The Black Ball: I'd Rather Be a Small Clock

I Won't Wait for Others to Reject Me

In Masonic tradition, there is a procedure that precedes initiation itself: the ballot. A candidate submits an application, and the members of the lodge are called upon to express their judgment through a secret vote. White and black balls become symbols of a collective decision: whether to admit or reject someone who has knocked at the door.

But I won't wait for someone else to drop the black ball into the urn. I'll drop it myself.

I have no need to await the judgment of a community I have no intention of joining, nor to entrust a group of people with the power to decide whether I am worthy of admission or possess the qualities required to become one of them.

My black ball is not a rejection imposed on me. It is a deliberate choice. I am not the one being turned away; I am the one refusing to enter.

And that distinction is fundamental.

I am not acting out of hostility toward Freemasonry, its rituals, its symbols, or its beliefs. I have no interest in determining whether its initiatory doctrines are true or whether its traditions preserve some particular form of knowledge. Everyone is free to embrace their own convictions and join whatever organizations they find meaningful.

My concern lies elsewhere: I belong to myself, and I feel no need for collective recognition to establish my own worth.

The Price of Belonging

I am not naive enough to believe that the world distributes opportunities solely on the basis of merit. There are environments where connections matter more than competence, where knowing the right people opens doors that remain closed to everyone else.

In certain settings, including some African countries, membership in influential networks can affect career advancement and access to positions of power. I do not intend to generalize these dynamics to entire countries or continents, but it would be equally naive to ignore the influence informal networks can have on professional and social life.

Could I gain more by joining such a network? Could I find protection, advantages, and opportunities that would otherwise remain beyond my reach? Possibly.

But I ask myself what I would actually be paying for what I receive.

I would rather have little that I have earned through my own efforts than much obtained through someone else's protection, especially if that protection might eventually come with strings attached. I do not consider accepting help dishonorable. No one builds a life entirely on their own. The problem begins when a favor becomes a permanent obligation, when gratitude is demanded in the form of obedience, and when keeping a position requires me to remain silent about what I believe or support something I do not agree with.

At that point, even success loses some of its value.

What good is a prestigious position if I cannot exercise it according to my conscience? How much does an achievement truly belong to me if my ability to keep it depends on the will of those who helped me attain it?

I refuse to pay for a privilege with my freedom of judgment.

The Cog and the Clock

This is where the image of the clock comes in.

I could join an organization, earn an important position within it, and even become indispensable to its operation. I could become the largest cog, the most valuable component, the one everyone considers essential.

But I would still be a cog.

Its importance depends on the mechanism in which it is placed. It can influence the movement of other components, but it does not necessarily determine the overall direction of the clock.

I, on the other hand, want to be a small clock.

I am not interested in becoming more powerful or prestigious than others. I want to build something with its own logic, its own rhythm, and its own direction. A mechanism that may be less impressive, but whose workings I can understand and for which I can take responsibility.

I do not need to dominate other clocks or prove that I am superior to those who choose to belong to an organization. I simply want to avoid becoming part of a system in which my function is determined by a will other than my own.

This does not mean rejecting cooperation. I can work with others, learn from them, form alliances, and take part in shared projects. But I want to do so on the basis of common goals, not an obligation to belong.

A small clock is not entirely self-sufficient. Rather, it is a project whose direction I can recognize as my own and for which I am willing to take responsibility.

I Do Not Confuse Freedom with Loneliness

I do not automatically consider someone who rejects every form of association superior to everyone else. There are communities that enrich their members without stifling their individuality, friendships that demand nothing in return, and organizations where discussion allows everyone to grow.

My position is not a rejection of all belonging. It is a rejection of the idea that, to get ahead, I must necessarily surrender part of my ability to make my own decisions.

Freedom does not mean living without ties. It means being able to choose which commitments to make, which responsibilities to accept, and when a collaboration is no longer compatible with one's principles.

I am willing to ask for help and acknowledge my mistakes. I can change my mind, accept criticism, and discover that someone else is right. I do not need to be infallible to be free.

What I refuse to accept is that the need for protection should become a permanent condition of my existence, or that the price of an opportunity should be the surrender of my conscience.

I know this choice may cost me important opportunities. I do not expect consistency to be rewarded every time, nor do I assume that those who choose a different path are necessarily less free. I simply accept that my own journey may be more difficult.

I Cast the Black Ball Myself

Let us return to the urn.

A candidate who submits an application agrees to be judged by a community. Admission depends on rules and procedures that the candidate does not entirely control. The candidate may be accepted or rejected for reasons that will not necessarily be disclosed.

I choose not to go that far.

I cast the black ball myself.

I do not need to know who might approve my application or who might oppose it. I have no desire to entrust a vote with the outcome of a decision I have already made within myself.

My black ball is not a condemnation of Freemasonry, nor does it represent any moral superiority over those who belong to it. It is simply a refusal to embrace an affiliation I do not consider necessary to my life.

The world will continue to reward connections, protection, and the ability to find a place within the machinery of power. I have no intention of pretending these advantages are irrelevant. But there is a difference between using relationships without surrendering one's autonomy and eventually identifying one's own worth with the place a network assigns.

I choose to build my own path, accepting the risk of making mistakes without a protective network behind me. I would rather answer for my own decisions than have to justify them to someone who believes that granting me a favor has earned them the right to influence my choices.

I do not consider every sacrifice a victory, nor do I regard every success achieved with the help of others as a defeat. I simply know that there is a point beyond which material gain may come at too high a price.

For me, that point is reached when I can no longer exercise control over my own will.

I do not want to become the most important cog in someone else's clock. I want to build a smaller mechanism, perhaps imperfect, but capable of moving in a direction I recognize as my own.

That is why, when I stand before the urn, I do not wait for someone else's verdict.

I cast the black ball myself. I'd rather be a small clock, responsible for its own movement, than a prestigious cog forced to turn according to someone else's will.

Changing Your Mind, Changing Your Life, Changing Masters

Change is one of the most natural things we do and, at the same time, one of the hardest things to accept. We are willing to acknowledge that the world is constantly changing, but when the change involves us or someone we know well, we suddenly demand explanations, consistency, and justification. As if there were an age beyond which we were no longer allowed to become different.

And yet no one reaches the end of their life as exactly the same person they were at the beginning.

We change our minds, our habits, and our desires. We change the way we look at other people and, sometimes, the way we look at ourselves. There are beliefs that stay with us for decades and then, almost without our noticing, stop belonging to us. Others withstand everything and become such a deep part of who we are that questioning them seems almost impossible.

Change can be slow or sudden. It can grow out of years of reflection or emerge from an event that, in a matter of hours, calls into question something we had always taken for granted.

Someone may quit smoking after coming face-to-face with the possibility of death. Someone else may decide to lose weight after years of unhealthy eating, finally realizing that the body cannot be treated as though time had no consequences. Someone may leave a job where they spent half their life, move to another city, end a relationship, or start over.

From the outside, all of this can look like sudden transformation. But almost every important change has a long history that other people cannot see. There are thoughts that mature quietly, frustrations that accumulate, questions that remain unanswered for years. Then something happens: an illness, a meeting, a loss, a birth, a failure, a crisis. That event does not necessarily create the change. Sometimes it simply opens a door that was already there.

Changing Your Mind

Changing your mind should not automatically be seen as a sign of weakness. It would be strange to expect someone who has learned something new to continue thinking exactly as they did before simply to avoid appearing inconsistent.

Consistency is an important quality, but it can become a cage when it is confused with immobility. If ten years ago we had less information, less experience, and less awareness, why should we consider it a betrayal when we see certain things differently today?

Of course, not every change of opinion comes from greater awareness. We may change our minds out of fear, pressure, conformity, or self-interest. We may even change our minds without truly having one of our own, simply following someone else's.

But that does not mean changing is wrong. It simply means that we should ask ourselves why we changed.

Changing Your Life

A different kind of change is the one that concerns our entire existence.

There are people who eventually decide that they no longer want to live the way they have lived until that point. Not necessarily because their life has been a failure, but because they have discovered that it no longer reflects the person they have become.

A religious conversion can radically transform someone's life. Someone else may take the opposite path and leave behind the faith in which they were raised. One person may choose a simpler life after spending years pursuing success. Another may finally find the courage to pursue a desire they had sacrificed for too long.

In such cases, change cannot be measured only by the advantages it brings. Sometimes changing means losing something. That may be one of the most revealing differences between an authentic transformation and a simple adaptation to circumstances. Change does not always bring an immediate reward. Sometimes it comes with a price: giving up security, disappointing someone, or starting over from a position worse than the one from which we began. And yet the person who changes may still feel that they are finally moving in the right direction.

And Then There Are Politicians

Here, things become more complicated.

A politician can change their mind. They can admit they were wrong. They can revise their beliefs after gaining a deeper understanding of an issue, after studying it, governing, or listening to different people. Politicians are human beings too, and there is no reason they should be condemned to believe at fifty what they believed at twenty.

But politics introduces something that makes change much harder to interpret: self-interest.

A politician who changes parties, alliances, or positions may have genuinely changed their beliefs. Or they may simply have changed the place where those beliefs allow them to gain more support, more power, or a better position.

That is where suspicion begins, and it is not necessarily an unreasonable suspicion. Citizens cannot see inside other people's minds. They can only observe what people do, what they said before, and what they say afterward.

That is why political changes are often subjected to a level of scrutiny that we do not apply to changes in private life. If someone decides to quit smoking, we rarely ask what advantage they gained from the decision. If someone changes religions, we may not understand their reasons, but we recognize that those reasons belong to their most intimate sphere.

When a politician changes position precisely as the balance of power changes, however, it is reasonable to ask whether their convictions have changed—or simply their interests.

That is where the third change in the title comes in: changing masters.

It is not necessarily the same thing as changing your mind.

We Are Not Photographs

Perhaps the problem begins with our need to turn other people into photographs.

We like to know who they are, what they believe, and where they stand. A photograph reassures us because it allows us to classify. The problem is that people are not photographs. They are processes.

The person we were as a child is not the same person we became as an adult. The parent we were when our children were born is not necessarily the same parent we are today. The man or woman who made a particular choice twenty years ago had different experiences, fears, and knowledge from those they possess today.

Expecting that person to remain unchanged is, in a way, denying them the right to grow.

But there is an opposite danger as well: using the word "change" to justify everything. Not everything that changes is progress. Not every new position is more truthful than the previous one. Not every break is liberation, and not every transformation automatically deserves admiration.

Change can be a salvation, but it can also be an escape. It can be growth, but it can also be opportunism. It can mean finally finding yourself, or simply finding a place that suits you better.

Looking Without Rushing to Judge

Perhaps we should learn to observe change more carefully and be less eager to pass judgment. We can ask what produced it, what it required, what it cost, and what it brought in return. Above all, we can ask whether the person has become freer or merely more convenient to themselves.

We will not always find an answer. Some changes remain mysterious even to the people experiencing them. Sometimes we understand only years later why we abandoned one path and chose another.

Perhaps this is one of the strangest things about existence: while we are living it, we do not yet know the ultimate meaning of our choices. We discover it only by looking back.

We change our minds, we change our lives, and sometimes we change masters. And after changing everything, we may discover that we have simply found our way back to ourselves.

Perhaps changing does not always mean becoming someone else. Sometimes it means finally becoming the person we had not yet found the courage to be. 

The Donkey Climbing the Stairs

When merit isn't enough

Every society teaches its children that ability matters.

Work hard. Prepare yourself. Do your best. If you are good enough, you will have a chance.

Then, sooner or later, many of us discover the uncomfortable truth: merit can open a door, but it does not always decide who gets through it.

Sometimes the door opens for the person who knows someone.

Sometimes it stays closed for the person who was better prepared.

Sometimes the rules are followed exactly as written—and yet the outcome still feels profoundly unfair.

That realization can arrive early in life. Mine did.

I was eight years old.

The story behind the poem

Two boys I knew had attended the same school. Both were capable and well prepared. One had connections that helped him move forward and eventually reach the Military Academy in Modena.

The other was rejected during the selection process after a medical examination identified a physical problem.

What stayed with me was not simply that one succeeded and the other failed.

It was the suspicion that the difference between them had not been their ability.

If someone cannot defeat you on preparation, there is always another way to stop you.

I was only eight, so I had no vocabulary for what I was witnessing. I didn't know about cronyism, patronage, social networks, or what I would later call relational capital.

I only knew that something wasn't right.

Years later, that memory became the starting point for the first poem I ever wrote: The Donkey Climbing the Stairs.

The title came from the absurdity of the image itself: a donkey somehow climbing stairs while someone who actually knows how to climb is left behind.

Injustice becomes different when it happens to someone you know

As a child, I had already been deeply disturbed by images of historical violence.

I remember seeing films depicting the massacres of Native Americans by the U.S. cavalry. I remember images of Nazi concentration camps and the horrors inflicted on prisoners.

Those events were immense. They belonged to history, to distant places and distant generations.

But the story of those two boys was different.

It wasn't history.

It was my world.

I knew the boy who moved forward. I knew the boy who was stopped.

That makes injustice harder to look away from.

Perhaps this is where our sense of justice really begins—not with political theory or moral philosophy, but with the first moment when we look at something happening in front of us and instinctively think:

This is not right.

Privilege rarely looks dramatic

As I grew older, I realized that favoritism does not always announce itself with a major political scandal or a coveted public job.

Sometimes it is much smaller.

A connection that moves someone ahead on a waiting list.

A phone call that gets an appointment sooner.

A professional who makes an exception.

A favor that is quietly returned.

A door that opens because someone knows the person on the other side.

None of these things, taken separately, seems capable of changing a society.

But societies are not shaped only by spectacular acts of corruption.

They are also shaped by thousands of ordinary exceptions.

The problem begins when the formal rules remain equal while access to those rules becomes unequal.

The law may be the same for everyone. The path through it may not be.

The child who wanted justice

When I wrote The Donkey Climbing the Stairs, I had no theory of power.

I wasn't trying to explain Italian society.

I wasn't writing about political parties or ideology.

I was simply trying to give a shape to something that had disturbed me as a child.

Looking back, I sometimes wonder how much of that eight-year-old boy is still inside me.

Because growing older changes our relationship with justice.

Children tend to believe that if something is wrong, someone should fix it.

Adults learn that the world is much harder to repair.

We discover that injustice is not an exception to human history. It is one of its recurring features.

We discover that we cannot fight every battle.

And eventually we face a more uncomfortable question:

What do you do when you realize that the world will not necessarily become fair?

The Zealot, the Pharisee, and the Sadducee

I have sometimes imagined three possible answers.

The first is the Zealot: the person who continues fighting injustice wherever he encounters it, regardless of the personal cost.

The second is the Pharisee, in my own contemporary interpretation of the figure: someone who publicly presents himself as a defender of justice, but may eventually turn that struggle into a career, a social identity, or a source of power.

And then there is the Sadducee.

The Sadducee, as I imagine him, has a different ambition.

He doesn't want to save the world.

He wants to reach a position where the world can no longer determine his fate.

He settles his own grievances. He secures his own position. He makes himself sufficiently strong, connected, or independent that he no longer needs society to be fair to him.

There is something undeniably cynical about that position.

But it raises an uncomfortable question:

Is open self-interest more honest than pretending that personal ambition is a universal cause?

I don't have a final answer.

Perhaps because I still contain all three figures.

The child who wanted justice.

The adult who understands power.

And the man who sometimes wonders whether the safest way to escape injustice is not to defeat it, but to become strong enough that it can no longer reach you.

What happens when justice is no longer guaranteed?

Maybe growing up does not mean losing our belief in justice.

Maybe it means discovering that justice is not guaranteed.

From there, people choose different paths.

Some keep fighting.

Some adapt.

Some enter the system hoping to change it.

Some enter the system because they want a share of its advantages.

And some eventually decide that their only realistic goal is to protect themselves.

I still don't know which path I will ultimately take.

But I know where the question began.

It began with two boys.

One kept climbing.

The other was stopped.

And somewhere behind that memory is an eight-year-old child who did not yet know the words clientelism, privilege, or relational capital.

He didn't need them.

He only needed to see an injustice.

And perhaps that is the strange thing about growing older:

we spend years learning the language to describe what a child can recognize in a single moment.

The Privilege of Not Needing a Favor

Can you make it in life without connections?

Yes.

Millions of people do it every day.

They study. They work. They apply. They get rejected. They try again. They move to another city. They change careers. They build businesses from scratch. They take exams, lose opportunities, and keep going until eventually something works.

No powerful friend makes a call.

No family name opens the door.

No one whispers their name into the right ear.

And yet they move forward.

We tend to forget these people because their success doesn't make a good story.

In a culture obsessed with connections, it's much more satisfying to believe that everyone who gets ahead must know someone.

It isn't true.

But there is an important distinction we rarely make.

Connections are not the same thing as favors.

Knowing people matters. Reputation matters. Networking matters. A trusted introduction can change a career.

If someone tells an employer, “You should meet this person. They're smart, reliable, and good at what they do,” that's not necessarily corruption or nepotism.

That's a recommendation.

Someone is putting their reputation behind you.

If you fail, they may lose credibility too.

That's very different from saying:

“Hire this person. They're one of ours.”

The first opens a door.

The second can bypass the test.

And that's where the uncomfortable question begins.

What is a person worth when someone else's influence has to substitute for their own ability?

That's why, in the most negative sense of the word, the person who lives entirely by favors is not necessarily the privileged one.

They may actually be the most dependent person in the room.

A favor can become a debt

This is the part nobody likes to talk about.

A favor doesn't always come with a contract.

Sometimes it comes with memory.

“I got you in.”

“Don't forget who helped you.”

“I made that call for you.”

Maybe nobody ever asks for anything in return.

But you remember.

And because you remember, you may feel obligated.

That's the hidden cost of being handed an opportunity.

The job may be yours.

But the favor belongs to someone else.

And that can become a strange kind of psychological debt.

The person who helped you may eventually need something from you.

A vote.

A signature.

A phone call.

A favor of their own.

And suddenly what looked like privilege starts to look like dependence.

Some professions don't tolerate incompetence for long

There are careers where connections can get you an opportunity but cannot manufacture competence.

A doctor may be introduced by a powerful person, but patients still need treatment.

A surgeon may come from a prominent family, but nobody can operate on a patient for them.

A pilot may have influential parents, but an airplane still has to land safely.

An engineer may have an impressive network, but a bridge does not stay standing because of someone's last name.

A lawyer may get an introduction to a prestigious firm, but eventually they have to know the law.

A scientist may get access to a laboratory through a connection, but the research still has to survive scrutiny.

The same is true in countless ordinary professions.

A contractor can get a job through a friend. An electrician can be recommended by a neighbor. A consultant can get a meeting because someone knows them.

But if they consistently do bad work, people eventually find out.

A connection can open the door. It cannot permanently negotiate with reality.

The real test comes later

That's why the most revealing moment isn't when someone gets the job.

It's what happens afterward.

The boss changes.

The company changes.

The political climate changes.

The person who made the introduction retires.

The powerful friend loses influence.

The family name no longer carries the same weight.

And suddenly there is no one left to make the call.

Then comes the question that cannot be avoided:

What can you actually do on your own?

If the answer is “a lot,” then perhaps the connection was simply an introduction.

If the answer is “not much,” then the connection didn't build a career.

It only postponed the moment when the person would have to prove themselves.

The family that refused to use its power

I once came across the story of an important, well-connected family that could easily have used its influence to establish its children.

They knew the right people.

They had the social standing.

They had access to doors that most people would struggle even to find.

They could have made the calls.

They could have asked for favors.

They could have kept their children close and placed them comfortably within the family's own professional and social circle.

Instead, they did something almost counterintuitive.

They sent their children away.

Away to study.

Away to build professional networks.

Away from the environment where their last name already meant something.

Not because the family lacked influence.

Precisely because it had influence.

They understood something many powerful families don't.

Every favor creates the possibility of an obligation.

Every shortcut can become a form of dependency.

And sometimes the greatest gift you can give your children is not a door you can open for them.

It's the freedom to discover whether they can open one themselves.

There is dignity in starting somewhere nobody knows your name

Imagine walking into a room where nobody knows your father.

Nobody knows your mother.

Nobody knows your family.

Nobody cares who your friends are.

Your last name means nothing.

Your résumé has to speak for itself.

Your work has to speak for itself.

Your character has to speak for itself.

It can be harder.

It can be slower.

You may fail.

You may have to start again.

But if you eventually succeed, something belongs entirely to you.

Not the opportunity, perhaps.

Not the circumstances.

But the reputation you built afterward.

And that is a kind of wealth that cannot be inherited.

Social capital isn't the problem

This is where the debate about networking and privilege often becomes simplistic.

We shouldn't pretend that relationships don't matter.

They do.

Nobody succeeds entirely alone.

Everyone benefits from teachers, mentors, colleagues, friends, clients, partners, and people willing to vouch for them.

That's human society.

The problem begins when relationships stop amplifying merit and start replacing it.

That's the line.

A good network can make your abilities visible.

A favor can make an unqualified person look qualified.

A strong reputation can create opportunities.

Nepotism can create positions.

Those are not the same thing.

And perhaps the healthiest form of social capital is not having hundreds of powerful people you can call.

It's knowing that you could call them—and choosing not to.

Some people would rather owe themselves

There are people who simply don't like owing anyone.

They would rather work harder.

They would rather wait.

They would rather move.

They would rather send out a hundred résumés.

They would rather fail an exam and take it again.

They would rather hear “no” ten times than know that their “yes” came from someone else's influence.

Not because they're morally superior.

Not because they're naïve.

Because they want something very simple:

to know that what they have is theirs.

That's why I find the story of that family so interesting.

They had the power to make life easier for their children.

Instead, they used their power to give their children distance from that power.

They didn't necessarily make their children richer.

They made them more independent.

And independence may be the most valuable inheritance of all.

The freedom to say: I did this myself

Perhaps that's the real difference between social capital and dependency.

Social capital says:

“Let me introduce you.”

Dependency says:

“Let me get you in.”

Social capital says:

“Someone should know about your work.”

Dependency says:

“Don't worry about whether you're qualified.”

One creates opportunity.

The other can create entitlement.

One can strengthen a person.

The other can leave them permanently dependent on the person who opened the door.

So yes, you can live without connections.

It may take longer.

It may be harder.

It may not always be fair.

But it is possible.

And there is a particular kind of freedom in being able to look at your life and say:

Nobody got this for me.

Maybe somebody gave you advice.

Maybe somebody introduced you.

Maybe somebody believed in you.

That's fine.

But you did the rest.

You built the skills.

You earned the reputation.

You survived the failures.

You stayed when it got difficult.

And when the powerful people disappear, when the phone stops ringing, when nobody is there to put in a good word, you still have something left.

You.

Maybe that's not the shortest road to success.

But when you finally get there, you don't owe the destination to anyone.