We don’t regenerate ourselves alone

Removing obstacles to accompany the path of rebirth that each of us has within ourselves We have all been generated by someone. Generating is a wonderful process of nature: there are those who lay a seed in the earth or in a female womb, which will then host and nourish it, thus allowing it to grow and transform, becoming something else, a new living being! The seed has within itself the code to grow and develop until it lives fully and independently. However, a living being cannot generate itself, but needs someone at its side: for this reason, generating is not an act, but a process, a story, a delicate path of accompaniment. Not help, not substitution, not dependence, but accompaniment, which allows the autonomous expression of the potential of the seed, which knows how to grow on its own. Two great protagonists of the last century have “seen” this process in the lives of men and women, communities and peoples. The Italian Maria Montessori and the Indian Amartya Sen have, in fact, described the experience of human development as a path towards the free expression of the potential that every human being, in itself, has. They have taught us that to fully generate our life we do not need to receive something, but to free the potential that we carry within us, our abilities, our talents and thus be able to flourish as people, fulfilling ourselves and giving others our skills, thus fueling a virtuous process of mutual enrichment. But we cannot do it alone. We are often prisoners of difficulties, suffering, fragility, conditions that prevent us from flourishing autonomously. Many people today lack a job opportunity that allows them to express their abilities and earn a living. Many lack sufficient knowledge to be able to orient themselves in today’s complex society and live a dignified life. Many women are denied the rights of expression, movement, and participation guaranteed to men. Many young people who have taken the wrong path – falling victim to addiction to chemicals or gambling – lack the opportunity to learn from the experience and start over on another path. Too many children lack clean water, enough food, a clean and safe environment, adequate education. All of these are obstacles to the free expression of the potential of every human being. Our commitment is to try to eliminate these obstacles, these constraints, these ties that bind and prevent the manifestation of the abilities that each person carries within themselves. This is why we talk about “development”, literally the process of removing what “envelops”, tangles, entangles and forces people to be much less than what they really are. We do not develop or make someone develop, we try to remove the obstacles, together with those who experience them, so that they can flourish. This path towards the free expression of one’s own growth capabilities is like a second generation of one’s life – after the physical one – a new birth, a “regeneration”. And just like the magnificent process of generation, there is a secret that allows us to regenerate life: accompanying each other, becoming companions on the journey. We do not generate ourselves, and we do not regenerate ourselves, alone. But the most revolutionary news for us Westerners is that life is not regenerated even with money, with things. It is illusory to think of helping someone who is experiencing a difficult situation by limiting ourselves to offering money or giving them some object that they lack, convinced that money and things have the power to free them: receiving money, or goods, in itself limits human potential, does not free it. Maria Montessori said it well: “We easily rush to serve, as if diving into full courtesy, full kindness, full goodness. Instead, those who are served are harmed in their independence. Every useless help is an obstacle to development. This concept is the foundation of human dignity. I do not want to be served, because I am not impotent, but we must help each other, because we are sociable beings. This is what we must conquer before being truly free.”[1] In human development, helping economically, without accompanying, without freeing from obstacles, does not generate anything: it is taking care of each other that puts people in a position to unleash their potential. And this is what AMU does, being a presence alongside those in difficulty, offering professionally and humanly qualified accompaniment. Between money and opportunities there is a history of accompaniment. [1] See Maria Montessori, The method of scientific pedagogy, 1909. This article appeared in AMU News “Rebuilding is regenerating – Year 2019 -3-4 by Francesco Tortorella and Stefano Comazzi