17-1-94
Our society imposes on us, with the argument of protection it offers, a series of small but extremely pressing compulsions. Among these, those related to our identity take a primary position. All those dates, places, names, and qualities that end up constituting our existence accompany us until death with the same harshness as our external appearance.
While some details, like the name or home address, have occasionally sparked minimal reactions, with the exception of the justified indignation of women whose surname is expressed in the possessive form of their interchangeable husband, what should one say about the persistent mention of religion or profession? Yet, again, while many justified voices have recently been raised to underline both the unconstitutionality of this obsession with religion and the injustice of being defined by a parameter of continuous and painful doubt, almost no one has reacted to the oppression of personality that comes with associating our name with our professional title.
Human personality is so complex that any attempt to define it through formal and external elements creates an illusion of information and ends in its oppression, as it often tries to define itself either positively or negatively against the elements that define it. If we try to move away from the established content of various professional definitions, we will realize that there are just as many or more indefinable categories. Similarly, many socially established and accepted professions sound contradictory when their essence is faced with the livelihood they promise, like "judge," "poet," or "teacher."
However, universities also bear a great responsibility, having internationally agreed in a peculiar way that they teach professions and prepare professionals, not culture nor cultivated citizens. The social and economic establishment, categorized in an arbitrary, supposedly meritocratic hierarchy, creates complexes in women who engage in household work to declare it as their occupation, in manual laborers against intellectuals, or in primary school teachers against professors.
Life itself is difficult, and social adaptation even more so. The individual's struggle to be human is painful, and the anxiety to balance it with the need for livelihood is even more agonizing. Therefore, I would dream of an identity with two words: Human – Life Fighter and a resume that would highlight and conclude an entire life.
Plato Rivellis