[ExI] Abandon all services

[Giu1i0 Pri5c0]

I must admit that in Amara's situation I would not have even thought
of writing letters to anyone. I would just have canceled the bank
account or credit card associated to the services to discontinue, and
left the country without leaving a forwarding address. The
"authorities" would have acted, if ever, 50 or 60 years later, which
is a problem only if our immortality aspirations come true.

Having left Italy 25 years ago I have gotten used to sad facts of life
like having to stop at traffic lights, and it does not bother me very
much anymore. But I remain a pass-on-red-when-it-is-safe in spirit and
think stupid regulations should be ignored. In some years, you will be
fined if you do not keep both hands on the wheel all the time. This is
just too much, and I think citizens should ignore laws that are
evidently stupid. It is the only way to force change.

I am the first to admit that my country has many problems. But there
is one thing that I am very proud of: we Italians have an instinctive
disrespect for authority, know in our hearts that 99% of politics is
just a make-money-fast scheme, and in general do not take bullshit
seriously. The world needs more of this. A unfortunate side effect is
that we don't really make big efforts at changing things.

G.



On Nov 10, 2007 7:36 PM, Stefano Vaj <stefano.vaj at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Nov 10, 2007 7:26 PM, Amara Graps <amara at amara.com> wrote:
>
> >
> > Cut the crap, Stefano. Italians and I both wrote the letters I used. To be
> > precise: I asked my 'self-respecting Italian' colleagues and friends
> > the procedures to use, they told me the procedures, I wrote the letters,
> > checked with them, and sent and faxed them off.
> >
> > I'm kind of tired of your implying that I'm not doing anything in the
> > 'self-respecting' Italian way. My colleagues and friends are ripped
> > off, shafted, frustrated, twisted around by the environment around them
> > too. The only difference is they have decades of getting used to it,
> > they don't complain when they are ripped off, and they have extra
> > and they layers of familial network to support them.
> >
>
> Please appreciate that I am (half-)joking with my perhaps indelicate
> remarks, and that I am both supportive and displeased/disturbed by the bad
> impression you got from the country - even though I am not especially
> affectionate to it -, not to mention by the fact that you had bad
> experiences in the first place, be it in Italy or elsewhere.
>
> But would your Italian friends really have bothered to do more than a
> perfunctory, if any, effort to terminate their utility contracts before
> leaving the country forever? Do they actually stand in lines any time they
> can avoid it? Do they feel it entirely normal to drive in countries where
> you are actually required to stop at red traffic lights, or perhaps feel in
> turn a little frustrated when this is the case?
>
> This is not a rhetorical question, I am actually curious.
>
> Stefano Vaj
>
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