Earth Chronicles 2021

Image credits: NASA/ESA

Or rather… Our matters seen from Mars

by Stefano Lavorini

Crack-brained. From up here, watching you, I thought that some seriousness, shrewdness and reasoning skills had crept into you men, who populate the small planet Earth in ever increasing numbers. And instead I see you astonished, gazing and looking for an explanation much akin to the umpteenth obvious demonstration of your gullibility.
 
The time of history was not enough to get you out of the caves. Covid has not been enough... And so, peace, tranquility, well-being, security in the future remain for you only the beautiful illusions that you have been carrying around for millennia with great stubbornness and in spite of the evidence.

And even though everything around you seems to be the free gift of a loving Technology, capable of offering comfort and relief to hardships and meaning to reality, all you need do is you to raise your eyes to the horizon of obligations and servitude that suffocate you, nailing you implacably to a plurality of roles that mimic an awareness and freedom increasingly empty of meaning.
 
Not that there is a lack of virtuous examples, but "desires and appetites seem infinite, and virtue is weak and hesitant in achieving them," as one of your great thinkers wrote ⁽¹⁾.

The disproportion between ends and means thus ends up, more often than not, condemning you humans to constant fluctuation and disorder.

Yet on Earth you are now at an important turning point as far as your future is concerned and, perhaps, you should start again by listening to and taking account of enlightened and competent voices ⁽²⁾, in order to get a lot of good out of the current difficult moment.

Try to line up a few precepts on which to reflect, so that evil is not replaced by the worst, especially when the reconstruction of a nation and the salvation of the planet are at stake.
 

Things like:

1. Refounding politics starting from the reaffirmation of equal possibilities and opportunities for individuals, a fundamental principle of social justice but also of economic efficiency
2. Once this condition has been met, move on to rewarding merit, remembering that "since in life those who win a race on average are luckier than those who don't win the race", for both ethical and economic reasons, there must also be adequate space and recognition for solidarity.
3. Give equal opportunities to businesses as well, making the principle of competition effective through the fight against monopolies, tax evasion and corruption.
4. Overcome legal uncertainty, unacceptable in a civilized country and detrimental to the functioning of society and the economy.
5. Remove the brakes on private investment, which is essential for growth, by reducing the level of taxation on businesses, by combating tax evasion, by reforming the public administration in the direction of a clear "debureaucratization", but also by restoring the right value to education and training.

From this distance, I would therefore say nothing new.

So rediscover some common sense, and don't destine, with the usual indifference, all that is good to the history books.

Returning to the world of packaging, I would like to mention, for example, the Ethical Packaging Charter Foundation, which was created to promote a different culture of doing things, clearly calling for a code of conduct on the part of the industry and those involved...
 

But also the re-proposal of the Bando CONAI that invites Italian companies to revise their packaging in a green key, rewarding them.

Perhaps there is not a lack of ideas, but rather a lack of will and ability.
Perhaps we need more people willing to shoulder the burden of a change that is as inevitable as it is yet to be invented. Humans willing to rediscover the pleasure of filling their lives with content, imagination and desire to do and get things done, perhaps thinking about the good of their children.
Maybe in this way something could still happen. The choice is yours.
 

And I end with the verses of one of your poets ⁽³⁾: