Dear Vittorio Feltri, I am a dreamer by nature, and it was my salvation! I have always maintained that to reach a goal you must first dream about it. I am 84 years old, I was born in an alley in Naples and I belong to that generation of old people who have never been children. You couldn’t be a child in those terrible ’40s living in a Naples destroyed by bombing, mortified by hunger and torn apart by thousands of victims. As the years passed I began to look beyond the hedge of my small garden and I began to dream of that New Year capable of renewing all consciences. Continuing to dream and hope at 84 means stubbornly wanting to still believe in the human being’s ability to find within himself those emotional drives capable of changing the destiny of the world. I do not despair and dream because I want to continue to believe that sooner or later humanity will be able to open the closed doors of its limitations to reach vaster expanses where the most beautiful dreams will become reality. And I dream of rulers committed to giving us back the dignity of respectable and hard-working people. Women and men determined and capable of fighting the mass of those evildoers thirsty for dirty power that nullifies the sacrifices of all honest people and I hope that 2025 brings us a ruling class capable of decapitating that evil octopus that has created deadly metastases in the healthy tissue of the our country. I dream that the desire for culture and justice become our daily bread and no human being will ever again shed tears because of an unjust and oppressive society. I have never stopped dreaming about it and I continue to wait for it!
Dearly,
Raffaele Pisani
Dear Raffaele, I thank you for your splendid letter, which I wish to publish to share with readers of all ages the fundamental message it contains, relating to the importance of never stopping dreaming, that is, of cultivating hope, expectation in Tomorrow. What I find most extraordinary in your words is represented by the fact that, despite the fact that you have over eight decades of life on your shoulders, which weigh heavily, I know from direct experience, you still manage to make dreams a daily activity, while, on the other hand, nowadays, kids seem to have already stopped trusting in the future, as well as in themselves. You reminded me of the warning of the priest who provided for my education and training, Monsignor Meli, who repeated to me: “He who doesn’t dream doesn’t score.” It was an exhortation to have high ambitions and lofty goals, therefore to pursue them with obstinacy and good will, commitment and discipline, and also a spirit of sacrifice.
Now we don’t like what isn’t easy and what is easy bores us. It is therefore inevitable that the new generations are aimless, frustrated and even depressed. It is the dream that keeps us alive, that keeps us active, fresh, clean. The dreamer is said to be deluded, perhaps foolish. For me, however, he is stubborn, someone who knows what he wants, an individual of character, hardened and forged, who doesn’t give up, who resists while others try to dismantle his dreams because they can’t bear that someone has the courage to dream. and may he make it for this.
Those who don’t dream would like to see us drown in their own mediocrity, in the stagnant waters of their own resignation.
Raffaele, I dreamed a lot and, following the instructions of my little priest, who I call this because he was both short in stature and high in morality, I became what I wanted to be and I did what I wanted to do in life since I was just six. years, indeed, reality has surpassed the dream, since I could never have imagined that I would have traveled the entire road that I have behind me. And there would be enough to stop me, withdraw, say to myself «ok, that’s enough», and yet I can’t.
It’s a bit like that healthy illness that you have, which every morning leads you to look ahead, beyond the hedge, beyond the last limit, or the last finish line.
Best wishes, my friend. Best wishes to those who, like us, have dreams still burning.