Introduction

      The history of a human thought does not know other such book about the highest esthetics.

      After having followed many routes, from time to time considering absolute the one I had chosen, I reached the conclusion that each one forms an important part of the truth. Even today, when I meet people confirmed in their beliefs – some that are exemplary and others that are questionable – I have great tolerance, which allows me to understand people to be continuously beginning new paths that represent the many modes of life.

      I don’t like to give advice to the so-called adults concerning the truth of some things, partly because they are already spoilt, partly because they are not able to renounce their historical identity, and partly because they are looking to have rather than to be.

      However, when I think of young people (those who are fourteen to twenty-one years of age) my heart opens and my spontaneous desire to share knowledge manifests in a youthful way.

      I once found that one of my daughters was crying. She told her mother later that she was suffering because she was not able to direct her life in a meaningful way. At first, I said nothing to my daughter. I said to her mother that it was a rather acute crisis, one of tension and anxiety of the metaphysical, something that is typical for a healthy and intelligent adolescent.

      Most people, if not all, carry inside themselves a tomb that conceals the remains of their assassinated metaphysical potential. In essence, almost everyone reduces their existence to a biological cycle because they have not realized the ontic attraction of a metaphysical horizon (beyond the existence). The assassination of this call is systematically paid for with anguish.

      I have written this book to reinforce that ontic call, to recognize it and to live it. So instead of living to die, life becomes living to be. Consequently anxiety, even when you are aware of it, is not experienced.

      Chapter One

      Three styles of life

      1.1. The difference between living, mastery of living, and art of living

      The verb to live (in Italian “vivere”) means running like a force within a force. From the Latin vis сomes force. Vita (life) comes from vis and from the Greek roots of the verb τιυηµι which means to post, give place or materialize; vita therefore means the place or the situation of living. The term “living” (“vivere”) is formed by the identification of a force within a general force. Both the forces, the individual one and the general one, are moving like a current. The ending “-ere” (as with all endings of the Italian verbs (-are, – ere, – ire)) comes from the Latin verb ruere, which means to run, to roll, to exit from, to precipitate, to rotate.

      In fact, living signifies an active participation together with any other living being. The tree lives, the bird lives, and the man lives. Living being is used to describe anything that demonstrates constant autonomous self-movement necessary to accomplish all the functions that specify and characterize the individual as being alive. To live is just a natural participation wherein the species is specified as being without other attributes of superior differentiation. It is a biological current.

      Based on this definition, to refer to man as living is both ordinary and universal. The individual enters into the rhythm of nature and through this he experiences – from the moment of birth until death – pleasure, health, and pain at various ages. He is born to reach adulthood, conceive, and support children until they become naturally self-sufficient, and then wait for death in accordance with the custom of the culture into which he was born and educated. Everything that is apparently equal to man belongs to him, including laws, traditions, and religion: man can benefit from them, and he is bound to them. Man seen in the dimension of daily naturalistic living can consider himself fulfilled if he is without illness or physical handicaps, knowing that the well-being is secured and that the basic instincts of hunger, thirst, safety, sex, and sociality are satisfied.

      Living as if to exist in the “biological heap” is a good thing, and in order to succeed in doing so, one must follow that which is required by the law of the land, the culture of the environment (or of the masses), and the common religion of the country. By the culture of the environment, or of the masses, one must think of all the types of applied sciences specified by the many roles provided for in the actual society: medicine, business, literature, architecture, law or rights, theology, philosophy, sport, music, and the different professions or crafts, from the peasant farmer to the clockmaker or to the computer operator.

      The teachers or guardians of this horizon are the family, the priests, the judges, the police, and the doctors.

      1.2. The Mastery of Living

      The term “mastery” indicates that which is normal for the master, which means way of doing things, by means of a utility or function in a superior or better way than others. Therefore, “mastery” is defined as an attitude carried out with a continuous capability superior to that which others possess. For example, the craft of carpenter or blacksmith is a term applied to those who are able to work with wood or iron and produce better results due to their skill and ability.

      Mastery of Living means a way or style of life that is superior to the current norms of the social context. He who masters living is the best in the class, with “class” meaning community. A master of living knows how to do things better than anybody else. He has learnt about the different instruments of living and knows how to use and make them conform exclusively to his own advantage, with the aim of being the best. Everything is relative to his purpose.

      He is the one who, instead of being the sheep, wants to be the shepherd. From the biological and social point of view, he wants to gain the intelligence for personal power. He is a leader and his psychology or basic rules of behavior are described in The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli.

      He who knows the mastery of living can, without doubt, consider himself to be superior to many people, and his satisfaction consists of two aspects: superior historic realization (economy, leadership, and affectivity), and consciousness of his own identity and power.

      Practically all of these subjects can be identified in those people who are in fact (with or without notoriety) leaders; that is, people of the highest level.

      The thing that makes them different from the first way of living is that which will now be described. While the first way of living covers the model (or models) of being absolute and totalitarian in life, the second uses the models simply as a means to an end and observes in them measures that deserve credibility on the part of the others. The first are therefore what they believe, the second use what the others believe.

      Those who are identifiable in the mastery of living (though very few) develop their healthy egoism towards a progressive mental gain and a personality cemented in economic means and qualified (the most productive for their purpose) relationships – take for granted that each law may be good, but not definite and absolute.

      1.3. The Art of Living

      “Art” really means, that which gives form to the underlying force; therefore, that which gives a place to the form of the force. It comes from the basic form of the Latin verb ardere (to burn); a rough image could be the outline of the flames rising in a hearth.

      The art of living is the capacity to exert influence on life by means of models of action, which determine a newness of being in the existence. Instead of repeating the cycle of existence, the individual invents ways of behaving of such high power that they allow him to objectify existence