Vita on manuel uberti

In compagnia di Bob e Grant

manuel.uberti@mailbox.org (Manuel Uberti) — Sun, 11 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Da mesi ormai trovarmi davanti alla pagina bianca mi spaventa. Non riesco a scrivere. Non riesco ad usare le parole per rendere concreto ciò che penso come ho sempre fatto.

Per superare questo per me nuovo tipo di blocco ho deciso di prendere la prima cosa che mi viene in mente in questo preciso istante e usarla come punto di partenza.

Dunque, sto ascoltando Hot Wax di Grant Hart. Ad essere sincero, non ho mai dedicato troppa attenzione alle carriere soliste di Bob Mould e Grant Hart. Mi bastano i dischi degli Hüsker Dü, mi dicevo. Posso sempre tornare a quelli ed essere felice di non essermi fermato a Zen Arcade seguendo chi, tra le mie frequentazioni di una ventina di anni fa, lo riteneva l’unico capolavoro del trio americano.

Il mese scorso mi sono trovato a spulciare, ancora una volta, l’archivio del purtroppo defunto Bastonate. Ci ho trovato articoli sulle opere di Bob Mould e di Grant Hart che mi hanno dato la spinta di cui avevo bisogno per approfondire. Ho letto l’autobiografia di Bob Mould, guardato Every Everything: The Music, Life & Times of Grant Hart, e di certo recupererò anche il libro di Michael Azerrad che è ancora a casa dei miei per un bel ripasso.

Da un lato c’è Mould, prolifico ed esigente, una vita di traslochi, scoperta di se stesso, tour sfiancanti e un’inarrestabile urgenza di mettere in musica il proprio sentire, vada come vada. Dall’altro c’è Grant, una manciata di album che sbucano dal nulla di un’esistenza ai margini, la droga, e la morte che ce lo porta via prematuramente.

Con entrambi, però, il tempo non ha avuto la meglio. È rimasta intatta la capacità di usare poche note e poche parole per dire tutto, per riempire ogni vuoto, per segnare, ancora e per sempre, le mie giornate. Poi si può discutere sul fatto che ciò che di significativo avevano da dire lo abbiano detto con gli Hüsker Dü, ma non importa. Anche da soli, separati da una distanza incolmabile, hanno tracciato un percorso in cui ogni sosta ha la sua magia, ogni direzione vale la pena di essere seguita.

È confortevole avere questa musica con me. In quello che è senza ombra di dubbio il periodo più complicato della mia vita aggrapparmi a questa musica è né più né meno una indispensabile forma di salvezza.

E adesso?

manuel.uberti@mailbox.org (Manuel Uberti) — Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

E adesso? si domandava.

— Il deserto dei Tartari, Dino Buzzati

Lentamente, un passo alla volta, sto ritrovando me stesso. Non è facile passare dal silenzio alle parole.

I primi mesi di questo 2026 sono stati un abisso da perlustrare, in apparenza senza un fondo dove potere almeno toccare. Mi sono ritirato dalla quotidianità e dal mondo esterno in cerca di qualcosa che poteva e doveva essere solo dentro di me. Mai prima d’ora avevo rivolto uno sguardo così penetrante a ciò che sono.

Nel cercarmi e ritrovarmi ho di nuovo incontrato quello che mi fa stare bene, riuscendo a viverlo con l’entusiasmo che sembrava avermi abbandonato. Affetti, passioni, le piccole e le grandi cose che riempiono la mia vita: è tutto qua. Banalmente, dove è sempre stato. Fortunatamente, dove sono ancora in grado di vederlo.

Sono rientrato nella routine a testa alta, con la voglia di credere in me e in quello che c’è. Ho ancora qualche cosa da sistemare, ma lentamente, un passo alla volta, ci arrivo.

Silenzio

manuel.uberti@mailbox.org (Manuel Uberti) — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Il silenzio su questo spazio in questo inizio 2026 non rispecchia come avrei voluto cominciare il nuovo anno. Avevo in mente di leggere vari libri e scriverci qualcosina, ma le cose stanno andando diversamente.

Credo, anzi, che il silenzio si protrarrà ancora per qualche tempo, perché sto lavorando su me stesso in un modo del tutto nuovo per me. Sto combattendo contro qualcosa che non avevo mai preso così sul serio: la depressione.

Ci vorrà un po’, insomma, per riavermi qui con i miei scritti.

Perché nulla può impedire che una parte di me sia sempre vicino a te e una parte di te sia sempre vicino a me.

— Lettera a Paul Celan, Ingeborg Bachmann

My 2025

manuel.uberti@mailbox.org (Manuel Uberti) — Tue, 23 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Here we are again, with another year about to end. You have to excuse me for my silence in the last couple of months, but some things in my life needed particular attention so I haven’t had enough space in my mind to sit down for new writings on this blog.

Even now as I write these words, I am somewhat disconnected from the blank page. In my defense, 2025 has been an emotional roller coaster that I haven’t overcome yet, and I’ve got this bad feeling that 2026 is going to be a hell of a ride for quite some time.

This is to say that this year’s recap won’t look as my usual year’s recap. I’m going to highlight few, memorable things, but that’s it. No lists of any kind, then, just what was worth my while.

work

I lost my job this year, but I was prepared and in September I joined Verlata as a member of the IT department. For the first time in my life I’m working for a social cooperative, which gives a different value to my work. It also asks me to get accustomed to the fact that I won’t be providing software to car factories, banks or insurance companies.

The more I embrace my new career the more it looks like this is a change I was in dire need of. Perhaps it would’ve happened anyway, even if my previous company didn’t shut down. Or maybe not, maybe I needed to be forced into it. Whatever the case, I’m ready now.

education

Thanks to Ribellione Animale I fell in love with nonviolent communication and the world of facilitation. This has led me to join a proper course where I can challenge myself all the time with a new set of skills.

Facilitation is as much about working with a group of people as it is about discovering yourself. It’s a paradigm shift in that it pushes me to look at the world within and around me with another pair of eyes altogether.

What’s more, I’m not even halfway through the course yet and I can safely say it’s going to be a transformative experience.

music

One thing that’s been sort of constant throughout 2025’s most turbulent days is Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska, revealed to me in all its intimacy by Warren Zanes’s lovely Deliver Me from Nowhere: The Making of Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska.

It’s hard to explain why an old record combining tales of murderers with its author’s past has meant so much. Springsteen’s true intentions here aren’t really clear to me, for instance. Is he trying to sublimate his own experience through the lives of ambiguous characters? Are their stories the evil side of what his conscience is telling us? Is he just a great storyteller and there is nothing more to it?

I don’t know and frankly I don’t care either. What I do know is that Nebraska tells me something relevant to me with every song. And by the way, Scott Cooper’s film inspired by Zanes’s pages is gorgeous.

the end

It all flowed over me with a screaming ache of pain … remember, remember, this is now, and now and now. Live it, feel it, cling to it. I don’t want to blot the fear out, and blur the edges of living now. I want to become acutely aware of all that I’ve taken for granted.

— Letter to Edward Cohen, Sylvia Plath

Happy New Year.

Corso di facilitazione

manuel.uberti@mailbox.org (Manuel Uberti) — Fri, 10 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

In chiusura dello scritto precedente avevo lasciato in sospeso una bella novità in arrivo questo mese. Perciò, senza ulteriori indugi, eccola qua: l’ultimo fine settimana di ottobre inizio il Corso triennale di facilitazione di gruppi organizzato da La Prossima Cultura.

Perché un corso di facilitazione? Perché mettere da parte la laurea specialistica per qualcosa al di fuori del contesto universitario? Il merito di questa mia scelta è tutto da attribuire a Ribellione Animale e al profondo cambiamento che farne parte ha messo in moto nella mia vita.

È in Ribellione Animale, infatti, che sono venuto a contatto per la prima volta con la pratica della facilitazione. Esservi continuamente esposto mi ha fatto capire che non si tratta solo di moderare discussioni di gruppo online o in presenza. La facilitazione porta con sé una rivoluzione culturale che in prima battuta comincia dentro di noi.

Il corso si sviluppa in tre livelli per un totale di tre anni. Mi riservo di decidere se proseguire con i livelli di approfondimento e avanzato dopo aver frequentato il livello base. Certo, aspettative ed entusiasmo sono già alle stelle. In qualche modo sento il desiderio di affrontare un percorso del genere fino in fondo, ma tempo al tempo.

In ogni caso, prometto un riepilogo a fine corso per raccontare e rivivere questa esperienza.

Con la coda dell'occhio

manuel.uberti@mailbox.org (Manuel Uberti) — Fri, 03 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Perché l’affetto quando passa non torna.

— L’arte della gioia, Goliarda Sapienza

È da un po’ che cerco ispirazione. Mi va di aggiornare il blog con qualcosa, ma tutti gli argomenti di cui vorrei scrivere mi scivolano addosso lasciando pochissime tracce meritevoli di essere pubblicate.

Sto leggendo e apprezzando molto L’arte della gioia di Goliarda Sapienza in questi giorni. Mentre lo leggo, però, la mente corre ancora a La morte di Virgilio di Hermann Broch. Un libro quest’ultimo che, pur attestandosi tra i più complessi fra quelli presenti sui miei scaffali, mi ha consegnato le più belle parole dell’anno al momento.

Nonostante mi tenga ancora piuttosto stretto Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You, ultimamente ascolto con piacere due dischi nello specifico: Hard Headed Woman di Margo Price e w/ the Producers di Paul St. Hilaire. Country e dub-techno possono convivere fianco a fianco? Sì, e senza litigare per giunta.

Ci sono almeno due film che mi hanno particolarmente, e per motivi diversi, segnato nei giorni scorsi: The Life of Chuck di Mike Flanagan e Together di Michael Shanks. Sono quel genere di cinema che risveglia il mio amore per una passione che tendo sciaguratamente a tenere troppo in secondo piano.

Ognuno dei tre capoversi precedenti, a guardarlo bene, potrebbe fornire lo spunto per un pezzo più lungo. Magari anche più di uno in mani esperte. E poi, non è quello che faccio di solito? Intendo dire, non è di libri, musica e cinema che scrivo e di cui sento il bisogno di scrivere solitamente?

Non riesco a giustificare facilmente la mancanza di stimoli. Mi sento di puntare il dito contro un’esperienza complessa e ancora lontana dal potersi considerare conclusa, nella quale ho visto crescere in me l’affetto per una persona, l’ho visto travolgermi e attraversarmi, per poi prendere una direzione dove solo la coda dell’occhio può ormai percepirlo. Mentre si distanziava subdolamente l’affetto ha deciso di portarsi via qualche pezzo di me. Inutile dire che è necessario ancora uno sforzo per ritrovarmi.

Oppure c’è altro dietro agli stimoli che latitano e devo capire meglio di cosa si tratta. Dopo un paio di mesi senza impiego una nuova avventura è cominciata. È troppo presto per giudicarla obiettivamente adesso, ma se è vero che ho parecchio da fare per essere di nuovo me stesso, allora anche il lavoro dovrà aspettare per vedermi al meglio di quello che posso dare. A patto che questo sia, a tutti gli effetti, il posto dove potere essere la versione migliore di me.

Eppure, in un periodo di questioni irrisolte, ottobre arriva in compagnia di qualcosa di positivo. Annuncerò più in là di cosa si tratta così eviterò di lamentarmi un’altra volta di non avere niente di cui scrivere.

The chance of unemployment

manuel.uberti@mailbox.org (Manuel Uberti) — Tue, 24 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

After more than eight years my journey with 7bridges has come to an end, but I don’t intend to dwell on 7bridges’s shortcomings. What is left of it will soon cease to be of any concern of mine anyway.

Instead, I’d like to take this opportunity to sit back and think about what I really want to do now. Anyone visiting this corner of the web with some sort of regularity has noticed what happened to its contents. It’s been a while since I wrote about anything IT-related and that’s because lately I’ve been finding everything IT-related to be troublesome. Simply put, IT is just not what I hoped it would be.¹

This is not to say that I’m not interested in IT any more. IT plays a crucial role in my activism and I often find myself discussing secure and more privacy-aware solutions with comrades coming from different backgrounds.

Yet the combination of activism and my BA in philosophy has led me to a peculiar position. That is, I enjoy working with people to a degree I’ve never thought possible before. I’ve discovered the pleasure of just being there for like-minded people and the rewards when I help people to get whatever they’re trying to get.

It may sound silly and naive, I know, but to someone like me, so used to sitting at a desk typing away lines of code, proper human interaction has never been a given. Note that I’m not blaming remote work for this. Out of almost twenty years spent in the IT business, remote work amounts to only a fifth of that time.

The truth is small talk is not proper human interaction for me. It can be nice, sure, but it can also be deeply boring. Most of the times it feels like everyone has to do it so we end up chatting about the same things over and over again. Maybe this is why I’ve rarely connected with colleagues on a personal level, but I’m not pointing my finger at them. It’s just me needing a different sort of people around.

I want to look at my current unemployed status as an opportunity to find myself again and move towards paths closer to what I really am. I can afford to spend some time with me instead of giving it to the next employer. Let’s treasure this privilege for once.

Every time I read the words “Emacs” and “AI” in the same sentence I cringe. ↩︎

Scrappy hearts and Clojure fiddles

manuel.uberti@mailbox.org (Manuel Uberti) — Sat, 21 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The room is slowly filling up with attendees, organisers and volunteers are moving around to check that everything is where it is supposed to be. I recognise some faces, I spot a couple of speakers. I keep looking around eagerly as if I wanted to take it all in right here right now. This is not my first Clojure conference, and I do hope it will not be the last, but as I sit I feel the same rush of emotions I have only felt once before, back in 2019. It was Heart of Clojure then. It is Heart of Clojure now.

“What does it mean to be here?”

This is a question I would end up asking myself over and over again while in Leuven. While I am back home writing this, I am not sure I have found an answer just yet, so I want to go over the last few days to see if I finally have a reply to that question.

But first, a caveat. If you are looking for a review of the conference or a report on its program, this is not it. I am sure plenty of useful feedback is already popping up around the web and many more will come out along with pictures, videos, and what have you. This writing, however, will mostly be about me and what Heart of Clojure meant to me.

With that out of the way, let’s dig in.

Heart of Clojure was bigger and stronger this time. There were two locations where talks, sessions, workshops and all sort of activities took place. But the conference was bigger and stronger in another, more intimate sense too. The first edition had already been the people’s conference. This time it was as if the organisers had wished not only to up the ante, but to make sure that everyone followed suit. And using two locations for the event had much to do with this.

Since there was always something going on, people were kindly asked to move freely from one place to another. In the rare occasion when nothing was happening, that nothing was just an illusion. Within the locations, in the halls while waiting for the next talk, outside on a bench for a break, or in the street walking to another session, people were literally everywhere, and anywhere a nice chat might start. Even an introverted such as myself could not resist this welcoming energy.

On the other hand, I also avoided many nice occasions to meet a new person or enjoy a friendly conversation. Too shy? Maybe. Too overwhelmed? Indeed. It is not easy for me to take in everything and everyone all at once, my body and my mind simply refuse to comply, I get awkwardly silent and I do not like to be around people when I feel this way. So I needed my breaks, I needed my walks alone around Leuven with my music.¹ I do not know if the organisers had planned for this kind of attendee, but to me it looked like they did. I had time both for myself and the conference, my walks and the people. I realise now that a conference such as this might not be for everyone, especially for the ones who usually like to pile up as many talks as possible, but that is not me. And I am glad Heart of Clojure somehow took care of me.

“What’s your take away from the conference?”

I was asked this question yesterday, on my last day in Leuven and the day after Heart of Clojure had ended. I did not have to think too much to answer. Lu Wilson put it nicely in their outstanding keynote, but they did deliver it directly to me with even more power in a short² conversation one evening. When I write, whatever I write, I have to be comfortable with sharing sides of me, otherwise simply feel OK not doing so. Balancing tiger with rhythm of tortoise, as Angie McMahon sings.

This self-reflexive state of mind became a constant throughout the whole Heart of Clojure not long after the two opening keynotes had ended. My position in the field was shaken multiple times as I was listening to Lu Wilson and Anna Colom. Am I doing the right thing? Am I not questioning enough the work I do? Am I not open enough, aware enough, serious enough? Am I putting my effort and my rather basic set of skills where they should belong? Miranda Kastemaa (a.k.a. pulu)’s live set felt like the much needed relief.

“What does it mean to be here?”

Back to the original question. I sense no single, unequivocal answer to it. Heart of Clojure made me connect with beautiful people, made me conscious of my limited space and time, filled me with smiles and doubts, words and code, prose and poetry. More than once people said that this conference had contributed to pivotal changes in their lives. What if just by setting my foot in Leuven in the past few days something has been set into motion?

Mostly Angie McMahon’s new Light Sides EP and The Ex’s new Great! / The Evidence, but some old favourites like Pinegrove and Fugazi found their way to my ears. Comfort music, so to speak. ↩︎
Because of me, not because of Lu. ↩︎

Ghost in the Machine

manuel.uberti@mailbox.org (Manuel Uberti) — Sat, 03 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Whenever I think of artificial intelligence, Ghost in the Machine, the seventh episode of the first season of The X-Files, comes to my mind.¹ Almost thirty years have gone since that episode first aired, but it has always been one of my favourites. The plot is fairly straightforward: the Central Operating System (a.k.a. the AI) of a software company develops both survival instinct and morbid care for its creator; killings ensues; Mulder and Scully manage to stop the evil technology. Or do they? As a teenager I loved the openness of The X-Files, always leaving room for unsolved dilemmas episode after episode. I also wanted to believe as Mulder did, but that is a different story.

Today it is not uncommon to laugh at the overtly pessimistic views of shows such as this, casting aside wrongly perceived assumptions with an indulgent smirk. Beside the fact that usually the characters who never doubt common sense are the first ones to die in these tales, this sort of cynicism reveals more than it conceals.

My firm belief is that the outcomes of and the concerns about the recent developments in artificial intelligence are nothing more than the inevitable consequence of the society we have built. We have been putting our faith in technology for so long by now that it is nearly impossible to look at it from a rather different perspective. The one who does so is generally ridiculed. This is even more interesting when we think about the distinction between science and technology and how we relate to them. Think of the pandemic. What COVID-deniers' reactions highlighted is how easily we can criticise science for its shortcomings while at the same time relying on the technology that science itself made available for our rants to be out in the public.

Technology says as much of our times as fiction does. It mirrors points of view, it asks questions, and offers problems just as it looks for answers and tries to offer solutions. Like telling a story, developing a specific technology is an effort situated in a precise place at a particular time, and we can understand more of that time and that place if we read them through the stories and the technology that were born within their constraints.

However, we do not want to look at technology as we look at fiction, because we cannot believe technology to live in the realm of the uncertain, the implausible or the unreal. Technology is tangible, its immediate effects readily perceivable in our lives. Technology fixes problems, creates comfort, enables people to do things that seemed impossible. And yet, like fiction, this is a story told from a narrator who, like us, is a finite human being. A story makes sense when it ends, but we cannot make sense of our lives because we do not know when they will end and, just as well, we can never know the whole that constitutes other people’s lives. Being a finite product of finite beings, how do we make sense of technology then?

One possible answer, or at least the only answer I can think of, is critical thinking. We may never find reliable replies to metaphysical doubts, but we can still stop ourselves from mindlessly consuming technology and pause for a moment, a moment long enough to figure out whether the full impact of new technology is clear and understood. It is fairly obvious to me that this was not the case for mobile technology. Have we ever stopped to think about how a smartphone could change the life of a teenager? Do we not see what happened to the attention span of people after years of push notifications? My university has already issued a statement warning that papers will be proof read to avoid misuses of ChatGPT, which is telling of how little to zero thought has been put into the pivotal transformations artificial intelligence will bring upon us.

Lost in our market-driven technological bubble we please ourselves by being concerned about the dangers of AI during lunch breaks or between rounds of beer. I know we are still capable of critical thought, but I am not sure for how long we will be. I cannot help but think that the smarter technology becomes, the dumber end users might get.

Along with Kill Switch from Season 5, yes, but only when I am in a deeply apocalyptic mood that usually drives me to watch The Terminator one more time. ↩︎

Have I been good?

manuel.uberti@mailbox.org (Manuel Uberti) — Fri, 20 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Back in January, I stated as frankly as I could my plans for the rest of 2021. Namely:

More books and less films
More philosophy and less fiction
Running

Now that we are approaching the end of August I think it makes sense to check on myself and see how I have behaved so far.

More books and less films

I track everything I read and watch on my Bujo so let’s see actual numbers:

books: 33 (not including strictly university material)
films: 132 (not including a couple of series)

It doesn’t look promising, does it? In my defense, among the books there have been heavyweights like Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick and Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy which I took my time to read slowly and carefully. Still, there is room for improvement here.

More philosophy and less fiction

philosophy and philosophy-related books: 15
fiction: 15
non-fiction: 3

Oh well, it has been going better here! I have been keeping fiction for the evening and that splendid time in bed before turning the lights off. Otherwise, a great deal of philosophy courtesy of Alasdair MacIntyre, Jürgen Habermas, Terry Pinkard, Emmanuel Levinas, Emanuele Severino, Hannah Arendt, Simone Weil, Etty Hillesum, Søren Kierkegaard and Baruch Spinoza.

Running

And now the sad note: I have neglected proper exercise and not only running this year. I did walk a lot in the wild on holiday, that’s true, but it isn’t enough. One could be on my side and try the “You are such an avid reader!” card, but we all know that that is just a lame excuse for being comfortably lazy on the couch. Work has to be done here.

Conclusion

Honestly, despite the need to leave the desk and the couch more, I cannot complain. Philosophy has proved to be an exceptional exercise for the mind and so somehow I have actually been involved in great training during these months. I will check myself again on December to see if new year’s resolutions do in fact make sense after all.

Re-solutions

manuel.uberti@mailbox.org (Manuel Uberti) — Sun, 03 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been studying philosophy at Ca’ Foscari for about a year and half now, devoting most of my spare time to wonderful and wonderfully difficult books, and enjoying every part of this journey. There is still a lot of ground to cover because I see many gaps to fill and thoughts to process, but there is one thing that I am sure of: it’s going to be the journey of a lifetime.

I’ve not been so deeply fascinated and involved with something in a long while. Ask my wife and she is going to tell you that perhaps my love for cinema can match this passion for philosophy. I could agree, but cinema has not really been on my side lately. Beside few exceptions, 2020 will not be remembered for the films or the directors that inspired me to write.

The last days of 2020 were dedicated to planning new year’s resolutions. To be perfectly honest, I am not a great fan of new year’s resolutions. Most of the time I forget about them in a couple of months. To circumvent my poor will, I decided to keep the resolutions simple, small, and practical. This is what I wrote down on my Bujo:

More books and less films
More philosophy and less fiction
Running

The first two are easy to adopt side by side. I watched way too many forgettable films last year, leaving the couch with the horrible feeling of time wasted. I do not want to repeat that. If there isn’t a film to watch, I want to turn off the TV, forget about my Blu-ray collection, and grab the book next to me.

As for the kind of book to pick up, I want to avoid contemporary fiction. There is nothing wrong with contemporary fiction, of course, but most of the contemporary books I read in 2020 proved to be little more than decent entertainment. There is so much to read, and it’s not just philosophy. I want more classics on my bedside table, and I want to read more from authors I love. Consider it a sabbatical. I intend to come back to contemporary fiction next year.

Finally, running. Let’s just say I stopped for no good reason and I am waiting for my contact lens to start again. As simple as this resolution looks, it’s also the most necessary one. Between work and studies the time I spend at my desk has become unhealthy, and I know how fresh air and exercise make me feel.

For all the good things in this planning, I see a couple of drawbacks here. If I manage to stick to these resolutions, computing is going to play a different role in my life. I will still be in front of my Emacs five days a week, but that’s about it. Whereas this means less tinkering and less githubbing, it also means less writing for my blogs. Nevertheless, for the sake of my priorities, I am willing to sacrifice writing just as I am willing to put cinema aside.

Happy new year.