The glass is half full
My unwanted entry (neither from me nor above all from others!) Entry into active politics was accompanied by a tumultuous overlapping of experiences, some positive, others negative, all instructive, but none as significant as that of having to live close together, in cramped spaces, with people unfamiliar with human anatomy. You will say: and what does anatomy have to do with it? Well, those who study it, for example, learn that the eardrum and the turbinates are two different organs, with very different functions, and above all with different locations.
You will now ask yourselves what it could be, in politics, to become familiar with these concepts. And I kindly answer you, making you first reflect on the fact that politics thrives on mediations and agreements conducted in contexts of partial and asymmetrical information. In short: it is not always appropriate for those on your right (physical or political) to know what the one on your left tells you. And up to here it fits. On the other hand, what I really couldn't understand, and still can't, is the quantity of people who, having to confer quickly and secretly with you, come to talk to you two centimeters away … "From your ear?" you say. No! From the nose!
Now, I don't smoke. My teeth are pretty much okay. Although I have no ideological prejudice towards bulbs ( tunicates or not) I avoid nourishing myself with them before attending my so-called similar. Ah! I also have another habit: I wash myself. Being of a certain age, I was raised by a mom (it could be said at the time) who taught me to wash my hands, to keep a respectful distance (if you call that, there will be a reason), and two o three other useful things.
But in short, I could never have imagined having to conduct negotiations holding my breath not so much for the tension, as for the bad breath of the interlocutor!
And like every human thing, so too the tragedy we are experiencing has had its glass half full, which for me was the obligation to wear a mask indoors (I know that many of you bothers, but as much as it is, a little 'filters) and above all the "social", that is, personal distancing.
Finally we could breathe (albeit through the mask)!
Finally, those who had something private to tell you, instead of communicating it an inch from the nostrils by squeezing you in a corner, would call you in a secluded room and tell you about it a couple of meters away. In fact, we are all listened to by indiscreet ears, everywhere: so why torture each other with the residues of our bumpy digestions, if we then keep our cell phones in our pockets?
But even this precarious state of grace was transient.
The "success of the vaccination campaign" has had its glass half empty: they are exactly those people who today return to talk to me in the nose (they say in my ear, and this should suggest something to them, which they do not want to take into account). And when you point out that maybe it would be better to put the mask on or keep a minimum of distance, their response, invariably pronounced as they approach your external airways, is: "But hiho shonho vhaccinhathhhhhoooooooh!" (I inserted a bit of "h" to give an idea of the breath, or rather, halitosis …).
But of course the "greasers" are the "no-vaxes".
What do you want me to tell you?
I told him how things are in the classroom . Anyone who hasn't been here for a quarter of an hour then knows how it will turn out (it's already ending that way).
Summary: life takes a lot of patience … but not always for a long time!
We understood each other.
Good night!
This is a machine translation of a post (in Italian) written by Alberto Bagnai and published on Goofynomics at the URL https://goofynomics.blogspot.com/2021/12/il-bicchiere-mezzo-pieno.html on Tue, 21 Dec 2021 22:46:00 +0000. Some rights reserved under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 license.