Reading enlivens intelligence, strengthens personality and gives us intense and pleasant moments of intimacy. It is also a way of sharing experiences. We present some proposals to enjoy reading and cultivate emotions.
With reading, we simply grow. In a metaphorical and real sense at the same time.
As Borges said, the book is the only instrument invented by man that is not an extension of his body: “The microscope, the telescope, are extensions of his sight; the telephone is an extension of his voice; then we have the plow and the sword, arm extensions. But the book is something else: the book is an extension of memory and imagination “.
With the book, we project ourselves beyond ourselves and access unknown or distant territories created by people we feel are twinned with us. Reading a book, as has been said so many times, is like traveling without leaving home. And as in any trip, the one who returns is not exactly the same as the one who left.
Books push us to change and keep looking. Perhaps that is why they are so important in adolescence, a time when our desires grow faster than our possibilities for understanding and action.
Through reading, the adolescent rushes to unknown continents and prepares to change and go beyond the child who still hangs him and the protective glances that the family returns.
Reading has, therefore, something of initiation into a secret : the words that cannot be said, the doubts that embarrass you, the desires that torment you … they become real when you hear them spoken by someone else or see them black on white in books that he discovers for himself or that come to him from friendly hands.
It is an initiation more typical of other times, surely, and today it may seem outdated because books have lost their privileged position in our society, especially among young people. Video games, the internet, social networks, music, television or cinema are means that have replaced the book as an entertainment option and a means of maturing, and it is useless to lament, as it is so often done.
Everything helps the young person to form and give himself to the world and everything has its dangers; reading too: some books, let’s not forget, have devastated souls and countries. But there is an important difference: reading turns us inwards, while other media show us or project us outside.
WHAT DISTINGUISHES READING? A SMART PLEASURE THAT HELPS US SEE THE WORLD
Reading predisposes us to introspection and the search to know, improve, share, enjoy … In short, to mature and grow.
Obviously, reading is not the only way to do this. Many people hardly read and are not less intelligent or happy for that. But they deprive themselves of a unique pleasure and tend to have a less “wide” life, less extended in experiences and possibilities of fruition.
As I remember having read once, it can be learned directly from life, but that way it is easy not to go beyond the prologue of existence.
Reading always reverts to you and as the years go by and the wisps of youth die down, it is a safe haven where you can be happy. A hedonic pleasure, as Harold Bloom has called it that needs no justification.
We do not read to save the world, but in any case to get to know the world better. We do not read to save ourselves, but to get to know ourselves and others. And that knowledge strengthens us and reinforces our personality. It is a free, voluntary, sovereign act, one of the few that we can do without feeling obliged in any way and that enlivens our intelligence.
Virginia Woolf said that reading a good book was like having cataract surgery: “After reading, we see it more intensely; the world seems to have shed the veil that covered it and have taken on a more intense life.”
Today that veil is surely greater than ever, saturated as we are with information. Reality has become so complex, it is woven with so many threads that it is not enough to pull one of them. We all need help to orient ourselves in it.
Therefore, no wisdom can claim to encompass the full understanding of what surrounds us. Goethe could achieve it in his time; today it would be impossible. But all wisdom continues to find in books the serene channel to reach us.
A channel that is like our spiritual DNA because the great oral traditions of the beginning of historical times and everything that has flowed from them have ended up in it: the Gilgamesh poem, the Vedas, the Mahabharata, the Iliad and the Odyssey. , the prophets, the philosophers, the Bible, the songs of deed … And, of course, modern man , who is no longer defined by the community, but looks inside to seek and reveal himself to others: Montaigne , Shakespeare, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, Kafka, Proust …
The eyes with which we look at the world are his. Those of the unknown narrators who, in the heat of the fire, recounted the exploits of the hero Gilgamesh during the starry nights and those of the child Proust who anxiously awaited his mother’s kiss before going to sleep.
In reading we continue to look for examples of behavior and looks that help us understand who we are.
Today many of these books may not be read, but they reach us in a thousand ways. As Jean-Claude Carrière (author together with Umberto Eco of No One Will End Books, edited by Lumen) recounts, Buddha did not write anything and the Benares sermon, with which he made known the “four noble truths”, barely occupied a folio: “Buddhism, at first, was a little leaf. And that simple little leaf, later, from the transcripts of Ananda, has generated millions of books.”
A BOOK FOR EVERY READER
Although we do not read it directly, if we open a book by Schopenhauer or Italo Calvino, a business treatise on work motivation or a self-help manual … we access traces of that wisdom that has fertilized authors who were previously readers and who knew how to convert reading in inspiration and source of creation.
Because reading, far from being a passive act, as many may believe, is a creative act that is available to everyone.
When we read, we interpret, we relate, we value, we store, we forget… Each reader modifies the book, sometimes making it unrecognizable to others, because it relates it to their experience and knowledge.
The few readers Kafka had in life appreciated the comic side of his writings; after the Holocaust and the great wars of the 20th century, darker readings were made of the same narratives … For some, he is an existentialist writer, for many a poet of the absurd and for some almost a Jewish mystic who wrote parables to find to a god who hides behind Creation.
Reading is a work that does not stop, a permanent re-creation. And in the same way that there is no single reading, there is also no one-dimensional reader, limited or concerned by only one type of reading.
When someone asks me: what books would you recommend? My prudence tells me that the best answer is that of Virginia Woolf: there is no advice that is worth. The reader will end up finding your books.
But it is also clear to me that reading moves action, and that is why I never forget what John Steinbeck said: “It is almost impossible to read something beautiful without feeling the desire to do something beautiful.”
Reading is the act of finding life, with all its contradictions but also with its great lessons, in books. Those words of the writer André Maurois are an invitation to immerse oneself in life and reading.
10 GOOD BOOKS TO GROW EMOTIONALLY
From the writing of Cuerpomente we have selected 9 good books to give or give away and that can help us grow emotionally.
1/9
A tea to heal the soul
In A tea to cure the soul (Zenith) by Francesc Miralles and Ángeles Doñate, the authors offer us a story full of sensitivity and wisdom that reminds us of the value of life.
On the journey to dump her brother’s ashes, Toni accidentally meets Kosei-San, an elderly Japanese man living in retirement in a modest and lonely cabin on the edge of a cliff.
When he discovers someone walking sadly, without a camera or guide, to the edge of the abyss, he runs out to meet them. Talk to the person and ask him to share a tea at his cabin and tell him his story before leaving. Through this ceremony, the old man warms the suicidal spirit as he looks for a way out of the abyss that allows him to reconcile himself with life.
2/9
Signs
The author of Cuerpomente Sílvia Díez Muntané –philosopher, journalist and lecturer– and Araceli Gutiérrez Villanueva, have just presented the book Signs. When life marks the path of the soul, which is the long-awaited continuation of his work Alone.
Through the new adventure that the captivating characters of this novel undertake, the authors tell us about how people, between fears and doubts, struggle to reconnect with life. To achieve this, they will have to listen to the signals that, like headlights at night, will show them the way to go. From his hand, identifying ourselves with his existential crossroads, we will enter a new dimension in which everything, everything is possible.
Again in this work, the authors of Alone keep us with our hearts on edge, they immerse us in a world full of emotions and hope, where the reader can grow through each of their lines. Without a doubt, those in love with Solo will find in Signs a new hymn to life in all its expressions, where the misplaced pieces end up completing the puzzle, and the reader delves into the mysteries and messages of their own soul.
3/9
Reset your mind
The Dr. Mario Alonso Puig – doctor, a specialist in general surgery and divulgador- invites us through the book resets your mind. Discover what you are capable of (Espasa) to make a voyage of discovery.
The prestigious author shows surprising and often unknown aspects about how the brain, the mind and what happens to us are related. Their discoveries can help us improve our self-esteem and enhance intelligence, memory, leadership, creativity…
In short, Dr. Mario Alonso Puig shows us how we can influence our brain and mind to modify our way of perceiving, thinking, feeling and acting.
4/9
Hollow Earth’s Secret Diary
The writer Cristina Romero surprises us with this young adult novel, The Secret Diary of the Hollow Earth (ING Edicions), which proposes a journey to a magical world where humans and nature live in a very different way than what we are used to.
It is the story of a 13-year-old girl who discovers that inside the Earth there is a very different way of living, more in tune with nature and decides to capture this secret in a personal diary that now reaches the reader in the form of revelation.
5/9
Insta-Brain
Insta-Brain (RBA) by Anders Hansen is a book that helps us discover how digital dependence affects our health and happiness.
Ideal for those who want to discover how we can – and must – reduce screen time, regain control over the digital world around us, and accept that our brains can be hopelessly lost in one of the biggest behavioral changes in the world. The history of mankind.
6/9
The Power of the Nunchi
Nunchi means in Korean “to measure with your gaze” and refers to the art of intuiting the thoughts and emotions of others to build harmony, trust and connection.
The power of the Nunchi (Zenith), of Hong Euny us about the secrets of the Nunchi -the new revolution after the ikigai Japanese and hygge danés- to learn to interpret and understand what people think and feel to use it to our advantage.
7/9
How to prevent conflict with adolescents
In How to prevent conflicts with adolescents (Current Platform) , Alejandro Rodrigo tells us that the key to the good development of young people goes beyond the rules and limits that we can define as a father or mother.
The real secret, according to this expert in Analysis and Criminal Investigation who has been helping families to resolve conflicts with their adolescent children for more than 15 years, is that we are a reference for our children, the mirror in which they want to look. With this book we will discover what our children see when they look at us.
8/9
Girls’ Red Book
The Red Book of Girls (Count in Tribe), written by Cristina Romero and illustrated by Francis Marín, was born to accompany and moderate girls on their way to maturity, but it is also a book for mothers, and for all women, because it helps us heal wounds from our own childhood. Now we have available an expanded special edition of the Contar en Tribu publishing house that contains a valuable letter from the author that invites you to explore your rich inner world, in perfect harmony with the universe.
An illustrated book whose words and images seem to whisper to our psyche (emotions-mind-spirit) that it is good to obey, listen and love each other.
Nature inhabits our bodies and, if we open ourselves to listening to it, it gives us its great power: the power to be on our own behalf, the power to know our changing needs and attend to them.
9/9
From stress to BEING
From stress to being is a practical manual to become aware of the limitations that trap us and overcome the obstacles that prevent us from living life.
Using original and different tools –based on neuropsychology– Lucía Toro intends to teach us to live the “here and now” to see situations that generate stress from another perspective.
