As the pandemic continue to be part of our life also in 2021, I guess that like me, you are looking for strategies to cope with the reduction of social activities and the distancing that we are still supposed to practice. And maybe, just like me, you may be interested in what follows.
While I was listening to a radio’s talk the other day, several Italian speaking writers mentioned that they were using the additional free time for reading some classic books, sometimes for the second time.

It made me reflect that books were always, and still are, very good friends, accompanying my changes, my trips and my free time. And during this radio’s talk, the participants mentioned likewise various reasons why books are indeed very good friends.
Are also books good friends of yours? Or maybe they may become new friends. Let me tell you about the advantages of this kind of relationship 🙂

The first quality that books have is that depending of the kind of content you choose, they help you in having a different perspective of your actual situation: they allow you to consider the experience of another person, sometimes in another historical period. Through this it is possible to reflect about the various reactions you may have in front of an imaginary or a real event that could happen to you. That could help you to deal better with and appreciate more what is around you.

The second quality is that you can identify with a character from the book by putting yourself in another person’s shoes. This trains your empathy and moreover it offers the opportunity to have more understanding towards what other people go through in life.

The third aspect, my favourite, is that reading is a slow activity: it stimulate your imagination, engage several parts of your brain and provide a quiet experience where the stimuli you are exposed to, are limited. The opposite of a well common tendency that leads many people to try to relax and to distract the mind by watching films and videos. This behaviour brings the all body to be passive in receiving many uninterrupted stimuli. A fast flow of inputs that overwhelms the attention and can promote indifference and demotivation.

If you find that reading is a demanding activity and you feel like it requires too much effort, you can consider it like a physical training: when you start to train it is often hard work, but it gets better with time. And the sensations afterwards are great!
On my side, I decided to follow one of the suggestions given by “my” Italian speaking writers interviewed at the radio, and to get aquatinted with the Russian literature (*). Apparently the dramatic vibes of their plots suit particularly well these times 🙂

Enjoy your new friends!

(*) War and Peace by Lev Tolstoj. Life and Fate by Vasilij Grossman. The Eighth Life (For Brilka) by Nino Haratischwili.

Picture from Panorama.it