to first go all the way to the other end of the spectrum to be able to understand that being less sure is actually a privilege. So glad this resonated with you! :)
Silvio, if I wasn't in a restaurant bar reading this I would have shed a tear. What a moving piece. Eerily enough, I had a conversation about my father's ashes with a family friend who asked me where we kept them. I believe they are in my brother's house living room, and they were as perplexed as you were. Your irony was so cutting that it makes me wonder whether they need a new place.
Camilo! Grazie mille my friend, your words mean a lot. I really hope we can have these exchanges live soon. Hurry up and come back to Milano! Thank you so much :)
How much more can I appreciate you, Silvio? The answer is "always more" :D Sorry for your loss, and I appreciate that you share your thoughts, reflections, and stories. I share your sentiment about evolution means to shed strong opinions strongly held: once a firebrand very sure of my beliefs and ideas, I modulated and mellowed over the years. The allure of certainty is real and we are drawn to strong personalities with strong ideas, but lots of times, life is more complicated than that.
Again, I can't appreciate enough how deep and personal you go in the direction -- it always brings me delight, more thoughts, and even better vibes! :D
Helen! Such kind words. Thank you. True, most of the times life is more complicated than simply and blindly relying on strong ideas. And the beauty of it is - for me - that there's no need to figure out this complexity. Just being able to live and accept it is no small feat. Your appreciation of me is totally reciprocated. Thank you again!
Thank you for sharing your beautifully intimate memories of your father. I'm struck by what you said about how our nature is to attach ourselves to some material expression of our loved ones. I look around my apartment and see mementos from my grandma's apartment -- vases, books, photographs. These material things remind me of her, and I feel her immaterial spirit with me.
"He believed in the eternity of the spirit without being devout of anything." This soothed me. My grandma became more devout as she aged. I suppose becoming less certain about things as we age is at the same time, embracing uncertainty. And in the face of uncertainty, the choice is ours to have faith in eternity and the divine. It's difficult for me to put this into words. Thanks for always making me think deeply.
Thank you so much, Rach! These are indeed hard concepts to put in writing. But that's what writing is supposed to do: clarify, create, liberate. At least to me. "These material things remind me of her, and I feel her immaterial spirit with me." -- yes, this duality between material and immaterial is the essence of human experiences. I guess at the end of the day we need both, and they reinforce each other. Your thoughts are always so precious!
In this piece I was left at the end lingering more with the mood of who your dad was than anything else. This one line was the sentence that really hooked me in to him. "He believed in the eternity of the spirit without being devout of anything." That speaks volumes to me. I feel like a "know" him through that one line. Of course you had other doorways into his character, which just makes me really like him. No surprise that a model of yours would be likeable. I also resonated with your comments about knowing less and less. I really think it's an aging think, as I think we're in the same zone. I am actually so relieved to be less of a know it all every day, not that there's a lot more to unravel in that department.
Thanks for your thoughts, Rick. I’m obviously biased when talking about my dad, but he was a truly exceptional person. I like to think of his legacy as timeless, something that I didn’t fully understand for a long time but that I’m discovering more and more now. He used to say that “simplicity is a point of arrival, not a point of departure”. Something apparently straightforward but that hides a profound meaning especially nowadays. I may say, along the same lines, that unsureness is a point of arrival. :)
“simplicity is a point of arrival, not a point of departure” Gosh, more gems. No doubt, much of what your father gave will be and is shared indirectly through you, as a person and as a writer, but it also feels to me like there may be more treasure waiting in directly speaking more about your dad.
Simply stunning. Captivating. Especially the painting of the array rainbow of emotions you and your sister experienced.
And this is a life lesson so beautifully distilled to its essence: “ I think there’s beauty in realizing that this is something that happens naturally with time, and that maybe we have to go through certainty and dogma to be able to finally accept uncertainty and volatility.”
Eric! Thank you for your words. You captured the essence: embracing and accepting uncertainty and being able to live a serene life around it is something that cannot be taught nor advised. You have to experience the other extreme, which is absolute sureness and dogma, in order to understand unsureness. I really appreciated your comment. :)
“My sister clung to the urn so tightly they had to literally tear it away from her.”
This is the detail with which it all begins, and which stays with you throughout your wonderful story. And it ends (as the story must end) with your father's words, which are also an answer. An amazing story, but I do not need to be the one to tell it.
It's strange to talk about death in order to talk about life, about what's left and what you have: an urn that you don't know where to put and that you wouldn't keep in your living room anyway.
Today I met my sister (another sister!). She had been to the town hall to get her identity card renewed. Beyond the incomprehensible bureaucratic requirements, she told me something that made me think. She said: "You have no idea how many people don't want to be organ donors. But what do they do with them when they die? Who are you, Anubis?" I laughed, but thought that eventually, when you go to a public office to apply for an ID card, a lot of people will say they don't want to donate organs. Maybe they think of them as the most intimate things they have, and in a final act of selfishness they want to take them with them forever.
Forgive me if I go on and on, I'm almost finished. I read these words by Carlo Emilio Gadda. Sometimes there are things that penetrate your brain more than others. Gadda wrote in "Acquainted with Grief": "I, I!... the dirtiest of all pronouns!... The pronouns! They are the lice of thought.”
So I thought: Not knowing the answers, not knowing anything, and thinking that it's okay, is a form of wisdom. It sounds like a paradox, but I think it is a sublime form of knowledge: to disappear for ourselves, to forget the pronoun 'I'. Getting rid of this unbearable master, this "I" that demands to be constantly reassured that it exists in spite of everything. So selfish that it does so in joy and pain, just to believe that it exists.
We are what we leave behind, not what we think we are.
Martino! Thank you for chiming in with these precious thoughts. Your reflections as response to mine are always so valuable. They make me think, which to me is the most valuable human activity. I'm always so tuned in to your thoughtful considerations it almost feels like they could be mine. Sometimes I feel that we could be intellectual brothers! And Gadda's words are just perfect: "I! The dirtiest of all pronouns!". What to say? It is indeed a paradox, but a necessary one. We really have to touch one end of the spectrum to get back to the middle and live in a more balanced fashion. Glad you liked this piece and I look forward to seeing you soon for our lunch! :)
Thank you for your comment! Yours is an interesting reflection. And yes, I guess we need some form of hilarity even in tackling the most serious aspects of life. Like the contrast you just described, which is definitely not a light one to ponder. :)
Silvio, I'm amazed at this beautiful ode to your dad, and to life in general.
The paragraph about the certainty of how life should be lived hit me so hard. It perfectly encapsulates what I've been feeling lately, where I was certain how life should be lived and slowly realizing I really have no clue, and LESS clue as time goes by... reassuring to know it's normal, and grateful that you put into words this abstract feeling.
Thank you for gifting us this story and musings, all us readers are graced by them!
Thank you, Oscar! The interesting thing, to me, is that you have to hit total certainty before being able to understand that only by accepting uncertainty and opening up to it life becomes meaningful. I always appreciate your thoughtful comments. :)
“[Personal evolution] is about abandoning dogma and having the courage to ask stupid questions and an infinite number of why’s and feeling lost in uncertainty and finally accepting all this as the normal state of living a human life.”
Such a beautiful sentiment I’ve been trying to grasp in my own writing these last few weeks, Silvio. And thank you for sharing those moments about your father with us. He sounds like he was lovely - and what a beautiful last conversation you had with him. Another great piece! 🙏🏼
Thank you so much, Grace. Glad this concept resonates. A little bit of a Socratic Paradox there. It did go this way for me, but I think it comes natural after a while. Or maybe it doesn't. I don't know, it felt like that for me. Thank you for your nice words! :)
Such an amazing reflection Silvio. What stands out to me is the look at what's good for the living vs what's good for the dying. As always, you capture so many beautiful nuances in your writing. Bravo!
Thank you, Michelle! So glad you appreciated that one line and that it resonated with you. Thank you for being here and for your kind words. :)
A beautiful story and experience of loss in your life, thank you for sharing.
I recently had a conversation with a college undergrad and asking for life advice. I will be sending him this article, and highlighting this sentence in particular.
‘Now I can proudly and comfortably and freely say that I don’t know anything.’
✨
Thank you, Kelly! It might be early for a college undergrad to embrace a state like that. My own experience has been that I had to first go all the way to the other end of the spectrum to be able to understand that being less sure is actually a privilege. So glad this resonated with you! :)
Silvio, if I wasn't in a restaurant bar reading this I would have shed a tear. What a moving piece. Eerily enough, I had a conversation about my father's ashes with a family friend who asked me where we kept them. I believe they are in my brother's house living room, and they were as perplexed as you were. Your irony was so cutting that it makes me wonder whether they need a new place.
What a lovely piece. It's a treat to read you.
Camilo! Grazie mille my friend, your words mean a lot. I really hope we can have these exchanges live soon. Hurry up and come back to Milano! Thank you so much :)
How much more can I appreciate you, Silvio? The answer is "always more" :D Sorry for your loss, and I appreciate that you share your thoughts, reflections, and stories. I share your sentiment about evolution means to shed strong opinions strongly held: once a firebrand very sure of my beliefs and ideas, I modulated and mellowed over the years. The allure of certainty is real and we are drawn to strong personalities with strong ideas, but lots of times, life is more complicated than that.
Again, I can't appreciate enough how deep and personal you go in the direction -- it always brings me delight, more thoughts, and even better vibes! :D
Helen! Such kind words. Thank you. True, most of the times life is more complicated than simply and blindly relying on strong ideas. And the beauty of it is - for me - that there's no need to figure out this complexity. Just being able to live and accept it is no small feat. Your appreciation of me is totally reciprocated. Thank you again!
Thanks for sharing your riffs on life, growth and mortality. From a fellow member of the "Dead Dad's Club" to another, I see you. ♥️🙏
Thank you, Tai! These are indeed themes dear to us, as we often discussed. :)
Thank you for sharing your beautifully intimate memories of your father. I'm struck by what you said about how our nature is to attach ourselves to some material expression of our loved ones. I look around my apartment and see mementos from my grandma's apartment -- vases, books, photographs. These material things remind me of her, and I feel her immaterial spirit with me.
"He believed in the eternity of the spirit without being devout of anything." This soothed me. My grandma became more devout as she aged. I suppose becoming less certain about things as we age is at the same time, embracing uncertainty. And in the face of uncertainty, the choice is ours to have faith in eternity and the divine. It's difficult for me to put this into words. Thanks for always making me think deeply.
Thank you so much, Rach! These are indeed hard concepts to put in writing. But that's what writing is supposed to do: clarify, create, liberate. At least to me. "These material things remind me of her, and I feel her immaterial spirit with me." -- yes, this duality between material and immaterial is the essence of human experiences. I guess at the end of the day we need both, and they reinforce each other. Your thoughts are always so precious!
In this piece I was left at the end lingering more with the mood of who your dad was than anything else. This one line was the sentence that really hooked me in to him. "He believed in the eternity of the spirit without being devout of anything." That speaks volumes to me. I feel like a "know" him through that one line. Of course you had other doorways into his character, which just makes me really like him. No surprise that a model of yours would be likeable. I also resonated with your comments about knowing less and less. I really think it's an aging think, as I think we're in the same zone. I am actually so relieved to be less of a know it all every day, not that there's a lot more to unravel in that department.
Thanks for your thoughts, Rick. I’m obviously biased when talking about my dad, but he was a truly exceptional person. I like to think of his legacy as timeless, something that I didn’t fully understand for a long time but that I’m discovering more and more now. He used to say that “simplicity is a point of arrival, not a point of departure”. Something apparently straightforward but that hides a profound meaning especially nowadays. I may say, along the same lines, that unsureness is a point of arrival. :)
“simplicity is a point of arrival, not a point of departure” Gosh, more gems. No doubt, much of what your father gave will be and is shared indirectly through you, as a person and as a writer, but it also feels to me like there may be more treasure waiting in directly speaking more about your dad.
I was sure a sensitive person like you would appreciate that. Thank you again, Rick.
Such incredible writing ❤️
Thank you so much, Lola.
Simply stunning. Captivating. Especially the painting of the array rainbow of emotions you and your sister experienced.
And this is a life lesson so beautifully distilled to its essence: “ I think there’s beauty in realizing that this is something that happens naturally with time, and that maybe we have to go through certainty and dogma to be able to finally accept uncertainty and volatility.”
Eric! Thank you for your words. You captured the essence: embracing and accepting uncertainty and being able to live a serene life around it is something that cannot be taught nor advised. You have to experience the other extreme, which is absolute sureness and dogma, in order to understand unsureness. I really appreciated your comment. :)
This was so inspiring, amazing read!💕
Thank you, Chiamaka. :)
A magnificent Easter reflection--Cristo e' risorto!
Thank you, Chris. Great to see you back. I missed your comments! And yes, Happy Easter to you. :)
“My sister clung to the urn so tightly they had to literally tear it away from her.”
This is the detail with which it all begins, and which stays with you throughout your wonderful story. And it ends (as the story must end) with your father's words, which are also an answer. An amazing story, but I do not need to be the one to tell it.
It's strange to talk about death in order to talk about life, about what's left and what you have: an urn that you don't know where to put and that you wouldn't keep in your living room anyway.
Today I met my sister (another sister!). She had been to the town hall to get her identity card renewed. Beyond the incomprehensible bureaucratic requirements, she told me something that made me think. She said: "You have no idea how many people don't want to be organ donors. But what do they do with them when they die? Who are you, Anubis?" I laughed, but thought that eventually, when you go to a public office to apply for an ID card, a lot of people will say they don't want to donate organs. Maybe they think of them as the most intimate things they have, and in a final act of selfishness they want to take them with them forever.
Forgive me if I go on and on, I'm almost finished. I read these words by Carlo Emilio Gadda. Sometimes there are things that penetrate your brain more than others. Gadda wrote in "Acquainted with Grief": "I, I!... the dirtiest of all pronouns!... The pronouns! They are the lice of thought.”
So I thought: Not knowing the answers, not knowing anything, and thinking that it's okay, is a form of wisdom. It sounds like a paradox, but I think it is a sublime form of knowledge: to disappear for ourselves, to forget the pronoun 'I'. Getting rid of this unbearable master, this "I" that demands to be constantly reassured that it exists in spite of everything. So selfish that it does so in joy and pain, just to believe that it exists.
We are what we leave behind, not what we think we are.
Martino! Thank you for chiming in with these precious thoughts. Your reflections as response to mine are always so valuable. They make me think, which to me is the most valuable human activity. I'm always so tuned in to your thoughtful considerations it almost feels like they could be mine. Sometimes I feel that we could be intellectual brothers! And Gadda's words are just perfect: "I! The dirtiest of all pronouns!". What to say? It is indeed a paradox, but a necessary one. We really have to touch one end of the spectrum to get back to the middle and live in a more balanced fashion. Glad you liked this piece and I look forward to seeing you soon for our lunch! :)
I loved that juxtaposition too!
I’ve loved that word since my primary school teacher mentioned it! It’s like a delicious word!
Thank you for your comment! Yours is an interesting reflection. And yes, I guess we need some form of hilarity even in tackling the most serious aspects of life. Like the contrast you just described, which is definitely not a light one to ponder. :)