05.A world like ours
Everything happens fast.
Quick responses, constant notifications, content to be consumed nonstop.
In a world like ours, it's easy to lose sight of ourselves.
Then reading can become a big STOP.
A stop sign in front of which we can make our intuition resonate.
Getting out of the mind, letting our emotions touch us. Begin to let something come out of us, and not just encompass external information.
Reading, then? Isn’t it also a way of taking things in?
Yes, it can be.
That’s why it requires care: to choose mindfully what we read, just as we should choose mindfully the words we speak.
In his book The Burnout Society, philosopher Byung-Chul Han speaks of an age in which an excess of positivity and performance wears us down.
We are constantly “switched on,” yet often lack a true sense of direction.
Even personal growth has, at times, become a race to the finish.
But getting to know oneself takes time. It requires slowness.
It calls for silence, pauses, and questions that don’t need immediate answers.
As Susan Cain writes in Quiet,"In a world that never stops talking, those who cultivate silence discover things that others do not see."
And as Cal Newport suggests in his book Deep Work,
"The ability to focus without distraction will be one of the most valuable skills of the future."
In the midst of all this noise and rush, there is one need that never stops making itself heard:
the need for meaning.
A personal sense. A sense that comes from feeling, not just knowing.
A sense that is built over time by asking real questions.
Who am I? What matters to me, really? What voice do I want to hear out of all of them?
Reading as a first tool can help us to slow down and regain connection.
It can remind us that even in a world like ours, there is room to stop.
To choose where to focus our attention.
To return to the past or travel into the future.
To be touched by the words of another, the one we have chosen to read.
To recognize ourselves, when we have strayed too far from ourselves.
To find our scattered pieces and bring them together.
A question for you
And you, in this world... where are you going?
How much of what you pursue is really out of your own desire?
When was the last time you read something to listen to yourself, and not to accumulate or distract yourself?
(Which, let's be clear, reading is a useful thing-until it becomes an escape from self.)
If you stop, even for a moment, and use the reading also from this point of view I bring to you, you might perceive something new.
And there, between a page and a pause, you might discover something you had forgotten: yourself.
Today, in a world like ours-here from where I write, from Europe, from Italy, from Milan-reading to recognize you and not just to know might make you feel differently.
Meeting oneself is not always a wonder.
But it is always a beginning.
A new journey. All to be discovered.
Which, inevitably, will lead to great resolutions.
Carl Jung said, "He who looks outside dreams, he who looks inside wakes up."
Happy reading. Safe travels.
Sources of inspiration
Byung-Chul Han- The Society of Weariness
Susan Cain, Quiet- The power of introverts in a world that can't stop talking
Cal Newport- Deep Work. Focusing at the time of distractions
Carl Gustav Jung- Memories, dreams, reflections
