On a different agenda

Mario Petrucci is an Italian-born British poet, winner of many contests, environmentalist, physicist, and avant-garde essayist. A year ago in February he became a regular Den/The Day contributor. His materials, including Letters to Ukraine, are printed monthly by The Day.

Mario Petrucci says that “talking with Ukraine through these letters is a little like being able to converse with an old friend down the phone.” Yet this conversation began well before he had started to contribute to Den/The Day. Mr. Petrucci is the author of poems on Chornobyl as well as a co-author of the documentary film Heavy Water devoted to the Chornobyl tragedy.

On the occasion of the first anniversary of cooperation with Mario Petrucci, we considered it necessary to give our readers a deeper profile of the author of Letters to Ukraine. We must say it was rather a profound and large-scale online conversation in spite of a concise genre. Maybe, Mr. Petrucci’s view of Ukraine’s ongoing events and place seem too philosophical to somebody, but it is a particular view that we lack so often.

You have been writing interesting and dynamic Letters to Ukraine for a year. What motivated you to engage in this unconventional dialogue? As far as we know, you co-authored a documentary film on the Chornobyl disaster. What else interests you in this country? What do you think of today’s Ukraine? 

“As I’ve progressed through life, I’ve sometimes sensed a deep desire to know what is true.  Not to regurgitate what others have told me is true; not to live my heart and mind according to what is considered ‘usual’ or ‘normal’; certainly, not to be a mere tourist in my own consciousness.  Talking with Ukraine, through these letters, is a little like being able to converse with an old friend down the phone, one who is mostly silent but receives everything that is said.  It was an opportunity to share my deepest philosophical and spiritual questions in public in the most intimate way.  I have always felt a deep affinity with Ukraine, as I did when writing the Chornobyl poem which later became Heavy Water: a film for Chornobyl.  This is a connection not experienced through actual visits, or in conversation, or through research, but at an entirely non-logical and non-rational level, where all human experience can be known to us.  I can never answer, through logic, the question: ‘Why your connection with Ukraine?’  The nature and fruits of that connection are themselves the ‘answer.’  As for the last part of your question, I am not so interested in countries and historical moments as I am in the nature and quality of those kinds of connection I refer to, and what they might lead us to.  In a sense, all else is commentary, however important it may seem in its particular location and historical moment.  In short, however, Ukraine is experiencing (as it has through much of its history) major economic, political, and cultural upheaval; this is an opportunity to embrace a collective and individual clarity as to what you are, or to dive more deeply into the illusion of historical progress towards some economically and politically manufactured goal.”

Although, as far as we know, you live in the UK, you are an ethnic Italian. What is Italy like today, after students’ protests actions and the resignation of Silvio Berlusconi? Giovanna Brogi, a Milan professor, told Den/The Day there is very much in common between the Ukrainians and the Italians. Do you agree with her? 

“There is much in common between Ukrainians and Italians, but I will not speak of this in quite the way you might think. Italy, like most nation states today, is embroiled in the flux of expectations and problems that arise through identifying ourselves with ‘economy.’ 

A human being is not an economy or an economic unit.  We are creatures not of consumption but of something timeless.  We have mostly forgotten that, however, in the press of day to day activities, in our obsession with material ‘progress,’ and so the news has become what is happening with Berlusconi or the Euro when the real news is within, between ourselves and those we love.  William Carlos Williams famously wrote: ‘Look at what passes for the new. You will not find it there but in despised poems. It is difficult to get the news from poems yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.’ Where is the truth and beauty in politics and economy, those activities that ought to be no more than tools in service of humanity but which have become (through our over-investment in them and our identification with them) monstrous masters?  They do not write the script of culture and humanity but of sensationalism and dysfunction.  Why?  Because we cling to them, and they to us, in ways that prevent us from being our truest selves; they permeate our sense of what life is until life itself practically stops.  In what sense, I ask, do economy and politics set us free?  They will not disappear overnight of course; but let us at least see them for what they are: a kind of self-perpetuating game.  If we can glimpse the truth of that, then there are no Ukrainians and Italians – just human beings.  What we have most radically in common, in that case, is not so much a cultural affinity or a certain overlap in attitudes and attributes (although those can be recognized and enjoyed), but consciousness itself, the compassion which derives from that consciousness fully known, and the opportunity to explore what we can be together when we are no longer sleepwalking through life as a unit of ‘economics.’  And, yes, this is not the kind of answer to your question that politics or economy will give you.”

As a poet and an avant-garde essayist, what European philosophers and writers would you advise the Ukrainians to read in order to better understand the Europe of today and reintegrate into the European space? 

“This is very much (and very understandably) a ‘media question.’ I could answer, at length, concerning the benefits and dangers of reintegration; but there is something more important at stake than this. I do not dismiss the strong implications for all Ukrainians in what happens next, nor the pain or relief that certain decisions might bring; but my vocation is primarily as a poet rather than as an analyst, and sometimes you must have the courage to stand outside the question posed; to pose a different question, perhaps, as a deeper challenge; to point beyond the box into which everyone else is looking. ‘What do these issues regarding reintegration serve in me? What part of the self is invested in them? And how have we come to a point in society where so many of us will see such questions as these as fanciful, whimsical or irrelevant?’ I am, in many ways, a man of the world, so – believe me – I do know how all this must sound to you. These questions I am posing are the kind of question no one else is likely to be asking in the ‘debate’ on reintegration, and they will certainly be way outside the remit of those in power; and yet I am convinced they are the most potent and important questions of all. We must see, first, how reintegration has its agendas, and have the courage, and resolve to explore what becomes possible when we step outside those agendas. Understand yourself, first and foremost, as an individual, not as a set of attributes, labels or agendas. So, read the Persian poet Hafiz, or read Rilke, Emily Dickinson, and Gerard Manley Hopkins; absorb Blake, Shelley, and Rumi; get beyond the ‘media question.’ Ask your own questions. Seek those artists and philosophers who open up in you a sense of truth, lightness and courage, however impractical these feelings may seem in the ‘real’ world. Do not worry if, out in the world of ‘big decisions,’ it seems we ourselves can ‘do’ very little, that our state of awareness or yearning for a different (or no) agenda is irrelevant. Everyone changes their world. Your awareness is very relevant indeed, and, ultimately, powerfully and irresistibly practical.

What do you think of the ongoing process in the European space? Which of them will have far-reaching consequences? 

“We are trapped in certain ways of doing things, in particular our habitual modes of thinking things through in terms of social or economic issues. Humanity has invested colossally in a profit-loss mentality: we run our economics and our politics, and may even run many aspects of our utilitarian lives, on profit-loss. We ask ourselves: ‘In or out of Europe – which is better for us?’ This old way of functioning in the world is coming to an end, slowly and surely. There are global issues afoot against which no sense of ‘integrated Europe’ can really protect us. Reintegration is a temporary ‘resolution’ in a temporary world. The consequences of reintegration will emerge and we will react to those in turn. Meanwhile, as consumption increases, oil is running out – the very lubricant for the industrial revolution and the material progress we continue to pursue; moreover, the social and economic systems we rely on grow ever more out of balance with our human ideals and our beleaguered ecology. We are beginning to realize this, but mostly conceptually; most of us have not yet really faced it within ourselves. We may hope that the dangers will not manifest as realities or that we might be one of the lucky ones who escape the worst consequences; perhaps we feel powerless to do very much about it ourselves. But there will be more crises as the imbalances consolidate and intensify, and our governments will become less and less able to deal with them. We can respond with fear and apathy, or with honesty and humility. Actually, in a way, I welcome these crises because each new crisis we face is an angel of potential deliverance. We have tended to portray angels in popular culture as sweet beings who will aid us; but the Old Testament shows that angels can bring seemingly grim outcomes as well, though only when necessary to deeper transformation. It is up to us whether we see the difficulty and opportunity delivered by these modern angels of economic crashes and ecological crises for what they are: a chance to contemplate the true nature of life. Or will we analyze everything, instead, in economic and cultural terms only, dressing up the angel in the guise of an ‘issue’ that settles us even more securely into materialist illusion and a terror of dissolution? Ultimately, our current imbalances (between nations and within economies, the environment and ourselves) originate in the human mind and how it projects into the world its self-seeking business proposals, economic activities and lifestyle choices. Any turning away from this is not something nations can manage through governmental policies or even through sustainable practices, but when individuals and groups of individuals become prepared to accept, in deep honesty and awareness, how the root causes of suffering and poverty, indeed our sense of ‘lack,’ begin in the Ego.  Does any politician express that level of awareness, and why do we, collectively, subscribe to their visions, ideas delivered to us from outside ourselves?  My discussion will all sound silly, of course, to the modern or ‘realist’ mind; but just let the question of what you really hope for sit within you for a moment, with no external agenda. Quietly, trust yourself. Trust your real self. Ask this, without analyzing, then see what happens. That receptivity to your own truth is what creates the true ‘history’ of a nation. It is what generates our genuine visionaries, and it is the source of that true reintegration within us.”