Serena Dandini (photo by Gianmarco Chieregato).
CWe are taught from an early age that to face the world and be successful you need to be decisive and efficient and always know what you want. We are recommended books and manuals by self-made men and today also women, who provide advice and suggest paths to reach our goals in a few steps and without wasting time. The new school of “merit” continues to underline this trend towards optimizing a sparkling and hesitation-free life.
But if like me and many others, you too often navigate turbulent waters in the grip of doubt and indecision and you struggle to be resolute while feeling that slight exhilaration that makes you drift between one choice and another on certain gloomy days, don’t be afraid and don’t feel like an outcast of society, because delving deeper, reflecting and changing your mind is precisely what makes us human .
And then there is always literature, music and art to help us offering us lifeboats and shining examples that will make us feel less alone. To sing the praise of indecision by analyzing it in all its nuances, a beautiful book by Giorgio Zanchini The library of the undecided. Readings that teach us the courage not to choose (Mondadori).
The author, now an established journalist and television commentator, was (and perhaps still is) a great indecisive and in this essay he confesses with irony and great passion all the confusions and fears encountered along his path, and how the literary characters or the words of the songs have comforted him in moments of loneliness and turmoil, creating that saving effect of identification that only the art can unleash.
“The library of the undecided. Readings that teach us the courage not to choose” by Giorgio Zanchini (Mondadori).
You can choose to enlist among the ranks of the chronically undecided like Italo Svevo’s characters, or in those of lazy undecideds like Oblomov, or abandon all choices and launch themselves towards an unexpected escape route off pre-established tracks, betraying society’s oppressive expectations. By choosing to become like Sal di On the roadJack Kerouac’s alter ego, or follow in the footsteps of a hero from Hemingway’s novels.
There is something for every taste in Zanchini’s book, perfect for delving into every aspect of this wavering and elusive feeling that is impossible to match even for the most refined artificial intelligence. The more we immerse ourselves in reading, the more we discover how indecision is unfairly considered a flaw. What if it were the first source of human creativity?
All articles by Serena Dandini.
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