The others are us. It’s us who are the different ones. People who when they say “tree” mean to say just “tree”. And when they say: “dishonesty”, mean “dishonesty”. They use the right word for things and for delinquents. It’s us who are “The others”. Even without knowing the reasons, we find ourselves to be aliens in a separate reality, strangers in THIS reality. They, the ones who are “other” to us, are believing, are living, are OK in this desperate Italy that is drifting. It’s enough for them to believe themselves in Paradise to deny Hell. We, we who are “others” don’t manage to do this. It’s stronger than us. We break up friendships, family ties, work relationships, because, even with all the self-control that we are capable of (that is very little), we don’t manage to stay silent. We are elsewhere. We cannot see whatever does not exist. The ones who are different from us can however do that. They want to believe the information that connects them to the ground. They are armed with backwards-way-round super powers and they have an outer shell that cannot be scratched. They could fly, but they don’t know that they have wings. If we are the “others” the ones who are other to us are the absolute majority of Italians. The “other” is only that, if in fact he is in a minority, that’s why he is “other”, this is why he is different. A minority of a majority. Their voice can seem unpleasant, and what they are saying, disagreeable. They are social UFOs, Martians. They are the ones denying the evidence that everyone believes, that are speaking out of sheer pig-headedness. The one who is “other” is one they put up with at the Sunday lunch, in discussions among friends, at the coffee machine in the company, in the doctor’s waiting room. A pain in the neck, a troublemaker, one who starts questioning the TV News, the Church, the Government. One who is “other” often feels a bit alone. On the Titanic, he sees the iceberg where those who are “other” to him just see banks of fog. The discomfort grabs him more because he is not believed, rather than the fact of finishing up against a mountain of ice. One who is “other” sometimes wants to re-enter the group. To get busy with the usual respectable things that have no importance. Get by. Life goes on and anyone who follows the flow always ends up in a sewer. But he only discovers that afterwards.