Lis and the "Mad Flight"

2. A halfserious dialogue between Lis and her poetic inspiration.

February 13, 2013

San Marcello Pistoiese, Italia

CALLIOPE: Even this Comenius week has finally come to an end, and they are all going back home. Why did you want to stay here, Lis?

LIS: You know, Calliope: I liked Italy. The beauty of the cities you showed me captured me, and I want to learn more about these places. I would like to talk with people, to plunge into their traditions.

I want to continue all the things we started together!

But, these days something is missing, my friend.

CALLIOPE: Come on, tell me! I am all ears.

LIS: I need to make a comparison.

My God, this doesn’t mean that you have to discriminate the good from the bad, the best from the worst.

It's all about information.

Modern society has introduced all of us into "Globalization" and I think it's very important to defend our culture so that it doesn't get swallowed up by this global-idea and thus disappear from the face of the Earth; it seems that the most importantant thing is to know others.

I have to know how the people of my same age live here in Italy, their points of view, how they grew-up and how they face adulthood.

CALLIOPE: You girl, have asked an interesting question, and it deserves to be answered. This is your final activity, which will complete your trip here. In all respects, I would like to introduce you to the method which your peers here use to lay the foundations of their adulthood.

In the building next to us, as you know, there are various classes of the Institute. Very soon, the High School students will discuss with an important literary critic, Romano Luperini, about a subject that touches me deeply: that of the dead. I understand that it may seems gloomy, and you are right! But the answer you are looking for comes from them, the dead, as a constitutive part of the Past.

These people think that it is necessary to know the Past of their civilization so as to be able to deal with what life has in store for them in the future. In the Past we can find all the attributes necessary to plan a better Future. By knowing its own history, a community obtains wisdom, and learns how to avoid the mistakes of the past.

LIS: What does all this mean, Calliope? The future needs novelty, it is made up of novelty!

CALLIOPE: Would novelty exist if things were “already known”?

Everything would be new! There would be no progress!

But now! Come into the classroom and listen!

In the words of an old master: "Sapere aude!".

Giovanni Albergucci