We know what we didn't want to know, we're not the center of the universe, no one has created us, no one cares for us, every one of us will live for a moment and disappear definitively for all eternity.

This suspicion of the stark reality we have had all human beings and all cultures have had it. When life expectancy was limited to 30 years and half of the children died in the arms of their parents, the pain this suspicion caused could not but be reduced to religions. Today, in places where there is war or severe poverty, religions revive, as they serve to stabilize the social structure and regulate personal exchanges.

In our context, for the first time in history, when most of us were born, we launched into the world with a life expectancy of about 80-85 years, which has radically changed our position in the very short term. On the one hand, we can have before us the longest life in history; on the other, we are more aware of how short it is.

In prosperous societies like ours, being young, in most houses we have the opportunity to see three generations seated, knowing the great-grandmothers is no exception and in those first years of life, sitting at the table, it seems that time is endless. With that feeling, we feel crisp, and we start youth with that forecast.

Who would say it, in 2020 death came out of the houses of others, we got out of the stories and we realized what it could touch on our doors. We were surprised and we didn't know how to react.

We wanted certainties, but neither experts nor governments were able to offer them. Like other mammals do, we wanted to unite, but because of the characteristics of this new “enemy”, we were locked in the holes of the houses, devouring the products of the supermarket, glued to the phone, drowning in contradictory and incomprehensible messages.

When the certainties are lost, any trace of handles can be useful. On this occasion two have been the most useful: the denial of reality: “negationism”; maintain the official version with orthodoxy. Everything between two sliding shields is denied. Doubt, criticism, suspicion are at the root of heresy and free, friendly and fruitful debates fade away; insults, indignations and misunderstandings prevail.

From these lines in these times of plague, as claimed by the author of the book “the plague”: I am going to bet on the dance of the undecided.

If we are not able to combine solidarity, freedom, responsibility and critical sense, I think we have lost the compass. Simple and naïve explanations will not provide an effective response to this complex situation; the contradictory and changing narrative that governments make is not going to gain credibility in citizenship. Authoritarian gestures will leave a serious wound in our near future, sterile discussions will bother us, and in the end -- in this drift, both in fishing and hunting, the traditional sharks that feed on all crises triumph.