• Italian

I’ve always been a proponent of the quote Knowledge not shared is lost forever but since a few month I’m wondering if it is right to explain things to others or help them to learn. On the job I see more and more frequently people do things I asked about without explain me how I could do it; maybe it is the crisis that frightens some people (“if you know how to do my own things, I could be fired”), forgetting a sad but great truth: with very few exceptions, all are useful, but none is needed. In the event that I have to explain things, I notice a growing disinterest… something like “make this thing works without boring me!”. It makes sense to explain? It makes sense to figure things out?

• Italian

Today I cooked my first rye wholemeal bread; it was good: just a little crispy near the border, but I’m happy with it, ’cause I was forced to use a shape for spinach pies.

Memo: buy a shape for bread

• Italian

I provide myself (sigh!): massage and Kinesio Tape.

• Italian

After many bikes, 2 scooters and 6 motorbikes, today I bought my first car. I made this choice ’cause I’m doin’ about 16500 Km/year (10000 miles/year) that is very expensive for a motorbike and for my safety especially during winter (I was forced to left my motorbike at the university two times this year because of the snow and the graupel). I am feeling old.

• Italian

This is a story I learned when I was a child startin’ to play judo; it is about the creation of the ju-jitsu. But it is more than that.

It happen that, one day, during a heavy snowfall, Shireobei Akiyama observed that the weight of the snow had broken the branches of the most robust trees and that they had been left bare. His eyes then fell on a tree that had remained intact. It was a willow tree with flexible branches. Every time the snow threatened to break them, these branches flexed, letting the snow fall and returning to their original position.

• Italian

A boy won a horse in a fair, and people said: “what luck!”. But the mother said: “you can never say what is luck and what not”. Shortly after the boy fell from his horse and broke his leg. People said: “what a bad luck!”, but the mother said: “you can never say what is really unfortunate”. Some time after went the army recruiters who brought in war all the youth of the country, except the boy with the injured leg. People said: “what luck!” but the mother remarked, one can never tell what is luck and what misfortune.
(via Luca Speciani)

• Italian

There are people that we are disliked at first sight and some other people we are fascinated just after 5 seconds of dialogue. In the past month I had the possibility (I would say luck) to get to know one of these people; a working relationship and nothing else and the difficulty for me to express what I wanted to say or ask in a language that I don’t mastered very well (for which I have to think “how do I say this word?”). Today we casually met and he told me that tomorrow he will came back home; he thanked me for the support that I provided.

Thank-you Jay, even if I know you are not reading this: in just a couple of minutes you learned me so much things.

• Italian

• Italian

Renato Vallanzasca, sentenced to four life sentences for robberies, murders and evasions, today (after 40 years) has begun to take advantage of a permit to work outside prison.

And you still believe in justice?

• Italian

For several months I tried to start a new way of life, perhaps more fatalistic, perhaps less frenetic (certainly changing work from the metropolis to a small city influenced this choice, but it is a path that I started long ago) but I think is giving me a lot of benefit. It all started with this book (which I’m also slowly re-reading) and continued with this other that it was a real godsend. When I get
something that bothers me, my first thought is: “that is really worth pissed about this? “. Okay outburst immediate, but never ruminate or think “going on now and if this thing, then there may be that other “and so on as if life would be a big game of chess. No, life is a thing which should rightly have rules, that tests us, but that should not be seen as a prison camp. But let’s get back to us: ok, I’m angry. And now? In 99% of cases, you don’t care about my anger. You can’t solve a problem just being pissed. Ergo, it is not worth angry. Sure, there are those 10 seconds in which
we need to stop and reflect. Seconds during which I do deep breathing: a breathing means that it gives me nuisance. Two breaths indicate that I do not have angry, even if it makes me angry. Three breaths are the highest achieved: I’m trying not to send you to hell (or not to scream). This “job” is not that complicated: just be aware of your limits and your own capacity, more than anything else is an internal process that requires us to sort ourselves out (we can also lie to everyone, but we can hardly lie to ourselves) and with the awareness that we are just a grain of sand on a beach.