Mariella Gattini

Life is not comfortable. It’s not, because it is inserted in reality, and reality is only one. It does not depend on your point of view or mine—it’s out there, and it goes beyond our wildest imagination.

When planning anything in life we always have to consider the worst-case scenario in our mental map, taking into account that the map we have in our mind is just an approximation of what is really happening around us.

Today, we are still facing the uncomfortable truths that we have been dragging along since the Industrial Revolution. Pollution, poverty, income inequality, gender and age discrimination are still around us, but we live our lives as if we were in another era, a more technologically advanced one. The use of laptops, tablets, e-readers, and smartphones gives us the sensation that we have accomplished something when in reality the only thing that we have been able to do is to insulate ourselves even more from the world—to become mere spectators of it.

We are living our own worst-case scenario. Charles Dickens’s Ebenezer Scrooge finally arrived in Washington D.C. and has been visited by all the ghosts, past, present, and future, but nothing has had an impact on his conscience, not even Tiny Tim. Tiny Tim is today the poster child for Mr. Scrooge’s agenda of greed and disregard for the most vulnerable. And all Scrooge’s aides and supporters are scattered around town, media outlets, and venues, like headless chickens in a desperate search for their fifteen minutes of fame.

We are forced to see their sorry behinds attempting to justify the unjustifiable. On the one hand, they’re trying to distract the public from the real issues they are there for, with outrageous statements to mask their special interests. On the other, planning in secrecy a more effective way to go above or around the law to accomplish the goals of their campaign financiers.

Emily Brontë’s Heathcliff is going about town unhinged in his quest for revenge, unsatisfied at every corner, disappointed, feeling entitled and thirsty for more. And people are dying like flies every day self-medicating, because healthcare is considered a commodity, therefore the more drugs you prescribe, the more money you make. And the plans are to make of health even more of a commodity so anyone in the business of health “care” can keep making not millions, but billions.

This is our worst-case scenario. I was going to say, thank God for women, we are there no matter what. But women are also contaminated, they also want a piece of the pie, so they put on their costumes of man imitators and go around town cleaning the mess behind Mr. Scrooge, Heathcliff, and all their aides and supporters because, guess what, they too have a family to feed.

I ask myself, why? Is that what we want? Being mere imitators of male behavior?

I was going to say, thank God for scientists, because they can give us a more reasonable perspective of what it means to be a human being, but scientists rely on grants to work on their research, and also depend on scientific journals to publish their findings. Everything is compromised.

I was going to say, the good news is that more and more women and scientists are getting into politics right now, as we speak, but it does not mean a thing if they are going to perpetuate the model already in practice in Washington D.C. It’s not just a question of coming to a consensus, it’s about giving a voice to the voiceless and powerless in politics.

In government, they all say the same—they promise they are there to represent their constituencies, but the reality is that if they want to have any political gain, they have to play the game of the ones already in power with a greater expertise in how to manipulate public opinion, because when it comes to the most powerful ones everything is nothing but smoke and mirrors.

Life is uncomfortable, because it’s real. When planning anything in life we have to consider the worst-case scenario to better manage risk, because life is all about risk. We are living the worst-case scenario of our lifetime up to now. The best we can do is take command of our own life, health, and direction. We also have an obligation to be honest, to speak up, and to stand up for ourselves, because if we don’t, nobody will.