Many years ago, when I was a very young reporter, I was struck by a phrase from an elderly editor of what would become my newspaper, L’Arena of Verona.
One day the journalist said, with gray hair and a shirt held up by two suspenders over bottle-green corduroy pants: “If something that happened isn’t written by us, you can be sure, young man, that it never occurred.”
I was fascinated by that remark, made while puffing on a Marlboro cigarette, strictly contraband.
Much later, I would encounter symbolic interactionism. That is, the philosophical approach whereby social reality is not given. Reality is, instead, continuously constructed and reconstructed through the use of symbols and languages.
We journalists – I discovered over time – make and remake constructions and reconstructions without foundation, of things that don’t exist, every day.
As Roberto Vecchioni sings in “Per amore mio”: “But more beautiful than having you is when I draw you / Nothing has more reality than dreams.”
The constructed reality and the one that doesn’t exist
In the Summer of 2017, in Genoa, I interviewed a man who had dealt with telephone wiretaps at the time of the Milena Sutter case, the judicial affair I’ve been covering for many years.
When challenging him about the timing of a phone tap that contradicted the judicial reconstruction, I said to the former cop: “Do you agree that things went differently? And that therefore the court documents lie on this point?”
To which the man replied: “Corte, you’re right. Things happened as you described them. However, they went differently.”
I widened my eyes questioningly. And I said: “Help me understand. I’m right, because in fact everything happened contrary to what the court documents say. However, you say the court is right.”
His answer chilled my blood, even though it was summer, in a silent Genoa caressed by the sea breeze: “Things went as you say. But the truth is what was decided by the sergeant who handled the wiretaps. If he said a certain thing happened, and wrote it in a judicial document, then that certain thing is what happened.”
The possible parallel seems evident to me with those who believe in invented realities that contradict true reality. And replace it.
The 54th second. And the restructuring of thought
We’ve reached the 54th second. After the 53 seconds of illusions, which we savored believing in victory, it’s time for truth.
And truth is very often bitter.
We haven’t won. The woman we love doesn’t even notice us; or she has someone else in mind and in her heart.
The man we so desired has devoted himself to different and pleasant company.
The job we dreamed of doing has vanished like morning fog.
The defeat is clear. Across the board.
The first reaction is flight from reality, as we’ve seen.
How do we flee from reality? By trying to pretend nothing happened. That the 53 seconds haven’t passed. That what’s before our eyes still has to happen.
Fleeing from reckoning with reality allows us to delude ourselves still: the referee hasn’t blown the final whistle. The verdict still has to arrive and it will be positive, we tell ourselves.
It’s not so. The substantial truth of the facts is there before us.
So then, what do we do?
Invented reality in place of real reality
If we don’t like the truth of reality, we still have a road before us. In fact, it’s a six-lane highway in each direction.
Reality is created by our mind, right? Reality is the fruit of exchanging meanings between people, agreed? The philosophers say so, not the ice cream vendor on the corner.
So we just need to restructure our thinking. We just need to invent our own reality. We just need to construct the truth that we find most coherent with the 53 seconds of illusions.
And so… the 54th second won’t be as we feared. It will, instead, be wonderful.
The woman we love didn’t really tell us that she loves another who loves her who loves him.
The man we think about didn’t go out with the other woman because he chose her. While you remain stuck.
“All this isn’t right. It’s not right to think it,” we tell ourselves at the 54th second. “We are different. She is different. He is different. Reality is different from what was revealed to us. I don’t want to say that some power conditions us to see unpleasant things. But… we see poorly.”
And so is born – thanks to the restructuring of thought – a new reality. The 54th second is less bitter to swallow. It even has its own charm.
“I’m a better man or woman than what’s out there,” you find yourself saying in those moments. “I, after all, play in another league. And in that league, I win.”
Illusions last 53 seconds. The 54th second is the time of revelation. It’s the moment of final verdict.
If the verdict isn’t that victory we deserve. If flight is a means we’ve already exploited. If everything doesn’t add up… nothing remains but to change our mind. And somehow we manage to win.
However, a disturbing voice – within us, like a talking cricket – whispers that we’re cheating.
There’s no doubt. We’re rigging the cards and falsifying time.
What do we do? There surely must be a way out.
Since childhood I’ve been philosophizing about the fact that “there’s no problem without a solution; if there’s no solution then it’s a false problem.”
We, here, at the 54th minute must find a solution, if not even restructuring thought works.
We must find that new solution quickly. And quickly we find it, in the end: we discover in fact that there’s another illusion, a lateral one, to bet on.
The restructuring of thought didn’t go well. We realized that invented reality is a pious invention. Here, then, the plot twist.
We change horses. We saddle the new stallion. And off into the night, fast as the wind on the hill. The stopwatch starts again: we have another 53 seconds of another illusion to live, before savoring victory.
Maurizio F. Corte
(Part 2 – to be continued)
- Maurizio F. Corte, professional journalist, media writer and media educator, is adjunct professor of Intercultural Communication in the Media at the Intercultural Studies Center of the University of Verona and educational coordinator of the Master’s in Intercultural Competence and Management
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