Attilio Geva - Short Circuit, 2006, oil on canvas, 300 x 130 cm
Man IS an animal and should be proud to be. Man became conscious only by effect of evolution.
Man’s existence as an individual and as a species does not have any “special” and “universal” meaning as he would hope. One is born, lives and dies without any specific goal, without any noble destiny or without any finality. Obey the laws of conservation and of the evolution of the genome (or of the species) does not represent a finality, as man hopes.
There is no evidence of life after death as there is no evidence of life before birth.
A sense for existence must be produced and is needed by the human species as a compliment to the consciousness with regards to his own conservation
Man secretes sense like a snail secretes slime.
Sense and slime are characteristics so important that, along with few others, such as property of language or the eyes situated in the antennas, make of man a Man and of snail a Snail.
Although, nature does not have “specific” or ”explicit” laws regarding either the sense or the slime. As some think, the creative forces are not of the artist that possesses the “talent”.
The artist does not have a damn gift, but he simply, alone, must produce his own sense. His very nature of “snail artist” is what makes him produce sense in an art mode.
Man, unfortunately, stubbornly searches for a universal anthropocentric sense. The memes regarding the sense of life that have vastly been diffused and have been embedded in the minds of man are frequently used as mental plugs, philosophical tricks or mystical acts of faith.
There are complex, false and monstrous compensative apparatus’ installed in the human mind.
In order to develop in the minds of man, unfortunately, a memes must neither be convincing nor plausible under any point of view. Richard Dawkins , speaking of the god meme, said:-
The value of the God meme survival, in the meme pool, comes from its strong psychological call. It furnishes a superficial plausible answer to deep and tormenting problems of our existence; it suggests that the injustices of this world can be eliminated in the next; it is a pillow for our inadequatecies and, like a placebo, it is not less efficient due to the fact that it is imaginary … another member of the religious meme group is called faith.
It means blind faith, without evidence, against the evidence …
The blind faith can justify anything if a man believes in a different god or even if he uses a different ritual to adore the same god, the blind faith can decree that he must die – on the crucifix, on the pole, speared on the crusader’s sword, killed by a bullet in the streets of Beirut or explode in the air in a Belfast bar. The blind faith memes have their own ruthless rules to propagate valid not only for the religious faith but also for the patriotic and political faith. -.
The human mind, in time, has developed a very potent reality research system: philosophy, logic, science, all very important arms that mustn’t be abandoned and are necessary in the attempt to understand.
But sense must be produced and not looked for.
The elaborated rational mental models are not “exactly” the reality. It seems quite superfluous and almost banal to remember that frequently, in the human omniscience delirium, such arms fight against reality and regularly crash and result damaged. Thought, logic and science are tools and the matter of when and how to use them is a real art but more important is to know when to let them go, no one sleeps with their hoe.
Man is drenched with pre-concepts and tirelessly searches a prepackaged answer but never finds what his arrogance hopes to find and mostly, even though he believes in heaven, he desperately shits in his pants when his death arrives.
Attilio Geva
1948 born in Pietrabruna, Italy
Lives and works in Rome, Italy
Attilio Geva
Via dei Castelli Romani, 87
00040 Rocca di Papa (Rome)
Italy
