Want it. Win it. Keep it... (2)

Editorial by Stefano Lavorini

[…] A life is empty of meaning unless filled with a risky and exhilarating commitment. Of course there’s only one such type of commitment, and that is work. The other work, invisible work, is the work of the soul, the spirit, talent, whose creations transform the world, making it richer, more just, and more human […](¹).

We’re at the beginning of the year and the time spent free of concerns, filled with curious and unpredictable moments that can give rise to thoughts which would otherwise be unlikely to come to mind, has now given way to constant busyness, productive agitation, engaged interconnection, the convenience of compromises that are as effective as they are painful…
Thus, the suspicion of being hostage to a condition that leads us to spend a good part of our lives more concerned about doing than being, also vanishes.

Elias Canetti wrote: «Man has gathered all the wisdom of his predecessors, and look how stupid he is!». And in the light of what we see around us, how can we not agree? And yet, almost by biological compulsion, we cannot give up surprising ourselves, experiencing the unusual and the exceptional, despite our globalised and interconnected world, in which everything seems to be consumed in an instant and where it’s no longer possible to construct a “time” for dreams, hopes and emotions.

We have tried and we continue to try, in our small way, with the work of the “ItaliaImballaggio” magazine and all the associated editorial activities. We’re satisfied with what we’ve done, aware that successes and failures - the latter due to inexperience or excessive enthusiasm - are both the fruit of the wish to describe, as best we can, current trends so as to grasp the meaning of changes, challenges and threats. And today, in the thirtieth year of activity, we renew our commitment, intending to look beyond what appears simply plausible, in order to bring new skills and resources into play. Stimulating reflection is always a difficult task, especially these days, immersed as we are in a communicative stream which, due to its excess and superfluity, is often experienced as just an inevitable background noise. It’s difficult, but not impossible in this Babel of missing stimuli.

A long time has passed since the launch in 1994, but it seems to me that, despite everything, we’re not short of words or deeds that can guide us towards visions of a future, which, nevertheless, appears unlikely and unclear. There are, in fact, experiences that affect us and lead us to wonder if what happens around us is the result of chance or destiny; that leads us to ask ourselves if an event has a defined and identifiable cause (Chance) or, instead, is inevitable, and occurs on the basis of a fixed and invariable cause (Destiny).

It’s impossible to predict the future: on the one hand, there’s the world of packaging on the difficult road of “sustainability”; on the other hand, there’s a world governed by politics that has become increasingly complex and aggressive, full of violent contrasts and with little common sense: politics which, except for few and rare exceptions, seems only to know how to cause “turmoil”. We hear many beautiful words, but we see very few facts. We can refer to the maxim: «Do not let the day end without having grown a little, without being happy…». On the one hand, we have a few and good teachings, perhaps difficult to put into practice, that Life requires not to be overlooked in order to counteract the abundance of cruelty and idiocy characterising the entire history of man; on the other hand, we have false nudes, pornographic images of more or less well-known people, created by artificial intelligence (guided by human stupidity).

All we can do is hope for some miracle that will restore the fools to sense. To be perfectly honest, I’m quite doubtful that this is possible and that, for example, those who find pleasure or interest in provoking others can, without “paying a price”, roam freely in the land of virtue. Certainly… anything is possible, as Saint Paul on the road to Damascus teaches us.

(1) Sándor Márai, La donna giusta, Adelphi, 2004