In a conversation of three, you can be present and, at the same time, outside. We do not become transparent because we are worth little: other people’s attention follows other logics, and calm is sometimes the shortest route to turning into glass.
Everything that matters has its own exposure time. Roberto Donetta’s glass plates and a round house in the Blenio valley show what remains when we agree to stand still.
Lugano grows dark early, and the houses gather themselves in. Closing a day well, at work and in life, is not time lost: we close to find again.
A tin box on a stone wall, and no one there to guard it. At work as on a country road, trust is how we avoid wearing ourselves out.
From seed to cloth, flax passes through months of waiting that no one can skip. A demonstration under the arcades of Lugano, and what it reveals about the time excellence requires.
Those who hunt for porcini are not only looking for a mushroom, but for a state of complete attention. The same attention that makes us excellent at work we love, and the same that makes us forget the edge of the slope.
A chestnut grove is not a wild wood: it is the work of generations who never saw its harvest. From Ticino’s bread tree to Elinor Ostrom’s Alpine commons, why the most lasting excellence looks less like conquest and more like stewardship.
Lake Lugano at the end of summer, and the causeway that crosses it. From the fresh start effect to the study showing that holiday benefits fade within a week, why September is the real new year for those who work, and why its secret is choosing what not to take up again.
An eleven o’clock message from an office six hours behind. From the study that found the mere expectation of answering is enough to raise anxiety, to the laws that recognise a right to disconnect, why availability is not the measure of our worth.
