2023-05-31 17:38:53
It is very important, vital, not to do a whole series of things in life, things that, in essence, only bring problems. And for that it is also useful to read, curiously. This is interesting to keep in mind when starting this weekend people come to the Madrid Book Fair: it is convenient to provide yourself with the largest number of books to spend a lot of time “on” them, and not on other matters.
It is not usually cited as one of the benefits of readingBut if you’re reading, say, a novel then you’re not doing a lot of other things in the meantime, and that’s great for you, even if you’re not fully aware of it.
It is difficult to know how many lives that moment in which one limits oneself to sitting with a book in their hands, absorbed in what counts, or how many setbacks, or simply how many mistakes, could have saved. Reading also represents, in a certain sense, a defensive act. Going to a fair, and choosing the chosen titles, is a bridge to the future, in a certain sense.
I remember that in the weeks that I had to convince my daughter to read when she went to bed, and she claimed –now she doesn’t anymore– that she didn’t like to read, I would ask her, with my terrific touch, if she would prefer to throw herself on the floor. the window, or choking on a bottle cap, or being scared watching an alien movie, or sticking your fingers into a socket.
Surely they were wrong questions, terrible and absurd, but there was no psychologist there to make me see, and she answered that she preferred to read. She amused me because she sometimes added “Given the circumstances” to clarify that reading was only appetizing in the face of electrocution or drowning. The thing is, it worked and now she comes to the fair with her own list of books.
dangers
Reading keeps you away from perfectly imaginable dangers. I can’t believe that reading has kept me from falling down steep stairs, even down an elevator shaft. Reading has prevented me from trying heroin, it has helped me not to run a marathon, to not get involved in arguments that would lead nowhere with my parents, to not dream of being a lawyer, or a basketball player, to not run over a child .
Reading kept me from spending money that I often didn’t even have, or meeting people who were going to lead me into trouble I wouldn’t know how to get out of. He spared me boredom on a bus looking at monotonous landscapes, or getting desperate in an airport studying travelers indistinguishable from one another on the outside, or throwing time directly into the trash in front of a television, or saying something especially idiotic or telling something boring, or having to attend to soporific conversations, or being trampled by an elephant, or meeting someone who would offer me a job where I would exploit myself.
There is a whole world of countless threats, for the moment only fictitious, that are just put into action when you close the book or simply do not open it because you can think of better things to do than read. Reading is an enriching and very safe time. It establishes around you an impenetrable dome in which everything terrible is alien to you. It stops time, or slows it down, allowing you to indulge in a kind of abuse of slowness, increasingly seen worse.
What makes me think of that chapter of Cheers, in which Ernie Pantusso, one of the waiters of the famous bar, appeared, putting on his jacket, about to leave. “Sam, I’m going home. I’ll be back with my book,” he would tell the owner of the place. “Are you still with the novel?” Sam Malone asked. “Yeah, it’s been six years now. I have a feeling I’m going to finish it tonight.” A regular customer intruded into the conversation to ask if the waiter was writing a novel. “No, I’m reading it,” Pantusso clarified.
#Reading #Spain