The philosopher Maurizio Ferrariswho for at least the last twenty years has studied and explained the meaning of digital in our lives and the virtuous relationship we can have with technology, has just published a completely different book: is titled Learning to liveand it’s a kind of manual with the things we should know to live happily.
It is not the first of these books, in fact it is one tradition that begins with Seneca, and before him with Plato. And yet this book has the advantage of being contemporary: it talks about us. And of him, of Maurizio Ferraris. The philosopher says that the impulse to write it occurred to him after a disastrous fall that stopped him, forcing him to think about the meaning of life. While I was reading it I also fell: I was skiing, after a few years, I was skiing in adverse weather conditions, and at one point I went flying into the air and I landed on my shoulder. Fortunately, the excruciating pain was not a sign of the severity of the injury: dislocation and not fracture. Holiday over obviously, and guardian for 30 days. And yet: it went well for me. I think for real. I could break something, I could hit my head, I could really hurt myself. Sure that It could have been better, but it could have been much worse. If the first thought prevails in your heart, you become dejected; if the latter prevails, you are relieved.
In life, when you learn to let the “it could have been worse” interpretation prevail (obviously I’m not talking about real tragedies), you have understood how to find the way to be happy. Which doesn’t mean settling. “It could have been worse” looks to the past, but there is an equally important phrase that looks to the future: it is “it should be better”. Indeed, it is “things can change for the better and it depends on me too”. With the first sentence, we learn not to complain too much when there is some adversity; with the second we force ourselves to commit, we leave the comfortable zone in which the cynics and pessimists are, we get involved. Why do this? For what Ferraris calls “the only reasonable hope: to be reborn”; that is, trying to experience “almost a new beginning, every day, until the end”.