We need to be consistent. If you say you are an animalist then you don't buy leather shoes, leather bags and leather sofas. You will also not buy cars with leather seats and any other objects or clothes made of real leather. If you say you are animal rights then you will not spend your afternoons at the mall but you will go to animal shelters to dare a hand. You will be interested in signing petitions against violence against animals, you want to experiment with them. And above all, you will not use any make-up or beauty products that have been tested on animals.
I tell you these things because here we love cats and dogs, we all love to post beautiful pictures of animals and say that we are animal rights, but then in reality we all have to do something for the animals. So if you haven't done it yet, start organizing yourself and go to kennels or catteries, bring food, blankets, and above all affection. Try to fight and be present in anti-vivisection campaigns, against violence against animals, and against intensive farming. An animal rights person cares about all animals and not just cats and dogs and is interested in everything related to the animal world. So I would like all those who say they love animals then put out at least a bowl with water (which are used for both stray cats and hedgehogs) and treats, food for sparrows, who adopt an animal, not bought, and looked at all the ads in which so many people give animals, that if they are not taken maybe they will be abandoned. So I'd like you to reflect on how many things you can do to show your love for animals because animals aren't just cats and dogs. Especially if there is someone among you who has land, and has no nuisance neighbors, then he can adopt dwarf goats, geese, rabbits and all those animals that many people give away in the ads. Create support groups on Telegram, create rescue groups, spread the word but try to help animals, if you have enough money and personal resources, because in this period many people no longer have a job and give animals away. Search ads in your area, ask associations, get busy, show your true love for all animals.
Please, when you take a new pet with you, or create a group or initiative, post me here in the comments and I will post your link and post it. I hope this post may have inspired you to do more and be more active. I have 2 dogs, 8 chickens, 2 budgies, 6 cats, 1 rabbit, all rescued by people who wanted to abandon them. I've never paid anything for an animal. Now I can't take other animals because the ones I have already require a lot of food and I don't have much money anymore and therefore I can't have others but if you can then do it.
Prof: I'll ask you a question: why do you think humans are often led to suicide?
X: because it has too many problems.
Prof: and why do you think he has these problems?
Me: because of the company.
Prof: how sorry?
Me: the company. In my opinion this is the cause of all the losses that have occurred in recent years.
Prof: and here you are wrong. Take a person with depression for example, he kills himself because it is the depression that leads him to do this.
Me: yes ok, here we are, but before thinking about depression, wouldn't it be appropriate to think about the causes of all this?
X: in what sense?
Me: have you ever wondered why a person often resorts to suicide? Take this person suffering from depression for example: at first he had a good job, a house, a wife, children, everything in short. One day he is summoned by the director of the company where he works to inform him that due to various problems, unfortunately, layoffs are underway and among these there is also his name. Initially, the man remains a little upset but in the end he thinks that in one way or another he will find another job to feed his children. So he strives to find it. A day goes by and nothing.
Two days and nothing.
Three, nothing.
Four, nothing.
A month goes by and still nothing.
Children need things for school. The clothes for the holidays, because you know, we are boys.
The refrigerator is empty.
The bills are payable.
And that's where the real problems begin. The wife has her own needs. Children are teased at school because of their clothes, their worn out pens.
At that point, man feels a prisoner of hunger, of the desire for money, of the fear of a still uncertain tomorrow.
The wife leaves him.
The money isn't there yet.
There is no light at home, no water, no electricity.
The children do not speak to him. Friends despise him or at least treat him as if he were junk.
The man is alone.
He drinks.
It gets drunk.
He's out of money.
Society doesn't help him.
Friends don't care.
The children hate him because it is only because of him that they are targeted by their peers.
He falls into depression, a severe depression.
Is tired.
Alone.
Weak.
He kills himself.
This is what society is. We are society and if today the word "society" is synonymous with "suicide" the fault is ours alone.
Prof: exactly
Every time I find myself in a new place or even if I just wander around I start to scan the places and imagine what it would be like to live there as a bum. So I look for corners to shelter, where I could escape the elements, ways to get food, money or clothes, possible companies and I analyze, weighing how hard it can be, I study the movements of those who already lead this life. I have lived in Palermo for most of my life, it is a city full of people, sunny for most of the year, one of the most trampled by tourists in the world, perfect for life as a stray. And vagrants (it’s not a sarcastic joke) is full of them. I have lived for quite some time near the BALLARÒ market district so I have really seen many, many, everyone has their own style, everyone has their habits, each their dignity and even the pet can vary, too in Milan, in the Cenisio area, a vagabond had a beautiful rooster as a pet, enviably kept, well fed, beautiful shiny, proud, you went shopping and found him in front of the supermarket wandering with his head held high. Seeing some of them made your heart cry, while others, it seems ugly to say, made you hate the life of a privileged student. There were days that I met one under the house, he was always on the bench and sometimes I stopped to exchange a few words and he spoke in dialect and I gave him my best drawings because they were more precious to me than money. Then sometimes I would bring him some hot food cooked by me, typical things of my country. He was fine, calm, serene, he talked about math and plants and he knew about it and I went to the Ethiopian shop on the corner and bought him some colorful blankets, some sweaters and some flowers because I wanted to cheer him up. He didn’t want to live in the dorm. A wandering woman, on the other hand, was sad, she was always sleeping at the station, alone, downcast, I think she was actually a woman who had lost her job and always carried a suitcase with her, with everything she owned inside I suppose. I saw her every morning and I very much hoped she would get away from there, I was afraid they would beat her. When I saw her sleeping, I left her a plastic container with hot food. I had a house, or rather a room, tiny but for me it was a lot. I led a life where the only time I expected was the night to study in silence. I didn’t know who ate and dressed in style and I wondered what it would be like to take courage in both hands and stop the life that I had never wanted, not even imagined and give up everything, be left with nothing.
- You're beautiful.
SUNSET - Eh, modesty aside ...
- But you put on some restlessness.
- Because?
- Hide something. I bet you are a metaphor.
- You found me out.
- Why do you behave like this?
- I'm a sunset. Being a metaphor is my job. People look at me, think about the end of something and cry.
- And this thing amuses you?
- Enough. We sunsets are sadists who feed on your tears. A sunset that doesn't make you cry is doing everything wrong.
- What kind of metaphor are you this time?
- I'll tell you right away. What are you looking at?
- You.
- Where I am?
- On the desktop.
- How long have you not watched a real sunset?
- Months. Maybe years.
- I'm a metaphor for that.
- Real sunsets?
- A part of you.
- I'm crying. You are a bastard.
- It's my job. Do not get mad. I am a sunset. I make people cry.
Are you one of the more than seven hundred million users who use Facebook? Well, it means that almost every day you produce content for the network: content of all kinds, not least emotional and relational content. You are part of the general intellect of Facebook. In short, Facebook exists and works thanks to people like you. What is the Facebook name if not this collective intelligence, which is not produced by Zuckerberg and company, but by users? You actually work on Facebook. You don’t notice it, but you work. You work without getting paid. Others are making money from your work. Here the Marxian concept that comes in handy is that of “surplus labor”. It is not an abstruse concept: it means “the part of work which, while producing value, does not translate into wages but into the profit of the owner, as owner of the means of production”. Where there is profit, it means that there has been surplus labor. Otherwise, if all the work share were paid based on the value it created, well… it would be communism, the classless society. It is clear that the boss must pay less in wages than he will get from the sale of the goods. “Profit” means this. It means paying workers less than the real value of the work they do. For various reasons, the owner may not even be able to sell those goods. And so don’t make a profit. But this does not mean that the workers did not provide surplus labor. The entire capitalist society is based on surplus value and surplus labor. On Facebook, your work is all surplus labor, because you don’t get paid. Zuckerberg every day sells your surplus labor, that is, you sell your life (sensitive data, your browsing patterns, etc.) and your relationships, and earn several million dollars a day. Because he is the owner of the means of production, you don’t. Information is a commodity. Knowledge is a commodity. Indeed, in post-Fordism or whatever we want to call it, it is the commodity of commodities. It is a productive force and a commodity at the same time, just like the workforce. The community that uses Facebook produces information (on tastes, consumption patterns, market trends) that the owner packages in the form of statistics and sells to third parties and / or uses to personalize advertising, offers and transactions of various kinds. Furthermore, Facebook itself, as a representation of the largest network of relationships on the planet, is a commodity. The Facebook company can only sell information if, at the same time and relentlessly, it sells that representation of itself. This representation is also due to the users, but it is Zuckerberg who fills the bank account
As a young girl I imagined a different future and being an artist (I don’t get high or smoke or drink, I’m an atypical artist I know) I thought that my skills, both artistic and intellectual (I always had excellent grades in school) would have me taken far, in every sense. I have always dreamed of a life off the cursed island, Sicily, because as soon as I grew up a little and became old enough to understand certain social dynamics, I felt suffocated in my aspirations. My parents wanted me to finish school, find a rich husband and get married and churn out grandchildren for them. Instead I didn’t do any of this. I have not followed any rules of social life that tradition imposed. Immediately after high school I went abroad to pursue my artistic dream but I was forced to return because my mother was sick and I took on my responsibilities as a daughter and still do it today and in return I do not receive than criticisms and always negative judgments. In part you are right, I have not been able to get even the minimum of what I aspired to in my artistic life but on the other hand I have a situation that everyone envies me. Of course, after having understood how things are going, after having discovered that “either you follow the rules of the market or you stay out of every field”, the choice to continue on the difficult and fruitless path of art is truly crazy. But I can’t turn my back on myself and my fantasy, and especially in recent times if I hadn’t had all these dreams with me yet, I think I wouldn’t have been able to go on. Sometimes instead I say to myself, trying to convince myself, that it would have been better not to have these dreams at all and not to have all these creative abilities, since up to now they have not brought me anything concrete because I do not compromise for any reason and I do not I want to sleep with anyone to get credit. This crisis due to covid pays for itself first of all precisely those sectors of genres that are considered unnecessary, and art is one of them. Certainly having a nice painting hanging on the wall does not fill people’s stomachs so even I would not feel like convincing someone to buy a painting rather than buying groceries. First of all, I myself have had to give up those beautiful things that make life more pleasant (dinners out, accessories, hairdressing, cinema, theater, concerts, cosplay fairs, …) and so why shouldn’t others give it up too ?! The covid spared no one. So what’s the point of creating so many beautiful things if they have to remain closed in a box or drawer? Being an art therapist seems nonsense. Working with autistic children seems inconsistent. Yet it requires a lot of patience and a lot of control. But I never talk about my passion for saving children.
The manual world of practical skills is valued more than the mental world. Manual skills are appreciated by all. While mental abilities are underestimated and considered useless. Many of you who work with PCs or do mind-active jobs will know that many consider these jobs to be “comfortable” and almost trivial. On the other hand, practical professions are considered more essential and are valued more (and also with greater earnings. Mental professions such as writing a film or entering data or building graphics or preparing a lesson or discovering a new star are considered non-essential. the plumber, the electrician, the bricklayer, the mechanic … are considered essential and very important. Even those who have knowledge in these fields are valued more than those who make artistic or computer professions. It is no coincidence that there are even derogatory nicknames about these mental professions as: artist and nerd and mad scientist. While for the practical professions there is no derogatory. So in this society even if a good 70% of the population does mental work (since technology has also replaced many practical actions) the remaining 30% is considered more important.
THE PRODIGY OF IDEAS 