Written thoughts
Now or Never
Nowadays we live life inside a rectangle the size of a phone. Curiosities, beauty, sunsets, boredom, loneliness... we live it distracted, with our eyes looking down, or focused straight ahead but in 4K.
There’s this photographer who did an interesting project: he photographed people while they were looking at their phones, at different moments of their day. The interesting part? He photoshopped the phones out of their hands. What remained were these beings, staring at their hands...
Today the important thing is taking pictures. Even if they’re useless. We take them anyway. 90% of the photos just sit there, taking up digital memory — because they sure as hell don’t make it into our human memory.
We’re too busy living each moment for another moment — the one of views and likes. So what memory? No beautiful memory at all.
When there’s no beauty, no sunsets, no nuances — we retreat back into our rectangles, scrolling through a thousand meaningless clicks.
Nowadays, the thumb does all the work. We’re just there,burning our retinas, hypnotized by meaningless images.
If you think about it, right when we should be observing the beauty of life — seeing it with our own eyes, reflecting, understanding, digesting — we choose instead to experience it in 4K.
It’s more important to show it to others than to live it ourselves. The other matters more than ourselves. In the end, what we’re really chasing is attention, approval — dopamine.
You can also get dopamine just by looking at a sunset, without a screen between you and the sun.
We waste unique moments behind screens. Cherry on top: instead of contemplating what we just experienced, numbed we go back to looking down.
Meanwhile, the sun is already gone...
Let’s all tape our phones directly glued to our foreheads, right in front of our eyes — that would at least fix the issue of looking down.
Smartphones — they steal the now, the only thing that really matters. But we sell now for later, for that "later" that might get us The Attention. But at a very low price, however expensive. That attention is short-lived. Not real attention. Not real connection. Fake, quick, cheap attention. And the worst thing is, we’re buying that shit.
Bob Sinclar was really upset with his Gen Z crowd at his concert. No one was dancing anymore. No one was looking anymore. Everyone was just staring at a very bright rectangle.
Lately, I’ve noticed this weird trend of "pretty boys" filming themselves like, "look at me, I'm so beautiful." Where does this desperate need for help, for approval even come from?
The roles are really reversing. It’s not a cliché anymore. They were right, when they said they were taking away our masculinity literlly form our balls..
The best photos, in my opinion, are the spontaneous ones. The ones taken when no one expects it, not even the taker. I mean how many sunsets, monuments, dish pics we want to collect? No one cares, also because everyone is taking pics at the same shit the same way form the same rectangle.
I feel a small but growing urge inside me — an urge to get the hell out of all this chaos. Out of the machine-gun phone cameras. Out of the constant staring down. Out of the loop.
It would be beautiful. Really beautiful. Like walking barefoot on wet grass after so many years just wearing shoes. There’s something visceral there, something you find when you finally break boredom/numbness — and hit the real present again. Original, beautiful, new.
20 aprile 2025, airplane.
ME ME ME
Seeing others as yourself could change everything, but its a tough cookie to digest. We naturally reset—we default to seeing people as separate, distant, different. We see ourselves as unique, as if we’re the center of the story. That’s why we care so much about what others think—because we believe we’re so special.
Do you truly care about what I’m saying? Are you emotionally invested in these words? I doubt it. But if you were the one sharing your personal thoughts in public, you probably would be. Because deep down, we are the same. You don’t really care about me, just as I don’t really care about you—not because we’re heartless, but because we’re too consumed by me me me, our own thoughts, our own lives. Everything else fades into the background.
So, in the end—who cares?
17 March 2025, Cascais
Pearl & Flowers
I admire artists, innovators, thinkers—those who have developed their potential without losing touch with simplicity, with truth. Those who see romance in nature, in breaking away from the ordinary. Those who challenge the status quo, who defy clichés, the rules we live by, the ones we take for granted. Rules built inside imaginary cubes that, over time, infect the personal imagination, trapping us in an increasingly narrow vision.
Because our greatest teacher is nature.
When you ask anyone what they would love to do most, almost everyone says, travel. Or if you ask what they would do if they had all the money in the world, again, they say travel. But I think, unconsciously, they are searching for something deeper. Maybe what truly awakens us is the journey itself. Traveling takes us beyond these preconceptions, perhaps because, for a fleeting moment, we give ourselves permission to step outside them. Even more so when the journey is about the path, the experience, the act of moving forward while resisting the pull to get lost in the destination.
Like when, in 2018, I cycled across Europe, not knowing exactly what I would find along the way, with the awareness that the real journey was in simply being there, in that moment. fuck the goal. Or when, in Finland, I met a girl by chance, and together we decided—without a plan, without a set horizon—to hitchhike to the North Cape, children of that instant, of that land.
I’ve brought home some lessons; however, funny enough, I still have that gut feeling to explore—to be alone in some random place in the world, with all possible options open. And without that feeling, I don’t think I would know what I know today.
I've learned that the freedom we crave is ultimately within us, regardless of where we are. I’ve realized that the word freedom holds, for me, the values I am most drawn to and always aspire to embody: spontaneity—the act of doing something purely for the sake of doing, without overthinking; and fearlessness—the recognition that most of our fears are merely illusions.
It is in these moments that I truly perceive freedom in its purest form—the freedom to exist without structure, to feel part of the world in an immediate, unfiltered way. It is in those fleeting instants that the imaginary cube, the one that traps us within habits and dogma, dissolves, revealing just how unconsciously we had been confined. And it is there that I rediscover that childlike freedom—innocent, spontaneous, needing no definition—because it is simply being.
10 March 2025, Cascais
No ego, we go?
I don’t have a high opinion of humanity as a whole. People are selfish, ruled by ego. And yet, I don’t wish for the end of the human race. First, because I’m part of it. Second, because I believe in its potential—though I see it as something rare. True evolution feels unlikely. Ego is our greatest burden, yet we can’t seem to shed it. We are self-absorbed, hypocritical narcissist. The combination of ego and survival instinct is a dangerous one—a double-edged blade.
But then I think of the people I love—my friends, my family, my niece. They, too, are human. I only know them because of circumstance, just a small fraction of what humanity is. So what does that mean? Maybe I’m contradicting myself. Or maybe that contradiction is just part of the selfish hypocrisy of being human.
5 March 2025, Cascais
I’ve got a crush on a man.
There is something deeply inspiring about Winston Churchill. There’s an invisible force, some kind of magnet pulling me toward that part of history and toward him as a person, for how he did what he did.
I don’t aspire to be a politician or a poet—two roles that made him one of history’s greatest figures, the man who stopped that psycho child, Hitler. It’s clear that many admire him for what he accomplished, but even though it’s been a while now since I last saw him in his last biopic The Darkest Hour, his presence keeps resurfacing in my mind, accompanied by a gut feeling. There’s something I want to take from him, but I can’t quite grasp it yet, I haven’t made it visible.
Maybe it’s his immense inner strength in such a critical time—with the fate of the world on his shoulders, under heavy criticism, with the Nazi invasion looming—yet he carried himself with a kind of lightness that only an extraordinary force within could explain.
His strength, his ability to tell a story and make people fall in love with it, the way he made them feel something they had never felt before, how he manifested victory in their minds even while they were drowning in crisis—these are some of the reasons why I have a crush on Mr. Churchill. His greatness sometimes feels like it belongs to another world, other times.
And now as I write, I realize I’ve always admired figures who achieve great things despite being, in many ways, the antithesis of the status quo. And I love that.
Still, there is something I want to understand—something yet to be revealed, something invisibly surrounding me. Maybe it’s just inspiration.
Thank you Churchill.
30 January 2025, Rome
SPIRITUAL TRUMP
Trump was the first time I felt I could truly engage with and understand a public figure in politics. While, in theory, the Democrats seem very good—idealistic even—they often come across to me as full of empty words and playnig a part, AKA not in control. What I found intriguing about Trump was his authenticity. I could read his identity and understand it, free from the societal masks that most others wear. Compared to him, everyone else seemed scripted.
Perhaps the only comparable figure, in terms of shedding societal masks in politics, was Berlusconi, but I was too young at the time to truly observe and understand him. I’m not talking about politics here, but rather about a persona and an identity untethered from societal conformism.
In my view, this approach almost feels spiritual—a freedom, a dont give a fuck! A willingness to let go and remain unaffected by judgment. I imagine it takes immense inner strength, especially at that level of public attention, to remain genuine despite the pressures to wear a tie, be politically correct, and play the part. Regardless of their political visions, these figures are an example of what I call: just let it go, bro.
This is something I aspire to: letting myself go, despite the gaze and judgment of others—or even my own. That inner voice, perched on my left shoulder, constantly tries to control everything. Learning to use it, or at least let go of its grip, is what I strive for.
23 January 2025, Rome
Time here doesn’t exist
The other day, I was reflecting on how certain friendships never age. It’s an interesting, though somewhat clichéd concept—maybe because we hear it so often. But when you really analyze it, it’s fascinating. We can go months or even years without seeing each other, and when we meet again, it feels like we just said goodbye last week. It’s as if time doesn’t exist. It’s like there’s a temporal suspension between us
They say friends are the family you choose, and I believe there’s real truth in that. Unlike family, which is tied to us by birth, friendships are built on shared experiences, mutual understanding, and intentional connection. Over time, I’ve noticed that with some of my relatives, there’s a natural, gradual distancing that occurs—perhaps because our bond is rooted more in obligation than choice.
However, with these people, it feels like they remain crystallized in a moment, as if that version of me—of Pietro—is there, waiting to pick up those jokes or habits that created the chemistry in the first place. Of course, there can be many things along the way that disrupt this journey—girls, money, ego, etc. But if you’re lucky enough to withstand the bumps along the ride, sharing a life with a friend is a gift that defies physics.
20 January 2025, Rome
Vintage grandmas
In an era defined by our relentless toxic love with technology, we find ourselves on a path with no turning back, heading towards a world that increasingly resembles Blade Runner’s cyberpunk metropolis.
We’re in a unique period of humanity, balancing between two worlds. We ‘re living between past and future. The past feels more vintage and analogue, while the future offers us glimpses—like little time machine windows—that show us what we are becoming.
The generations of our parents and grandparents are still present and trying to survive at all costs, intertwined with the ever-growing, prodigious humanoid we’re raising. Though kind of disturbing, I think this transition is quite romantic.
We still carry phone chargers everywhere, stop to refuel our cars, and complain about always being glued to our phones. If you think about it, these things are already quite antique in our speed-of-light technological society. Interestingly, we can still it fight it! Like choosing to put the phone aside a moment, and look up.
If you want to take a time machine into the past, just go visit your grandmother—or if you no longer have one, go for a walk in an old countryside town. You’ll witness what is on the verge of extinction.
This exact period we’re living in, right in the middle, blends two completely different realities that are drifting further apart.
Cars running on oil, wired batteries, screens, and vintage grandmothers are still here—but just for a moment. Take it all in and appreciate it, because it will all be soon gone. Everything will be automated, integrated, and perfectly unnatural.
We’re in a unique period of humanity, balancing between two worlds. We ‘re living between past and future. The past feels more vintage and analogue, while the future offers us glimpses—like little time machine windows—that show us what we are becoming.
The generations of our parents and grandparents are still present and trying to survive at all costs, intertwined with the ever-growing, prodigious humanoid we’re raising. Though kind of disturbing, I think this transition is quite romantic.
We still carry phone chargers everywhere, stop to refuel our cars, and complain about always being glued to our phones. If you think about it, these things are already quite antique in our speed-of-light technological society. Interestingly, we can still it fight it! Like choosing to put the phone aside a moment, and look up.
If you want to take a time machine into the past, just go visit your grandmother—or if you no longer have one, go for a walk in an old countryside town. You’ll witness what is on the verge of extinction.
This exact period we’re living in, right in the middle, blends two completely different realities that are drifting further apart.
Cars running on oil, wired batteries, screens, and vintage grandmothers are still here—but just for a moment. Take it all in and appreciate it, because it will all be soon gone. Everything will be automated, integrated, and perfectly unnatural.