I meet Maurizio Righetti because he’s a very kind person, and because he’s the author of the book ” The Second Lives”, published by Bulgarini, and I feel, in spite of the author, to be a co-star.
RAI journalist, Maurizio Righetti for the first time author of a book where he tells 15 true stories, in 14 of which about people run into serious health problems then exceeded, and one, on the other hand, of people who are having to process and react to a bereavement, the loss of a child.
In all cases there is, by the protagonists, a strong reaction, as strong as the pain that overwhelms them, a push towards a new vision of life and a new interpretation of the world, due to the new sensibility that characterizes each of them, the new ability to collect the wonder in every aspect of daily life lived as a gift .
I repeated the adjective “new” too many times, and it’s a mistake, because these skills are already present in every human being, who, in most cases, it is unfortunately not fully aware, if not after a “shock”, a “death”, a ride.
Most of us are lucky enough to enjoy good health and a stable situation, living our life like a distracted passenger on a train that already has its own well-marked path, in the comfortable certainty of our trip.
Sometimes it can happens, however, that, for a traumatic event such as, for example, an illness, a separation (luckily for me I have experienced both, and I say luckily without quotes, because I say it without irony) or a mourning, the train runs into an unexpected “truck”, suddenly changing direction. We could be overwhelmed by the fear of the future and a sense of helplessness in having to manage an occurrent bigger than us .
We are facing two options: jump off the train, succumbing and be overtaken by events , or take control and manage the race.
Who will choose the second option will notice that riding the train and looking out the windows will be much more satisfying than let your life flow .
You will be able to enjoy the landscapes, the open vistas of the countryside , you will notice the screws full of grapes waiting for the harvest, intersect other trains, you will run shorter or longer stretches of road along with some of them, you will enter into galleries, but if you do not stop you will come always out.
I’m not the first to argue that life is a journey and not a destination, and this is what many of us have not yet realized.
The style with which the author tells the stories is, he says, deliberately detached, and it could not have been otherwise, in my opinion, not having an experience similar to that of the protagonists.
For my part, I strongly recommend to everyone to read this book, which is not about special people, but about normal people that life made special. I will say more, I strongly suggest to re- read it, at different stages of your life. You will see that every time, thanks to your own personal experiences, the words take a more and more true and deep meaning.
by Benedetta Tintillini
Read the article in Italian
