One of the great things about journalism is that it sometimes leads you to meet great people. I’m not talking about the famous ones, necessarily; indeed, exceptional people are often the ones you don’t expect; or a person you thought you knew turns out to be great for something you don’t expect. This long introduction to remind you that one of the people who taught me the most about digital and computers is a former Formula 1 driver; a formidable athlete who builds and modifies his tools by hand to train and compete. You understood it, after all the name was in the title: Alex Zanardi. On May 7, 2020 I gave him what for now is his last interview of him, a record that I hope to lose very soon, as soon as Alex recovers from the terrible accident he had a few months later. It was May 7, 2020 and we all remember those days well: the lockdown, the very hard one, had just ended; for three days we had cautiously resumed leaving the house after almost two months. We were exhausted. At that time I was in charge of a project to go and teach digital in countries, to those who knew nothing. Operation Digital Risorgimento. We drove around with an immense silver camper that arrived in the squares starting the lessons. Except that with the lockdown the camper had returned to the garage and with the promoter of this initiative, TIM, we had thought of starting a course of online lessons that would help children and teenagers to continue learning interesting things even indoors. We called the vein dedicated to high school graduates Masters of Italy, meetings with great Italians on the major issues of the moment. And on May 7th I had Alex Zanardi. I did not know him, and I was excited, you can see very well in the video that is still on Facebook.
He was at home, in a large kitchen, as we often find in country houses. He had just trained and was in crazy shape, he said to me: the Olympics were approaching and he, he said, had physical values again about him when he was much younger. We talked for almost an hour and it was simply Alex Zanardi: generous with himself like few others. Towards the end I asked him about his relationship with the web, social media, digital at a time when we were all saying that digital had saved us, helping us to overcome the dark days of the lockdown. And she blew me away. He told me not to be particularly attracted to this world, yes of course he used it, but with moderation, what is strictly necessary. And then he closed it more or less like this: “Computers have all the answers, but not the questions. These are the questions that make us human ”.
The questions: what we want to know, where we want to go. This matters. If you have some time this weekend, listen to Zanardi again. Hoping you will be back soon.
Here’s a clip with the best of encounters.
In the photo: Alex Zanarsi at the Padua Paralympic Culture Festival in 2019. Getty