He does serve a purpose, indeed.
The cosmic nothingness that certain icons of appearance flaunt without embarrassment, as if it were their best side—though most people seem unwilling to acknowledge it, perhaps fearing the dreadful evolutionary turn humanity might take—is at times useful to the masses: the example is so unedifying, so lacking in qualities or virtues, that everyone feels, deep down, able to match it and, why not, surpass it, even by doing little, having less, and, unlike those characters, being unable to flaunt luxuries.
It’s hard to envy, among others, Gianluca Vacchi, even for those who might have reason to, desiring many of the pleasures he shows off. Some envy that luxury in others, but not in him.
In fact, among the less fortunate, Vacchi earns little sympathy and no admiration… Sometimes, even pity for his pitiful performances, becoming famous more for his displayed—albeit perhaps contrived—psychological quirks than for his lifestyle, qualities, or talent.
Anyone is sure, if they found themselves as rich as Vacchi, that they would spend all that money better than he does, to the point of doubting whether it would really be so great to have it, and whether being so rich but appearing so foolish is something to boast about or rather to be ashamed of.
Yet, the display of trivialities provides a service to humanity, because it allows everyone to appreciate—and even grow fond of—every resource, every real or presumed quality in the lives of those who, lacking material wealth, would otherwise find little consolation in despising it, like the fox and the grapes, and thus devote themselves to intangible ones without asking if they are, however noble, truly preferable.
Few, it seems, praise them, so it won’t hurt if I’m the one to thank Vacchi and the others.
So, thank you, Gianluca Vacchi, Elettra Lamborghini, Ivana Trump, Paris Hilton, Lapo Elkann, the Kardashians, and all the fermented fruits of appearance rather than essence, of exhibition as the only tangible proof of having existed, surpassing Descartes and even Nietzsche.
They live as we do, after all.
They love, struggle, hope and despair, but prefer to consign to immortality indelible scraps of ethereal emptiness, droppings of divine uselessness, instead of fleeting fragments of concreteness, of durable—while it lasts—mortal humanity.
They deserve gratitude for cheerfully floating on the endless sea of their lack of perspective, as they allow us to grasp the true beauty of our qualities, whatever they may be, to enjoy them for what they are, even if they are not truly precious and vital gems of excellence.
They sacrifice every moment of their lives not in pursuit of something, of anything, but in the display of themselves, at the fair of their own vanities, providing indelible proof of what they cannot say or do, of their differently competent existence, even though it is undeniable that, in many ways, it resembles that of all of us and, with some work, could perhaps be improved, showing us that there is something to save, to develop.
Instead, rather than promoting any potential evolution, restoring an ethical dimension to their role as examples, they accept not to be examples at all, definitively clarifying the difference between their sterile seeds and our own—never sufficiently appreciated except in comparison—sprouts of hope for humanity’s progress, to which we dedicate our submerged lives, because it is in our nature, but which we would probably appreciate less if we were forced to compare ourselves only with the most deserving deeds of men and women better than us.
Beneath the surface of that amorphous sea of atrophied lives, in the depths, we, in the end, exist—more because of them than because of the virtuous example of the inimitable heroes we could neither understand nor follow for long.
We are like children who challenge their parents but copy their older siblings, closer and therefore more understandable examples—except when they make mistakes. We do not yet (or no longer) understand the highest virtue, the distant and rarefied righteousness of positive examples, but we automatically recognize all the vices of the gods of Olympus. We watch, amused and satisfied, the path we could never pursue and that, thanks to Vacchi, we are no longer willing to follow; we recognize the supermen and superwomen, who, up close, do not seem so super after all, and, rightly or wrongly, we persist in wanting to distinguish ourselves—at least from them.