Cities have a soul?
And if so, a psychologist might describe the main features, the dynamic forces involved, the character, talents, potential or unconscious neurosis?
Many great writers have described poetically this or that city, pouring into these descriptions of all their art, but the first who did it with a scientific approach - applying his theory of the "Metaphysics of Quality" - Robert Pirsig was in his second, an extraordinary book, "Lila."
Passing through other experiences and other cognitive paths, I had already reached independently in philosophical beliefs very similar to Pirsig's why, after reading Laila, I found elegant to use his Metaphysics of Quality as a theory of reference. Referring
welcomes the reader interested in reading your book, I'll just mention here only that, according to this conception, the universe unfolds in alternating continuous values \u200b\u200b- now static, dynamic hours - tending towards the absolute quality. And how, in a metaphysics as conceived, many aspects the reality may be recognized entities in all respects, individuality metaphysical real life project with a more or less recognizable.
Therefore, in this conception of scientific philosophy, the cities of the world would possess a spirit entirely original, independent and autonomous from the men who founded and by all those who still live in them. Cities could be "Imagine" as being, Bodies value in itself, which may acutely aware strive to capture in their deepest essence.
In the daily exercise of my work as a psychoanalyst, I have always considered careful, sensitive and intuitive. So it is on these qualities that will try to merge in to create this column in which, inspired by my travels, I will try to "paint" the soul of the cities that have most caught my imagination.
To pay tribute to R. Pirsig (who inspired me) I will begin this book with New York.
New York: The Giant
Here it is, before our eyes, lying between the left bank and right bank of the Hudson River: New York! The Big Apple. The Navel of the World. The heart of the contemporary modern civilization, as a time now far away it was Babylon, Thebes, Athens, Rome and then a few others, in a series of momentous changes that have marked human history.
New York. The most prestigious and influential cities in the United States of America, which, however - as friends and foes were concerned to point out - is not really American. It does not represent America. New York is only New York. A unique city, whose soul is the result unimaginable coexistence and overlapping of different ethnicities. Live here, in fact, without ever combined and intertwined, Chinese and Africans, Mexicans and Italians, Puerto Ricans and Irish, Ukrainian, English, Polish and many others, all together share in the creation of that unique humanity of which this city is home .
Today is our last day of stay, and we're here sitting on one of the famous benches from which you can also admire the famous skyline of the city. The impression is strong, intense, as if the image landscape and architecture - already impressive enough - Aggregate all the feelings and emotions experienced in the nine-day stay. Moods are so intense that, despite wanting to participate, making it difficult choosing a chronological order of merit. Where to start? What to choose first impression among many experienced? Difficult to prefer one to the detriment of another. If desired, however, force me, then I would say that the impact of the surreal first day when, coming from Columbus Circle, after passing through a forest of skyscrapers of more diverse bill - among whose roots peep unexpected small Gothic church facades - the tour bus found We rushed into unspeakable madness of Times Square.
indescribable in words - at least for my skills - why should I be able to make not only an impressive balancing act of architectural vertical and horizontal lines, but with - temporarily, even those resulting from dozens of advertising images in motion, colorful, which followed one another and overlapped on the facades of skyscrapers transformed into giant plasma screens. And, in parallel, I should be able to make the slow flow of yellow cabs between the huge noisy crowd of tourists and residents, the sobbing el'ululato sirens of ambulances or fire fighters who, heedless of the difficulties, sliced \u200b\u200bthrough the sea of \u200b\u200bhumanity and mechanical means with skill and conviction.
As you can well imagine, we were swept up in a few seconds, surprised, incredulous, fascinated, amazed. Unwittingly participate in the tableau that we were contemplating. However
New York is not just skyscrapers. Delicious are all those neighborhoods whose homes date back to the early 900, or at least echo the Art Nouveau architecture, with the main entrance at the top of these mini-steps with railings to which the American cinema has to be long been used, and the facades "curtain" furrowed by the metal ladder fire here that seem to be a building requirement. And then he asked about churches, most of Gothic or Romanesque, obviously "false" but also surrounded by small, delicious, bright green shady parks which seems to keep a safe distance all the other buildings. Avenue large, straight and long. Street in smaller proportions, usually shaded and less traffic. Which constantly drains out of the smoke, always in the best tradition of film. Large squares, solar. Monuments staggering, ranging from the classic Victorian style as bizarre hyper-modernism. And then the most prestigious banks, shops with the most exclusive brands and cheaper ones instead cheap and thousands of small and large restaurants for all cuisines of the world possible, Grand'Hotel luxury hotel and more popular, more or less famous theaters, trendy bars, huge underground garage, small parks and - last but not least - the real green lung of the city: Central Park, unimaginable without New Yorkers who go cycling, running walk, skate, play baseball, or walking the dog leash. From the terrace the summit of the Empire State Building, as well as the views of the dazzling panorama of peaks and terraces, you can hear the "sound" or "voice" of the city: a soft beat, button but continuously, like a breath ... the breath of the giant.
Robert Pirsig has been calling New York "the Giant" in the second of only two books written by him in a lifetime of reflections. In this second-philosophical novel - titled "Lila" and that if it was for me saved first by a hypothetical world catastrophe if I had to choose only among those five books ever written - in this second novel, I said, in chapter 17 it may be find one of the most beautiful descriptions of the distinctive spirit of this city
"Of course! Just look! God, his strength! Extraordinary! As an individual work of art could never match it? Oh, yes: it is dirty. Loud, unpleasant, violent, expensive. It always has been and always will be. The antechamber of hell, if you search for stability and peace, but if you try these things do not come to New York and go to a cemetery! This is the most dynamic in the world! [...] The speed, height, crowds and their tension [...] A punch in the stomach. See things all the time that nothing has prepared you to see. Take the contrast between wealth and poverty [...] The Devil takes away the last of the line, under your eyes, and a little farther on, a step away from the beggars, here are the first in line, with chauffeur and limousine. What a buzz! Never stop, never missing a beat! "
" Metaphysics sostanzialistica impossible to see the Giant. Because I used to think that a city like New York is man. But as a man, or as a group of men , invented it? Who has put in place at the table all the pieces?
Imagine two red blood cells sitting side by side who are wondering: "You will never get a form of evolution than ours?" and that, looking around and seeing nothing, conclude that no, they are the best, here is it not equally grotesque the idea of \u200b\u200btwo human beings, walking around Manhattan, wonder if there will never be a higher form of evolution to man, meaning man organic?
biological Man does not invent the city and the society as well as pigs and chickens do not invent the farmer that feeds them. The creative force of evolution is not contained in the substance. The substance is only one of the static configurations left as residue from the creative force. "
" Even New York is a static configuration that the force of evolution has left behind. It 'made of substance, but has not been done by the substance. And even by the man we call organic. "
" This city was a collection of extremely complicated ... The force that held together all the systems here is what was the Giant. "
And the citizens of New York, some more than others, all seem aware of the extraordinary by themselves represented. Just stop watching them - as I able to do, in comfort, sitting on one of the many fire hydrants or on some wall, while "my women" went mad inside the warehouse or Victoria's M'aesis Secret - to get a rough idea that most of their singularity. Each stop was a surprise. Like when I saw the old man go next centenary, deposited on a wheelchair guided by a ruddy black: the head, the little man had a baseball cap, canary yellow, wearing a jacket the same color. A plaid yellow legs, and at the foot of the shocking yellow sneakers. Who could have tanned in a way so absurd and beautiful at the same time? And why? Hard to imagine. But undoubtedly, there, on the sidewalks of New York, was a real show! Skip a few seconds, and that's a very distinguished-looking gentleman, dressed in suit and tie, slip ... the crowd with the roller skates on your feet, while formal talks in your iPhone. And here are two Indian women, carefully wrapped in their traditional shari silk, complete with a "third eye" painted in red on the forehead, sitting by M'c Donald's facing a mountain of burgers and fries drowned in mayonnaise. Not to mention dell'attempato Scottish lord who, in mid-afternoon, walking as if nothing had happened in a kilt, white socks and cap typical. Or the young gay, beautiful - it must be said - that on a pair of white shorts she wore a blue sky golf all torn and full of glaring holes, giving him a sort of elegance about generis hardly be disputed.
A flood of people moving! Men and women of all races and all religions, apparently very busy in all areas of the city, at any time, because - as we told the bartender of a Lilliputian bar where you could enjoy the authentic 'coffee to' Italian - New York never sleeps. If anything slows down just a little hectic pace of life here beats and leaps like nowhere else in the world. I've never been to Tokyo, or in modern Beijing, or in any of the many new cities of the East hyper-TECHNOLOGY that are knocking at the doors of history, but I do not think that will never contend with this city. If only for a matter of style. In his bizarre, in fact, New York has a class that the other can never have! Because if it is true that this city has had a "history" or a cultural tradition as that which characterizes the vast majority of European cities, it is also true that here have lived, worked and expressed his genius of the greatest artists and intellectuals of the last century, urban planners, architects, painters, sculptors, musicians, writers, actors, directors, dancers and photographers. All engaged and involved to make this city something unique. I think here lies the charm: in this tasteful and neglected at the same time, shallow and snobbish, light and bright, modern, frivolous, unreasonable and at the same time old, austere and a bit 'beguine. A city where everything seems possible but nothing is ever really a different line, where the contrast, the unusual, the asymmetric el'imprevedibile are not out of the norm, but the strict rule that everything adapts. By making everything changing, discontinuous, bold, bizarre and yet strangely balanced.
Valuable testimony to what I say in the presence of some of the cities most interesting museums in the world: the Metropolitan, MOMA, the Museum of Science, Gougheneim and the Museum of Science and Technology and its spectacular planetarium. Sorry if it's just ...
Nine days are few to penetrate the soul of a city. But intuitively I would say that ambivalence is his most characteristic trait: as if he were suffering from a chronic bipolar. By a sort of abnormal humoral dysthymia in which the alternation does not happen in time but coexist. A layer below the other. Maybe that's why, in New York, you get the feeling that the chaos is ordered that the frantic and calm, that violence does not exist, that poverty is relative and that the ordinary is absurd. In short, as if the imbalance had his own mysterious inner balance.
A friend of mine, a great solo traveler who has visited most of the known world, has returned from Japan a few days ago: When I met seemed straight out of a trip to coca. Dilated pupils, staring into nothingness, the disbelief in his own memory:
- A journey within a journey - told me - a unique experience to the twilight zone. A multitude of anonymous beings who could tread on without even register your presence. Futuristic cities and equally anonymous, where open pockets sudden resurgence of the Middle Ages. A nightmare! A world out of this world. Something really different from everything else it would be possible to experiment. An experience sooner or later.
I can not know whether this is really so, or if my friend is crazy ... but rather certain is that New York will never take that direction and, if what is now the East and modern technology is the hint of the near future, then perhaps New York will be in that future, what to you today, representing Rome, Paris, London or Berlin. Inhabited by men who are struggling to keep alive and integrity of their humanity.
