About

Chapter 1 - Not Everybody can be a child.

I was born in Italy, in a small countryside town steeped in Southern tradition. Time seems immutable there.

Growing up, we didn't have much—working-class at best. Peasants. My parents, both poorly educated, did the best they could. My mom was a homemaker and fruit picker, while my father worked as a solo trader. We were three kids, born five years apart. Food was never missing.

Dialect was the first language I learned, spoken by my grandparents. Italian came later, at school. My parents were fluent in the "pugliese" dialect but struggled with Italian.

At school, it took me a long time to learn Italian. I struggled a lot with grammar. My father tried to help me with my homework, but he never had the patience. He made me cry all the time with poor results. He didn't even know what he was trying to teach me—he never learned the difference between accents or whether e was a conjunction or a verb. But he tried with me.

Primary school was pleasant. There wasn't much time for play—just studying. Six days a week, from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. I was pretty good at thinking and applying frameworks. My teacher called me "the philosopher." I liked that. Possibly true—I was one, even though I didn't know what it meant.

Through the years, I became one of the best students in my class. To be fair, though, the competition wasn't too harsh. Most of the other kids were just more unlucky than me.

Many of the kids I grew up with didn't fare well. Some ended up in jail, others struggled with jobs, family, and barely made it to the end of the month. Alessandro's dad did the worst jobs: cleaning the public sewer when it got clogged. He would carry the forever smell of shit for life. And his kids would be marked for it.

Giuseppe was crippled. He was born with a leg defect, and by the age of 11, he had already undergone many surgeries.

Rocco was one of my best friends. A real criminal. A real leader. I learned a lot from him. He taught me how to use a slingshot, how to handle bullies, and probably how to use my brain and do things my own way when necessary. He was a real example. I respected him and always wanted to be his friend, to please him. I think he realized that and was never too fond of me. Fair enough.

I wasn't the coolest kid, but at least I was smart. Growing up, I always struggled with other kids. I preferred reading alone to playing with them. A disaster in team sports—possibly always the last to be chosen.

I couldn't play the ball well; I was clumsy. But I excelled in strategic games like hide and seek. As a kid, I spent a lot of time observing: people, animals, and nature. I always found myself struggling to mix with the crowds. Crowds are noisy and do silly things. I couldn't fit in.

I remember spending a whole afternoon with the monthly magazine Focus, the Italian version of Popular Science. I was always drawn to science, physics, history, and biology. I liked the factuality of things. Narrative wasn't for me. Today, I still prefer nonfiction. I just don't understand stories. I have no fantasy.

During summer, I played with a neighbour of mine. He was full of initiative—a money maker. We used to sell our little toys, set up a market stall in front of our house, and use the money to buy lollies or ice cream.

We liked playing soccer using the garage door as a goal. The neighbours hated it. Too noisy and possibly damaging their properties. We spent summers building little homes out of old pallets and paper boxes in an old oil factory near home. That was our fun. Climbing into the abandoned factory was another great game for us.

Inside, the decay: addicts going there for heroin, people abusing immigrant or disabled women on mattresses full of bugs. Sometimes, criminal beatings took place there. A human trash heap. Not a place you'd want to grow up.

I don't remember much about kindergarten, but I remember it as a happy time. I had good friends, and we used to play together. My mom used to take me down the road every day. She cared for her kids but just couldn't express her feelings—a real handicap.

My grandfather used to take me with him on his ApeCar to work on his little piece of land. We worked around mandarins, olive trees, and a few figs and lemons. In the summer, we picked capers, green beans, and watermelons. I was happy there. My dad even built me a little hoe so I could help. It was exciting.

I remember spending the summer watching out of the balcony. I was shy. I often felt insignificant. My parents often reminded me how insignificant I was compared to my cousins. Pleasing them was hard, nearly impossible. I hardly received a kind word or some encouragement. But that was their way to be, and they knew nothing else. Not their fault to some degree. I heard "bravo" from my father only once a year if during the school parents meetings all the teachers were happy with my results.

Being a good student was the only way for me to please him.

Once a week, in the afternoon, we went to the Christian after-school programme, where our teacher instructed us about the word of God. That God was Catholic, no exceptions allowed.

We used to play at the oratory, and it was super fun. I enjoyed it. On the way back home, we bought firecrackers and exploded them. Just excellent. We had to cross a wheat field on the other side of town to get there. All the kids went together.

There were limited opportunities for playing during summers. Not much fun. We nearly wished we could go back to school. One of the highlights of this time was the First Holy Communion. I wanted to become a preacher. I guess it resonated a lot with being called a philosopher—just different dealings.

I used to spend hours reading and re-reading my grandmother's encyclopaedia. She bought it for her kids in the '70s. She wanted them to study. They never used it.

I lost both my grandfathers at a very young age and never had the chance to know them well. When one passed away, I became like a cold piece of ice—untouchable. That's how you prove your feelings where I come from, and you learn it early.

I always wanted to study. When it was time to get into middle school, I applied to study a third language, French. At that time, English was starting to be taught in the school. I was brilliant at that. But I wanted more. A lottery was set up in place for all the kids that wanted to study it. Fortune wasn't with me.

I completed the first part of my education at 11. I was one of the best. Possibly a different story later on in my life.