L’io, la natura e l’infinito. Le situazioni-limite e gli orizzonti del sublime

The identity crisis of contemporary man is the malaise of an era characterized by deep ideological, cultural, social, religious contrasts, in symbiosis with increasingly widespread attitudes of loneliness, indifference, silence, suffering, depression, apathy, resignation. There tends to be an ever-increasing number of people who live their lives, at every single moment, as if they were always in a “situation-limit”: as if every act and every thought had to be constantly evaluated with extreme care, because the stakes are each time boundless, always dealing with matters that have to do with psychic life and death. Astonishment indicates the amazement, wonder and torment of passions that lead us to experience situations boundaries and shock man in the face of a terrible and indefinite spectacle that arouses in his soul feelings beyond the limits of the logical-rational sphere. Astonishment is a passion caused by what is great and sublime in nature, when causes operate with the greatest power; amazement is that state of mind in which a certain degree of horror reigns: it is the effect of the sublime in its highest degree.