A long time ago, a friend recommended a band called Animal Kingdom. "I know you'll like it, it's indie music," he said, and something in the way his eyes shone made me believe him. At that time, I recall being drowning in occupations. The usual: studies, work, money; those chains of daily life that bind all men, plowing their path on the floor that we walk on day after day. Therefore, I only listened to one or two songs (which I liked), but then I decided not to get more involved (because well-made artistic admiration always requires commitment). That was until a few weeks ago: I recently discovered by chance in my music library those two orphan songs, two adrift melodies.

It turned out, after a nostalgic reunion, that both songs belonged to the same album (the second of the band) and since I do not believe in coincidences, I decided to give it a listen. The Looking Away, what a strange name for an album. If the eyes are really windows to your soul, why would an intended work of art avoid that truth, the very essence of man? I was thinking about that while listening when, towards the end of the CD, The Art Of Tuning Out started to play and only then did I understand the whole album theme, which has been on my mind since.

Man is an uncertain thing, one world inside another, one mistake after another. We never seem to be satisfied with the dish they serve us. We scrutinized the blemished, cold porcelain, with resentful and strange eyes, as if wanting from its entrails another portion, identical or better than the one we have just devoured. Or the one that just devoured us.

I've noticed lately ーsometimes with repugnance; sometimes with indifference ー that man, the human being, loves to look away. We do it every day, every night, every second. I see it in the streets full of trash, in the sad faces, in the corpse of the dead cat that is on my way to work. There it is again that habit of looking away, of wanting to forget what is in front of us.

There are the ones who look away to ignore a too real reality, to ignore something that is not pleasant, something that reminds them of their humanity. We stop looking, for that very reason, to the trash in the streets, the dead dogs, the fights, the robberies, the abuses. We try to drown them with economy and politics and show business, with the things that someone did or did not do, trying to disconnect, trying not to turn the pain of others into our pain.

There are also the ones who look away because they see in the distance their silhouette, in other places, in other contexts, living improbable dreams; those who have forgotten the things that can make them happy exactly where they are, the little parts that give us all even an unsuspected fraction of joy; or the ones who look away for pain and hate and cannot endure what the horror they see, day in and day out, leaving aside good details, a smile, a caress, an "I love you".

With this I do not want to say that it is wrong to look away, but it depends on the conditions. Let us never ignore the place we occupy. Let us not ask life for an illusion that we have not worked for. Let's look away just to see the way we should go. Let's look away for a second, then let's turn our sight back to this place, to the reality we all share, so we can lead our way there; never forgetting to be kind and to smile, remembering the good times and crying and laughing out loud and joyfully working without pretentions in the chaos this life is.