This ephemeral collection of epiphanies was directly inspired by the week I spent in Loro Piceno for Sapere, Fare, Diventare, in the context of La Scuola Open Source’s XYZ. The pictures that follow come from there.

Indirectly, these ideas are sparked by my broader ongoing reflections for Unbordering, XPUB’s 30^th Special Issue.

It is because of this blend that I expressed concepts both in Italian and in English.

I have no answers. What I am writing is a contextualisation of many questions that crowd my mind on a daily basis. I need to get them out so that we can gossip and figure out how to survive in this burning world, ideally making it a bit better.

Questo testo è stato abbozzato nel corso di una settimana con pochissime ore di sonno e poi revisionato solo in minima parte, sia per pigrizia che per preservare la natura erratica e delirante di questi pensieri.

Livin’ On The Edge

When I was a delusional yet euphoric teenager, I was a total ESA fanboy. I followed all the missions on the International Space Station as if they were episodes of TV series.

Naturally, I felt particularly drawn by the adventures of Italian astronauts, chiefly because admittedly I wanted to be them—and I felt like I could, if I worked hard enough.

One of the most effective marketing moves of the ESA’s Communication team was to have astronauts make playlists with their music. I played Luca Parmitano’s one over and over again.

Prophetically, Aerosmith’s Livin’ On The Edge was the song that stuck with me the most. Unsurprisingly, I did not really care about the lyrics, I merely focused on the title, which I interpreted with a typical adventurous, brave perspective, conditioned by a strong male gaze: push the limits, dare, pursue your dreams, etc.

It is troubling to recognise how much of the Western narrative has imbued a normalisation of a risky lifestyle as something to look up to, and I was completely subsumed by it. I wanted to become famous, I wanted to do big things, I wanted to live on the edge. I wanted to do what I could not.

https://youtu.be/jG7dSXcfVqE

As I grew older, possibly more mature, my view shifted to a wholesome, critical, and aware interpretation: the margin is the place, both abstract and material, where the most uncomfortable truths are shoved. The margins of the poor, the queer, the radicals, the neurodivergent, the BIPoC, the immigrants, the disabled, and all possible intersections of those. Even though this perspective implies a more mindful understanding of the world, it still pervaded me with a blind urgency to act, powered by rage and fuelled by white-saviourism. I wanted to change things, I wanted to make the world a better place. Even if shared with a community, the weight of this mission bore on my shoulders, and got me suffocating.

The Carrier Bag Theory of Margins

Once more, Ursula Le Guin’s Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction is able to enlighten any reflection by opening a complex, sincere, deeper, humbler perspective. Inspired by Elizabeth Fisher’s Carrier Bag Theory of Evolution, Le Guin observes that the thrill injected in fictional stories comes from a biased, unrealistic, aggressive interpretation of the hero. Male or not, the hero is characterised by extraordinary agency and willpower, he follows all missions as his vocations.

The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction posits an environment that is tied more realistically to societal and evolutionary roles played by non-males, thus resizing the role of a character that fights for their life.

I am an aging, angry woman laying mightily about me with my handbag, fighting hoodlums off. However I don’t, nor does anybody else, consider myself heroic for doing so. It’s just one of those damned things you have to do in order to be able to go on gathering wild oats and telling stories.

Drawing inspiration from this approach to fiction, I want to open a debate on The Carrier Bag Theory of Margins.

Are the margins exclusively extreme and troubling conditions where human rights are warped, violated, or blatantly ignored? Could the margins also be forgotten, quiet, simple corners of the planet where people are better off enough that they wouldn’t need to fear for their life, still lingering in a precarious parenthesis of partial happiness?

To be living on the edge, right now, to me, it means to inhabit the margins, to dwell in the intrinsic boredom and simplicity of what is left behind in the rush towards something. It means to slow down and reject imposed behaviours, identities, definitions. It means to sit at the periphery of a black hole and activate the full thrust to escape its gravity. It means to accept that we are an awful lot in this Universe, and its corners that matter the most are not necessarily where the most of us are concentrated.

What lurks in between all the cables that connect and power our computers? I am impatient to read the outcomes of my friend Holly’s Edges Magazine

Parliamo come mangiamo, ovvero bene

Quant’è bello sollazzarsi con esperimenti tecno-artistici di nicchia, viaggiando in una dimensione parallela con un gruppetto di elettз che trascorre una settimana a rifinire le coordinate di un punto in un file SVG, che si perde fra codice e pennelli, fra microcontroller e carta vetrata!

Quanta ammirazione per il legittimo ascetismo a cui una persona creativa tende in fasi di massima ispirazione, la potenza di ciò che sta nascosto e rischia costantemente di essere schiacciato o spazzato via dal vento del mainstream!

Poi ci si trova, fra persone così, e si trascorrono ore a sperimentare e a giocare insieme. Si concepiscono opere minuscole o mastodontiche che potrebbero rivoluzionare il modo in cui vediamo le cose.

Fu così che orbitavamo, fluttuavamo, ci crucciavamo per come stavano andando le cose, ma non ci azzardavamo a mettere i piedi per terra.

Improvvisamente, la nostra astronave di sogni, ambizione, priscio e intellettualizzazione si schiantò sulla Terra.

D’un tratto, fummo confinati alla periferia. Il nostro veicolo alla deriva, esclusa ogni possibilità di fuga da questa realtà che ci stava così a cuore ma che ci guardavamo bene dall’abitare.

Fino a quel momento, avevamo toccato terra solo per fare benzina, ovvero per verificare se ci fosse qualche altra crisi o sfida da dover risolvere dall’alto con i nostri strumenti speciali geniali e rigorosamente open source.

Invece, ci trovammo a dover parlare con queste persone, che ti guardan storto se proferisci parole come queer, governance, intersezionalità. E ora?

Ci toccò usare la loro lingua, rivolgerci a loro come tutti e non tuttu, cercare di non degenerare in un litigio sull’anticapitalismo se ci mettevamo a parlare di imprenditorialità. Saremmo sopravvissutз?

Ciò che lз nostrз simili in orbita considererebbero stupido, banale, insignificante, diventò invece una questione fondamentale di conversazione. Le nostre sperimentazioni si spostarono dalla più estrema e complessa macchina alla costruzione di una sedia.

https://youtu.be/0hqdcVrcVz8

È proprio avendo a che fare con quella sedia che ci accorgemmo di quanto stavamo dando per scontato. Di quanto l’umiltà e la banalità non andassero a braccetto. Anche la questione più semplice aveva un valore immenso, quando contestualizzato.

Forse, sorprendentemente, stavamo imparando ad abitare i margini, senza colonizzarli.

Fosche epifanie, equilibri precari

Dove si trova, e quanto arbitrario è, l’equilibrio fra la ricerca della propria realizzazione e contribuire a lasciare il mondo un po’ meglio di come l’abbiamo trovato? (Non me ne vogliate per la citazione scout, è più forte di me)

Come possiamo tessere, rafforzare, coltivare una rete sconfinata e sconfinante di realtà affini o allineate, pur radicandoci abitando radicalmente la periferia?

Dobbiamo mappare, connettere, documentare, archiviare, curare. Informazioni, illuminazioni, risorse che affluiscono dall’ardore dell’irrequietezza di un anelito verso la decrescita felice e gioiosa, non meramente da numeri e dati. Poi? Cosa ne facciamo?

Fino a che punto l’identificarsi con una missione non diventa un annichilimento di chi individualmente, profondamente, si è o si desidera essere?

Forse non si tratta solo di partire, fuggire, poi tornare. Tornare dove? Il ritorno è valido solo se è solo nella propria terra natale, oppure il solo tornare in Italia ha valore?

Quanto di ciò che abbiamo fatto, a Loro Piceno così come nelle nostre eroiche imprese di salvataggio del pianeta Terra, è performativo, quanto è invece desiderio genuino di realizzare qualcosa? Realizzare qualcosa, però, non è intrinsecamente, per antonomasia, una performance? Fino a che punto, dunque, una performance va demonizzata? Quando smette di avere valore, manifestando, ostentando, molto più di quanto significhi realmente?

How to survive the constant thought that somewhere you haven’t been to, something you haven’t read, someone you haven’t met, would potentially revolutionise your life?

How to achieve Low-Tech, without being too radical and avoiding genuinely useful tools, while not over-engineering everything?

Togetherness

Despite not having any answers, I believe one week in the middle of the Appennine Mountains confirmed my pseudo-method.

Togetherness.

Nevertheless, mere togetherness seems trivial, cheesy. Yet again, the challenge lies in carefully balancing the factors that lead to it.

• To be together with the right people: not too similar to end up being in a bubble (see Parliamo come mangiamo, ovvero bene), but not so different to jeopardise everything with friction.
• To be together at the right time: it may be super clear who we want to be together with, but maybe the stars are not aligned, and they are in a different place (both literally and metaphorically) when you are ready, or vice-versa.
• To be together in the right place: togetherness only works when bodies you are together with breathe the same molecules you do.
• To be together without annihilating oneself: balancing personal desires and identity with a choral, communal, mission and struggle.
• To be together cosily: being together with many people is a mob, which is beyond the point; being together with a couple of people is too easy. What is the right amount of folks to be with so that you know them well enough, there is a feeling of intimacy and cosiness, while still being many enough to be a stronghold to join the fight?

Possibly, there are more.

La missione

Per i prossimi 13 mesi, ovvero fino alla mia laurea, la mia missione è progettare il mio ritorno, la mia potenziale vita nel Ponente Ligure. Sono terrorizzato da questo piano, che tuttavia continua a insinuarsi nella mia mente in ogni momento, complici vari segni e segnali che la vita mi manda, ma soprattutto Ceci, che condivide alcune delle mie riflessioni in questo senso.

Scrivo questa missione qui, a imperitura memoria, così che, in un modo o nell’altro, rimanga incastrato e costretto a far fronte a questa gigantesca questione di vita.

https://pan.rent/@tommi/116508715762388402

Vorrei conoscere persone che si sono trasferite o che sono tornate.
Vorrei comprendere se la valle Argentina, precisamente San Faustin, sia il luogo dove voglio veramente andare, o se posso guardare oltre.
Vorrei approfondire i limiti, le criticità e le problematicità di questa scelta.
Vorrei preventivamente esplorare le potenziali sfide che mi scoraggeranno, che mi potrebbero portare a desistere.
Vorrei trovare una connessione fra queste riflessioni e il mio percorso pseudo-accademico (perché seriamente accademico io non sono) in XPUB.

Luogo speciale di togetherness, ÈnOsteria è fieramente, impavidamente, gioiosamente governata da Anna nell’impervio Appennino Marchigiano.

Apre alle ore 18:00, ma non chiude mai, in quando entrarvi significa tuffarsi in un’ebbra dimensione parallela.

Wow, it is a much bigger deal than it seems to be from the outside!

Resources

Here are the videos I watched to learn more about it:

https://youtu.be/aor29pGhlFE

https://youtu.be/oItwDXraK1M

Here is a #wip reference of fundamental information required to make a general evaluation of the amount of work needed and, possibly, an idea of the budget.

• What is the purpose of the website? (A small set of information pages, a blog/a newsletter, an interactive database, something more complex…)
• Do you want to edit the website yourself/yourselves?
  • How often? (Once a year, once a month, once a week…)
  • How much? (Just one page, blog posts, any page…)
  • How many people would need editing rights?
• Do you need an authentication or login system for the public? (Would they need to submit information, subscribe to a newsletter…)
• If you ask me to do something that requires a technology I can also learn about while building the website, that may lower my hourly rate.
• Consider that website development does not end after the website is made. There are maintenance and hosting costs. Understanding all the points above can give a quite clear idea of how much they would be. Hosting may be free and generally it can be limited to 3-7€ per month. Maintenance mostly depends on the website editing frequency.

Sometimes, briefly yet not too rarely, I see my life as a movie of which I am the main character. Whatever happens, good or bad, it makes up for the plot—cit. Alice Bleasdale. It is part of the story, part of the game. Tragedies occur, joyful moments arrive, and it is how life works. Living life as if it was a movie does not have to imply taking it lightly or not being enraged by what is wrong with the world (or hating billionaires, or destroying fascists), it is about contextualising it. It is about shining the right light on it. Exactly as a movie, it needs the right cinematography. It cannot be too dark, otherwise you understand nothing, like in any Game of Thrones battle. It cannot be smarmellato or it becomes cheesy and fake.

https://youtu.be/4cc9jyFMD5Q

Nevertheless, most of the time my sensitivity, my empathy, and my overall way of being make me feel everything, anything, much more intensely. Every single thought or event acquires a wholesome, totalising weight, and my positivity is swallowed by the overbearing weight of the current situation. Even though rationally I try to perceive my life as a movie, I cannot feel it at all. I am stuck in the vortex of current events and emotions, and I fail to see the bigger picture.

For this reason, I admire and I do my best to be inspired by fictional characters and real friends who I believe are great at living their life as if it was a movie.

The best of the best of the best at this is none other than Fleabag ❤️

https://youtu.be/b8pDI0dC2UM

By learning more about it, I found its advantages and its architecture to be very interesting, while remaining relatively simple, and (to the extent of my usage so far) completely compatible with Docker commands. I watched different videos (linked at the bottom of this page)

Rootless Podman configuration

Following the official rootless tutorial:

sudo apt install passt # apparently it is already installed as a dependency of podman’s apt package

In Linux, unprivileged users (non-sudo) do not have permission to open up ports below 1024. In order to allow ports ≥80 to be opened in rootless mode, a systemd parameter has to be set.

echo 'net.ipv4.ip_unprivileged_port_start=80' | sudo tee /etc/sysctl.d/99-rootless-ports.conf
sudo sysctl --system

Automatically start containers at boot

Follow the guide Autostarting Podman Containers. Deprecated. Using quadlets instead.

Quadlets

Quadlets are configuration files that allow Podman containers to run directly via systemd. Even though

Monitoring

For containers monitoring, I have decided to go with Beszel because it seems to be among the lightest and simplest options, but most importantly because the main developer and owner of the repository has a political statement in his bio 🔥!

#TODO))

Resources

• Monitoring my server with Beszel and Dozzle | Federico Scodelaroj
• Beszel Quadlet · henrygd/beszel · Discussion #572 · GitHub
• Chapter 21. Monitoring containers | Building, running, and managing containers | Red Hat Enterprise Linux | 8 | Red Hat Documentation

Resources

• GitHub - fpatrick/podman-quadlet: Personal Podman Quadlet configurations for self-hosted services in a homelab environment · GitHub

Current data

Following advice gathered from this post on the YunoHost forum, I found btop++ to be the best tool for observing the metrics of a system at present time. It is a simple solution to see at a glance how loaded the system is while it’s running.

I am interested in learning how to use common tools like Prometheus and Grafana to monitor the system over an extended timespan, and potentially alerting me via email for warnings or errors.

Beszel

#TODO)) Install Beszel

Nevertheless, I found this repository that documents in detail the whole process.

Convert uploads to JPEG XL

#TODO)) Using immich-upload-optimizer?