Un racconto triste e dolce e poetico nello stesso momento, questo. Un frammento di un ricordo non mio, conservato nel cassetto del tempo, e trasformato in racconto.
I bambini hanno il potere di rendere magico tutto quello che toccano.
E io non sopporto i bambini. Forse perché ho difficoltà a ricordare la mia infanzia.
Questo video è una delle tante splendide cose che potrete trovare su Bbc Ideas, sito geniale e innovativo della Bbc nel quale si parla di questioni importanti, con prospettive inedite su diversi argomenti, sito nel quale si trattano con delicatezza e sensibilità molti temi. Questa animazione racconta, per esempio, dell’essere introversi e del perché spesso, a noi introversi, piace stare da soli.
E come introversi spesso ci mascheriamo da opposti, da mattatori (soprattutto quando il livello etilico va verso l’alto) e facciamo a volte anche finta di sorridere quando non ce ne frega niente di farlo e non ci interessa di chi abbiamo intorno, ma cerchiamo di sembrare uguali a tutti gli altri, cerchiamo di non deludere le aspettative degli altri.
E’ problematico, l’essere introversi. In un mondo dove la competizione, la furbizia, la freddezza e il cinismo, l’arroganza e lo sfruttamento dell’altro sono preponderanti, l’introverso si contrappone con un suo mondo ideale basato su una diversa scala di valori. E non si ritrova. Anche sul piano emotivo: grandi passioni, forti delusioni, la sensazione di essere traditi da qualcuno o qualcosa, perché la tua scala non ti permette di fare sconti. E non ci puoi fare niente.
Il senso di non sentirsi adeguati alla realtà circostante è sempre stato un problema al quale spesso ho reagito in passato contrapponendo periodi di intensa solitudine dove mi rifugiavo nella lettura, ad altri di reazione violenta o provocatoria nei confronti della realtà intorno a me.
Oggi realizzare certe cose, attraverso una percezione di sé stessi più compresa e accettata, non mi rende meno introverso, ma almeno mi sta dando gli strumenti per capire. Parlarne apertamente per esempio, in questa sorta di viaggio psicanalitico, è stato difficile. Ancora lo è.
Credo che l’aver abbracciato il giornalismo anni fa sia stato per me un mezzo per poter raccontare gli altri, e mai me. Mai mettersi in gioco, mai fermarsi. Trasmettere agli altri le emozioni dalle quali tu non vuoi farti toccare. Perché nei hai già troppe, interiormente, da gestire. Poi però ci sono momenti nei quali torna con forza il desiderio di riflessione e di voler comunicare che, in fondo, il tuo essere distaccato non è dato da insensibilità, ma dalla troppa sensibilità e dall’incapacità poi di gestirla razionalmente, se vieni toccato da essa.
E quando vieni toccato è un problema, perché è come finire arenati su una spiaggia dopo uno Tsunami.
*Il disegno degli alberi è dell’illustratore Enzo Pérès-Labourdette.
Threes
Once upon a time there was a house by a lake. A house on top of a hill. A small village, a school, and a little girl who had recently arrived there. She rarely spoke to her classmates, preferring to be alone. She did not laugh or cry. She seemed immune to everything that was happening outside. The warmth of the sun, the passing of clouds, a caress. While the children played in the schoolyard, she stood on the sidelines with a small stuffed animal in her hand. She was bored at school. She didn’t speak. But when she came home, the first thing she did, as soon as she could, was to visit her tree friends.
Trees don’t betray you, they don’t lie, they don’t tell you lies. Trees are trees, and they never go away. They stay in their place, firm, unchanging, tangible. Trees allow themselves to be embraced even for hours, and they never tire of it.
So the trees began to await her arrival every day and, in silence, learned to listen to her. To understand her. When the wind rustled their leaves, for the child this was a yes or no to her statements or questions. An intimate, unique dialogue that no one else could decipher. A dialogue based on the rustling of the leaves. A language no one had ever heard before. A dialogue about solitude.
Every afternoon, when the wind rose on the green hillside, the little girl would leave the house and head for the trees. With them she would find someone lost and, through them, re-establish her precious channel of communication. There was also a special day: a single day on which to talk to her and tell her everything. Both of them in the meadow, surrounded by trees.
A sad and sweet and poetic tale at the same time, this one. A fragment of a memory that is not mine, kept in the drawer of time, and turned into a story.
Children have the power to make everything they touch magical.
And I can’t stand children. Maybe because I have difficulty remembering my childhood.
This video is one of the many wonderful things you can find on BBC Ideas, the BBC’s ingenious and innovative site where we talk about important issues, with fresh perspectives on different topics, a site where many topics are treated with delicacy and sensitivity. This animation talks, for example, about being introverted and why introverts often like to be alone.
And as introverts we often disguise ourselves as opposites, as entertainers (especially when the alcohol level goes up) and sometimes we even pretend to smile when we don’t give a damn and we don’t care who we are around, but we try to look like everyone else, we try not to disappoint the expectations of others.
It’s problematic, being introverted. In a world where competition, cunning, coldness and cynicism, arrogance and exploitation of others are preponderant, the introvert contrasts with his own ideal world based on a different scale of values. And he does not find himself. Also on an emotional level: great passions, strong disappointments, the feeling of being betrayed by someone or something, because your scale does not allow you to make discounts. And there’s nothing you can do about it.
The sense of not feeling adequate to the surrounding reality has always been a problem to which I have often reacted in the past by contrasting periods of intense solitude where I took refuge in reading, with others of violent or provocative reaction to the reality around me.
Today, realising certain things, through a more understood and accepted perception of oneself, does not make me less introverted, but at least it is giving me the tools to understand. Talking openly about it, for example, in this sort of psychoanalytical journey, was difficult. It still is.
I think that embracing journalism years ago was a way for me to be able to talk about others, and never about myself. Never putting yourself out there, never stopping. To transmit to others the emotions you don’t want to be touched by. Because you already have too many to deal with internally. But then there are moments when the desire to reflect comes back with force and to communicate that, in the end, your detachment is not due to insensitivity, but to too much sensitivity and the inability to manage it rationally if you are touched by it.
And when you are touched it’s a problem, because it’s like being stranded on a beach after a tsunami.
The drawing of the trees is by the illustrator Enzo Pérès-Labourdette.
Cristiano Tinazzi 