The Art of Balance #50 | Daniel Tarozzi, what dreams will you dream?
The director of our Journal is the 50th participant in the initiative “The Art of Balance / Pandemopraxy”, launched by Cittadellarte. In his contribution, Daniel Tarozzi motivates the readers to always believe in their dreams, stressing how the key to achieve them doesn’t lie in the “if” but in the “how” to do it. This episode’s guest also explains how Italy is full of subjects and projects striving to concretely change the world, in spite of the obstacles and the distorted scenario of our country that the mass media usually depict. “We have to draw attention to stories of change and stop reinforcing a decadent scenario, reporting problems but also talking with the same vehemence about who proposes and activates solutions”. Daniel also identifies ways to provide young people with the drive to follow a virtuous path starting from education: “We must study to enhance ourselves, our spirituality and our awareness. Work is a means to live well and satisfy our primary needs, not an end on which to build our identity”.

What dreams will you dream?
Dreaming. Dreaming is at the basis of all human action. When, in 2012, I started my journey in search of the Italia che Cambia (Italy that changes) in my camper van, I wanted to meet people actually able to change the world for the better. I’ve met thousands in the eight years since. Women, men, young, old, rich, poor, educated, ignorant, in cities, in the countryside, in the suburbs. Everywhere. And every time I’ve wondered what they shared. And the answer has always been the same: the ability to dream the impossible and make it happen.
Yes, because if you can dream it you can do it. I don’t think it’s by chance that the mass media keep portraying a paralysing scenario of squalor, mediocrity, commodification, apathy.
Reality is far beyond! There’s an Italy, a world, populated by a magnificent, bio-different and passionate humanity, made of people who don’t stop in the face of problems and defeats, who, in relation to an objective, a dream, wonder HOW to achieve it, not IF they can do it. That’s the difference. If you wonder IF you can fight organised crime, adopt a complementary currency, acquire a beautiful farmhouse without money, conquer the woman or man of your life, integrate minorities, etc., the answer is probably going to be no, I can’t. But if in the face of all these issues you ask yourself HOW you can achieve your objective, no is not a possible argument. And sooner or later the solution will present itself.

So, we have to draw attention to these stories of change and stop reinforcing a decadent scenario, reporting problems but also talking with the same vehemence about who proposes and activates solutions.
Just think about some of the young people, the so-called NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training). How many times have we heard the bourgeois criticise them. “Disgusting! These spoiled brats don’t feel like doing anything”. Nobody wonders why. What has made the fire of thousands of teenagers go out? They’ve had their dreams stolen!

How can you feel like doing anything when all you’ve ever heard is that you live in a decadent country, surrounded by mediocre people, and when the mass media are constantly feeding you mediocrity and empty stereotypes?
At school, children are educated with debts… educational debts… what debts??? We tell them they have to study to find a job and at the same time that there are no jobs, that there’s a crisis (there’s always a crisis). And then… look at them, they don’t feel like studying. Why should they study for a job when the jobs are not there?

What if we told them they have to study to enhance themselves, their spirituality, their awareness… if we drove them to the emotion of expanding their consciences, to a hunger for the knowledge that makes them understand the world… if we reminded them that work is a means to live well and satisfy our primary needs, not an end on which to build our identity?
If every day we showed them, on all the mass media, stories of real positive change, so as to encourage them to replicate them, to show them they can realise their dreams?
If we re-educated them to dream, to develop a healthy critical sense, to deconstruct the decadent and commodificating scenario?
What will I dream?”, you were asking me, “I will dream of a world where talents are fostered, harmony with all living creatures is the top priority, a non-judgemental approach leads us step by step, and a new healthy and constructive scenario has swept away the one that TV and newspapers have built for the past 50 years”.