Essere giovani

Between philosophy and biography, Caffo offers us an enlightening essay-memoir which, by comparing thinkers and writers – from Plato to Dostoyevsky and from Freud to Leopardi – makes us ponder the philosophical and existential meaning of youth.

On a summer’s evening, the thirty-year-old author happens to see some children playing football. He immediately identifies with them and approaches in the hope of joining them. Only when he hears them address him formally, he walks away and realises there and then that no matter how much he wants to feel and believe he is young, he is in actual fact an adult. The narrator is a philosopher, however, and his disappointment soon turns into a question: what does being young mean? So he embarks on a contemplation that involves Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Nietzsche, Pasolini and many others who have tackled the subject before him. The author sees the world as a unique whole and us as part of that whole. But, above all, is it possible to go back to being young again? The answer is yes. Furthermore, being able to “become young” is the essence of a new human life.