“Christo made us feel the awe inspiring impermanence of human achievement”, wrote Jerry Saltz, one of the greatest critics of American art, about the disappearance of Christo, undisputed Land Art artist.

In a historical moment of forced slowdown, which invites us to introspection, the word “impermanence” has particularly fascinated me because the flowing life is by its nature impermanent, ephemeral and changeable.

We have two possibilities in the face of this terrible scenario: taking the path of abandonment, renouncing to live our existence, paralyzed by the unsustainable, or using the path of novelty, the one that forces us every day to live authentically our present, that that we choose.

But we don’t think that living authentically is so easy, in a world in which each of us is targeted – as if it were a curse – by images, desires, models and novelties that follow one another faster than the alternation of day and night.

The more I reflect on the intellectual significance of Christ’s work, the more my thought tends to love the unrepeatable value of impermanence, because it is precisely there, and only there, that it can be authenticity. Indeed, we must fear the temptation to build around us in a castle of material and immaterial safety: sooner or later we will be overwhelmed by it, and often it will be too late to be able to re-found a life on different foundations.

Authentic life is not the right life, it is not life without errors, it is not life that is based on the certainty of mathematical models, it is the astounding life, that  one capable of tearing an emotion, an unexpected smile, and giving us a thrill of pleasure, a pinch of madness.

And the authentic home is not the home of magazines, it is not the room full of brands, ephemeral certainties acquired by thinking with the eyes of our guests, and it is not even the scene in which we play a part.

The authentic home is the one designed for us, to feel good, to live in empathy, to welcome our beloved things, those we love and love us. It happens to enter the houses of others and you immediately understand when the space is designed with the heart.

Of course, the awareness that houses have rules, that they must work, that the soul of the place must be respected – beware of the genius loci, a professor at the University repeated to me – and that there is an overall sense of harmony which must be studied and calibrated with attention and competence.

Let’s have fun reading the magazines – AD, Marie Claire Maison, Elle Decor, The World of Interiors, etc. – we are the first to do it, and we tear up the pages we like best to draw inspiration from the house we want. But let’s avoid making copy-pastes of the spaces we see to replicate them in our homes. There are no automatisms that work in the interior world. Houses are like people, they are unique. If you reply, it is only counterfeiting.

It would be a bit like going to the cosmetic surgeon with the torn page of Brad Pitt in his pocket and saying: can you nose me exactly like this? Don’t do it if you’re not Brad!

Our invitation is to live an authentic life, in an authentic home, and to love existence, with the awareness that the ephemeral must make every moment important, as Christo taught us, giving us emotions and spaces to embrace our thoughts and the soul of time. #liveauthentic