Upon my return from Italy, the one thing I am sure of is that I currently dislike watching American dance reality shows (not that I ever did), reading tabs, seeing really bad movies (bad-good movies are still fine), even more than before. The leniency for crap that I acquired in LA after years of curmudgeon life in NY is gone, even after just returning from a foreign country where the music and television, at least the popular forms of it, are funnier (stupider, potentially, more sexist, etc.) than anything in America. Truth is: I cannot stand to see the way certain people live in this country that I can luckily call home in the current tense international climate. But the more I see Americans and our need and love to consume, lack of organic pleasure, the urgency and intensity with which we communicate via e-mail, phone, and even in person...it's overwhelming, and it's sad. I wasn't away very long. 30 days is hardly a long tour away from one's culture, but it was just long enough for me to slip into, as I had said, a more natural mode of existence, and these weren't on days gazing out over the Mediterranean. I experienced as much or more of this new internal pace and attitude at Autostrade-side Autogrills and in smoky Rome buses, bad gelaterias and even dangerous neighborhoods and boring Sardinia cellphone stores, as I did in restful medieval villages in the Abruzzi mountains. For it isn't rest that Italy provides. Italy doesn't provide anything, in fact, and that's why it's great; it doesn't try too hard, doesn't want to. Plus, there's a frenetic pace in the Italian world, too--especially in a city like Rome, which is hardly a groundbreaking observation, as kids reheat more frozen meals than ever while moms and dads still jump over each other and ditch their jobs to watch their children take swimming lessons. But what's different about it all is that to my mind Italians don't want to work more: they don't like it, they don't get a high from it. They don't have openings, in large part, in the little portal in our minds that the allows the urgency, devote-your-life-to-nonsense and anticipatory stress addiction that reaches and controls many American psyches. And if some Italians do not feel this urgency, if they do devote their lives to nonsense, well, they don't really feel as if they're living while mourning the loss of their lives simultaneously in that distinctly American way. A Naples advertising executive who doesn't really believe in the mission of his account, therefore, just waits for work to end to really enjoy his life--what most people in America *say* they do but rarely accomplish. He doesn't force an attempt at or quest for enjoyment into his every moment and then wince when he can't find any "quality time" for it; maybe he'll have some moments of joy throughout the day but they will come whether or not he creates an "action plan" to "achieve" them. For instance, Italy is currently looking into increasing the work week hours; as dangerous as it is to us, the Euro is killing too many people in Italy, too. But there remains a lovingly selfish-cum-socialist-y, "let the government take care of it" type of attitude--we don't like our president, but what the hell?--that even lets the overworked feel free, regardless of what's required of them. And maybe that's what I saw most obviously on my mini-trip. Not any sort of "la dolce vita" fiction. But the fact that most Italians feel free from expectation and big-brother ownership--especially state and corporate ownership, even when it's written into law--except for when it comes to family. Which is more an ownership of love and something all of us should applaud. More in the coming weeks. This is part of the book project...
