Author: Andrea Grassi

I was in my favourite Pizza place, one of the  best around here, and I got to talk with the wonderful Antonio, a man from the south of italy who also got the chance to travel the world, specifically germany, and work there.

He said “I was lucky because I got to come back to italy before it’s too late”
Late for what? I say
“If you stay to much in a place, then you’ll live there. Family, wife, all things will sort of bond you with the place, and I was lucky because italy is such a wonderful place”
It is, but how are you finding yourself here? Is it a good city?

I was asking this to know what does he thinks of Montevarchi, some people hate it, some people are ok with it.

“Montevarchi is great” he said “you have everything at hand, everything is near.”

He kept talking until he told me one of the most beautiful things I have heard in life, really inspiring.
In italy we have a saying that goes like this “don’t spit on the plate where you eat”.
It means respect the place that pays your bills.

Antonio moved this saying even further
“You must respect the place where you live , because, yes, you’ll be staying there every single day for a long time, and if you live in the shit, it ain’t good”.

Respecting the work or the job wasn’t enough for him, he respected the city too, and I agree.
Respecting our surroundings, or even the world, is a great thing.

Time will pass and your ideas will shift.

What was imperative will become optional, what was useless might become interesting.

There’s nothing wrong about change, although you have to learn to admit to yourself that your old stances are no more valid.

You will be proven wrong, but you better be, since proving yourself right in the same stance might just mean you refuse to grow up.

I love to hug, there’s no way I would deny this.
Hugging is like creating a connection, like protecting a child.

The hug itself is the human demonstration of vulnerability, love, honesty all together in just one action.
You don’t hug anyone.

The bad thing is that we usually don’t hug, or we don’t hug deeply.

But what is deeply by the way?

You might hear a marketer recommend to hug someone in a specific situation, would that hug be real, true to itself?
I don’t think so.
I don’t believe that kind of fake hug will contain all the data, all the passion and the feelings that you usually put and communicate through a hug.

That’s why we need more hugging, deep hugging.
We need to share our heart with other people, to let us connect with our inner parts, link two human beings for a second or two, not for love, not for sex, but for being here right now, for sharing the overwhelming beauty of a hug.

Truth to be told there’s no secret to hugging deeply. I lied.
I believe there’s one way to do it, yes, and I believe that’s the secret. But it’s no secret at all, that’s why I lied a bit.

The secret to hugging deeply is to hug deeply.
Is to share our full range of emotions inside a static movement, a hug.
Compress all of our feelings into a single posture, heart to heart with another person.
No motion in the hands or arms, a hug doesn’t need moving.

A hug needs to be static in order to feel both the heartbeats.
And in that awkward moment, you stay for many seconds that pass like an eternity between two different worlds.

Then we separate, as a child who becomes distant from his mother the first time he/she is born.
Born with a new feeling, a new sense of deep connection with the world.

The feeling of another heartbeat.

On giving gifts

• be passionate about gifting, the gift should be the great in the act, but can be modest in its form
• don’t gift if you don’t want to
• gift randomly, not only when people do expect it
• when gifting randomly do your best, surprise the other part, make them smile.
• the gift is not a door to future rewards, it’s ok if a gift never comes back for you
• No expectation: don’t expect a gift to be used, likeable, whatever. You are giving a gift, not an assignment.
• hug, but only when it doesn’t feel too awkward

On accepting gifts

• accept the gift you’re given, unless they require some kind of commitment right away, in that case take your time.
• be grateful for the gift you’ve been given, honestly, openly, passionately.
• it’s ok if you don’t like it, be honest without being an asshole, there’s a lot of difference between “this is shit” and “I don’t know if I’ll get to use it”, which might be just the reality
• even if you don’t like it, give it a shot, it might take you outside of your comfort zone and let you discover new ways.
• once an unexpected gift is given to you, set a reminder to give back so you won’t forget.
• hug, when possible (not the gift, the person!)

When you look at a leaf through the rays of the sun you can see all the veins running inside the leaf.

It is beautiful, but this beauty has no price.

You don’t pay for it. The only thing that’s required for you is to respect it.

This got me thinking, that it is worth creating something free only for the world and not for ourselves.

It is worth because that’s what nature does every single day, and the results are pretty good.