Anyone who knows Fede e Luce discovers that many things, once you live them, turn out different from what you imagined. Training sessions are no exception. The fear everyone shares is boredom. It feels like being a teenager again—like early September, when you had to go back to school. The worry is that you'll sit passively while someone transmits knowledge, explains it, elaborates on it. We know that what we'll hear is useful, that it will help us grow. But getting from there to staying awake without stifling a yawn—that's a long road.
Yet at Fede e Luce, mercifully, things often go better than expected. There's something that enriches the experience, that binds us together, that makes everyone feel like a participant and not a spectator. That's what happened at the training session for the Mari and Vulcani community, held in Castellammare di Stabia from November 1–4.
Following in the footsteps of a snail (the hero of a Sepulveda story) that traveled the road of hope with slow, steady purpose, all the participants threw themselves into the work. They set out on the path that would lead them toward the other. It is the path of encounter and friendship—ultimately, the very substance of Fede e Luce. The first step: each person took on the role of a carefully chosen companion, someone they barely knew. The most distant one. The one considered apart. For a few brief moments, they entered into each other's lives and "lived" as that other person. The question became: "What would my life be like if I walked in their shoes?"
The second step took them into the emotional world of the other. In an imaginary walk through the streets of life, each participant—carrying their own emotional state—collided with the feelings of those around them. The results were varied: misunderstandings that clashed with moments when people understood each other with a single glance. The group wrestled with one of the hardest questions in relating to another: "Why don't they understand me?" Sometimes it's a matter of emotional states. Sometimes it's simply language.
Finally, the group looked forward. We discovered that happiness isn't a simple emotion. Rather, it's the sum of all emotions—every sensation life offers, even the painful ones. You "build" it through teamwork, and that work can never happen alone. At the end of the journey came one more surprise: everything we needed to learn was already inside us. But without the other, we would never have had the fortune to discover it.
Isabella Gimmi, 2018
