Why should we lower the pressure on expectations, as Colapesce and Dimartino suggest

They sing like this Colapesce and Dimartino in Splash, the song, competing at the Sanremo Festival 2023, which addresses two complementary themes: on the one hand, the anxiety caused by doing too many things in order not to feel the voids of life, that is, the inability to stop almost to avoid life itself, from Another thing is the weight on expectations which leads to always being projected forward without leaving room for the present, for taking care of what one has in one’s hands. Those expectations that create frustration and to which, after the pandemic, many people have responded by leaving their jobs (1.6 million Italians have voluntarily left their jobs in the last nine months): a way to return to being masters of their own time .

Thus, two years after their hit Very light music who lightly already spoke of «deafening silences so as not to fall into black holes», Colapesce and Dimartino (name borrowed from the protagonist of a Sicilian legend; Lorenzo Urciullo, 39) and Dimartino (Antonio Di Martino, 40) return with a song (it will also be in the credits of the debut film The spring of my life shot by Zavvo Nicolosi) that makes you think because it embodies one of the malaises of our age: the continuous search for something that doesn’t exist in order to escape from oneself.

How do we recognize ourselves in a world where our perception of ourselves is continually filtered by thoughts, by the judgment of others and by universal parameters that are almost always impossible to reach? «Responding to the expectations of others means forgetting about yourself, about what your talents are, about that uniqueness that each person brings with them», says Federica Cairoli, clinical psychologist of the Jonas Monza Brianza team. «The fact of emphasizing performance is a universal concept that loses sight of the particular, that is, considering each person as unique. Against an ideal self we are losers because there will always be someone better than us. There is no ego ideal to achieve, but rather it is necessary to rediscover which is our most authentic self».

To break the vicious circle it is necessary to change the way of thinking as the philosophers of Tlon Laura Gancitano And Andrea Colamedici in a post on Instagram dedicated to the fear of never doing enough: «In such a pervasive society, which colonizes any space to push us to create “content”, but which forces us to constantly live with the sense of emptiness, it is essential to create other ways , don’t think that this is the only possible world, based on an irreversible system».

The weight of expectations leads to filling one’s life with commitments, often without direction of meaning, in order not to deal with the void, so as not to be alone in nothingness. «All man’s unhappiness lies in not being able to remain quiet in a room», wrote the French philosopher Blaise Pascal.

We are so immersed in a continuous flow of noise and action that aeven being alone in front of the sound of the sea, as Colapesce and Dimartino sing, is something that creates disquiet. Or rather, it puts us face to face with that ontological restlessness that belongs to us: «The sea represents the opening towards everything that is new and that makes us truly alive. The fact of living on the edge of the world that we know and that we somehow control is simpler, but at the same time it extinguishes the spirit and makes us unhappy», says Cairoli. «The new that satisfies is not that which fills illusory gaps, but it is the ability to find the new in what one does every day».

To lower the pressure on expectations it is necessary to know and not betray one’s authentic self, ie rediscover what psychoanalysis calls desire. Not the desire that leads to always looking for something else, to give in to boundless productivity, but the desire that allows you to remain true to yourself: «Rediscovering desire means discerning what makes us happy and satisfies us. The psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan said that there is only one fault, yielding or retreating from our desire. Indulging him is the only way that allows us to wake up and be satisfied».

There is a single ideal that allows us not to be overwhelmed by the weight of expectations and it is the value that we recognize in ourselves, the only one that makes sense to pursue. Even on the Ariston stage, where expectations are very high.

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