C.Ara Esther,
social media has (also) ruined our life (I think). You are right when you write that in 1994 love was paying a few bucks for an SMS. Remember that trepidation? Love us insecure – but who is sure in love? – it was to pay the return receipt in addition to the SMS. In short, the Jurassic. But no praise of the good old days. I know well that pain today takes the form of that life of the other more and more often that continues worldwide on Instagram. But without you. I wonder and I ask you those who block you on social networks and whatsapp (sure, there are more serious things to think about, sure, I know, not at all) exactly what problems do they have? An increasingly widespread phenomenon at all ages. A useless small house. You know, right? The profile photo of someone you loved disappears, replaced by a little gray man. Facebook engulfs all the tags of any beautiful moment you have ever lived together. A swipe of the sponge and it’s all erased. Nice it was so easy, cowards that you are nothing else. What a magnificent illusion.
They ignore that time erases everything. But the little gray man remains there, after all, buried by other conversations, looking at you from time to time from the whatsapp chat. Instead, a good memory should be left behind. At least try. As in those verses by Giovanni Raboni: “Only this I ask: always be light, as much as you are dear to me”.
Hi Ester, thank you.
B.
Ester Viola’s answer
Ester Viola
Dear B.,
Long live Raboni and being dear to everyone, but also not caring about it in a measured and reciprocal way is not bad.
Forget, forget. Without missing the vague memory: but what do you want, even the proofs of civility with the ex? Should we esteem ourselves after death? Because? By force?
Knowing how to have the boxes full is a well of happiness for those who succeed.
How many questions you ask me, B. Is it worth it, it’s not worth it, should it? Is retroactive attention from the past better to have or not to have? What do I know. But aren’t all attentions begged after all? But who wants them. Wouldn’t it be better to be the kind of person who doesn’t need attention – which then is always the best way to get covered?
They all seem to me to be doubts off target. And so first of all calm down: dodging sentimental packages is an art, and nobody has it. It’s good and bad without rules. The best thing would be not to care, rely on the weather, lost a love just say okay. Let’s see the next one. We need to be reborn more practical and more insensitive next time. Let’s remember that.
You’re asking me to pull out the glass ball to answer a question, it’s the idle question that a couple of times everyone gets: given this fish blood, this semifreddo subject who said goodbye to me:
Is there any hope of turning him into someone who loved me? In one who still loves me then?
We have already said that there are infinite and foolish ways that love has to start but then the funnel narrows.
1) does not even begin (amen),
2) begin (te deum!)
3) mostly ends (pulvis es et in pulverem reverteris)
4) he is able to continue (gaudium magnum)
After 3) – which is already an epic success – how does this evolve?
Depends. Various ways. Who prefers to wear the title “ah but we have a great relationship” who doesn’t.
And then you tell me about that little horror, B., the lower floors of the Whatsapp column. And you make me sad. Who has never gone there, sometimes. It is like entering the house of spirits.
I’m of age for losing someone important. It happens, losing someone who was important. There remains a void, and every time the thought comes back to it, the tears fall. Thus the thought learns after a while and does not return to it. Which is not to forget, it is to avoid with care. That is, you remember not to think about it.
Losing someone in this millennium is different. Break up. Even dying is no longer what it used to be. A dead man survives in voice messages, in chats, in photos, in emails. The dead are everywhere. I could hear the voice, the vowels are there. I could review the photos, I have the emails, I can reread it on Twitter.
Whatsapp, when you go very far down the column, it is a portable cemetery, a ghost village. I never get off at the end of whatsapp.
That name plummets down, over and over. And you never go to the bottom of that column. The photos do not reopen. Chats are not read. Voice messages are not played back. Self defence. There is a limit to what one can bear, and memories must not take on other dimensions than those of memory (memory after some time luckily helps you and brings fog where fog is needed).
To get back to us, B. The little gray man does what he wants, we are going to the sea in a month.
Read here all the episodes of “The faulty relationships of Ester Viola”.
iO Donna © REPRODUCTION RESERVED