Paolo Crepet

thumb|Paolo Crepet in 2009 q:it:Paolo Crepet (1951) is an Italian psychiatrist and sociologist. Quotes There is a psychological problem, not a legal one: you are mothers, and I don't need to tell you that those nine months are not just a matter of biological growth. There are thousands of studies that show that an emotional bond is established between the mother and the baby in her womb. [...] Women who ask others to carry on with the pregnancy for them? Horrible, Nazism, pure Nazism. You talk about the rights of adults and not the rights of children. During the TV program Tagadà, 12 January 2016; quoted in Lo psichiatra Paolo Crepet: «la gestazione per altri? Nazismo puro», UccrOnline.it, 16 January 2016 (About Romanzo criminale) It contributes significantly to helping people not to think, to turn their attention to other things, and that is why the literary and then cinematic product is successful. Denise Faticante, Banda da fiction, Lettera 43, 11 November 2010 We must give children back their playtime, not put smartphones in their cribs to distract ourselves. I am tech-savvy and in favor of technology, but not as a tool to relieve us of our responsibility for education. Andrea Camilleri wrote a wonderful book a few years ago, L'enciclopedia dei giochi per l'infanzia (“The Encyclopedia of Children's Games"), and Sicily, in its essence, could be a great pedagogical laboratory that bucks the trend. I say this about Sicily, but I could say it about Venice or Naples, about all those places that have an immense cultural heritage. Eleonora Lombardo, Paolo Crepet: “La bellezza della Sicilia può educare i bambini”, Repubblica.it, 29 September 2022 The success of these television series, like all films about the mafia or evil in general, can be explained by one simple fact: they attract us because each of us is somehow drawn to evil, but they comfort us and lull us to sleep because they are fiction. Denise Faticante, Banda da fiction, Lettera 43, 11 November 2010 We are experiencing a strange paradox: no one can say they are lonely anymore, yet we all, to some extent, feel and fear that we are. Solitudini, Feltrinelli «Non è stato un raptus. Bisogna cogliere i segnali, non si diventa un "lupo" in una notte» Ilmessaggero.it, 19 November 2023 [...] it happened in Veneto, one of the most productive and wealthy areas of the country, in what has been called the engine of Italy. It did not happen in a suburb of the South, catalogued with the usual blah-blah. [...] It is proof that violence and prejudice against women have nothing to do with what the usual four sociologists say. Here we are in the heart of the Northeast. There are villas, well-kept gardens, a world we thought was privileged. And happy. But no. We have money, but not happiness. There are young people who cannot distinguish between feelings: how can you talk about love when you make forty phone calls to a girl? “In general, what do parents do wrong?” They are wrong to always justify their children. Are the kids doing badly at school? Poor things. Do they get a failing grade? It's the teachers' fault. Do they fail? Appeal to the TAR. We have created children who do not know frustration, who do not know that ‘no’ also exists. I'm not a magician, but I don't think it all happened that night; outbursts only happen in comic books. You don't become a wolf overnight. Interviewer: How do you recognise an angel's voice? Crepet: Listen, it’s there. Or you need it so much that you make it up.’ I don't know if angels really exist, but I believe in them. Like many young people my age, I was cynical, and I was cynical because life had made me tough: I experienced bereavement at an early age, and I never had any political connections or patrons. But my cynicism has turned into a kind of romanticism, where angels appear – and maybe they're actually people.” From an interviene by Candida Morvillo, Paolo Crepet: «Credo che siamo immortali, sento la voce degli angeli. L’ultima telefonata di Ornella Vanoni. Sono amico di Harry Styles», Corriere della Sera, 18 April 2026. Paolo Crepet: «Belve di Francesca Fagnani è disperazione allo stato puro. Università? Mi hanno fatto fuori gli invidiosi» Silvia M.C. Senette, corrieredeltrentino.it, 14 gennaio 2025 People need guidance, and when they can't find it, they invent it. We need an instruction manual for life. But then the instructions are so simple and obvious that one wonders: why don't people follow them? We're not talking about Einstein's insights here. Instead of playing with toy trains in the attic, he plays with satellites orbiting the Earth. He's as brilliant as Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. Now it seems to me that something is making him a little too euphoric... But when a man, from Caesar onwards, passing through Napoleon, thinks he wants to take over the world, at that precise moment he becomes something I don't like: a dictator. Sooner or later, some actor will re-enact the scene of Charlie Chaplin kicking the globe, this time dressed not as Hitler but as Musk. (About the television program Belve) What's interesting about it? They've never invited me, and I would never go. Fagnani may be cute, but it's the fault of those who make the program that they have to look for the time you slipped on a banana peel: pure desperation. And teenagers see that we are ruthless. The trash TV we talked about years ago was the precursor to this; now it's animalistic television, in fact they're called “Belve” (Beasts) and “Iene” (Hyenas). There's nothing human about it. At the beginning of my career, I was too drastic and perhaps I didn't understand that there's an age for everything. I can afford to do certain things today because I see them from a higher hill, which allows me to broaden my view of things and bring a little more wisdom to bear. I am sometimes criticized for my excesses, my hyperactivity, and I think that criticism is fair, even if in the end it has brought good things, because otherwise I would be just one of many today. And then they accuse me of being blunt, of often taking too clear-cut positions: that too must come with life. I was born to have opinions, but at a certain age, you reach a point where you can speak your mind. I am afraid of the life my daughter will have. I can count young people who are great travelers on the fingers of one hand. No one cares that you went to Peru: they're much more interested in someone who takes a selfie with a heart-shaped pout. Today, artistic expression has been reduced to zero, unless you consider dipping a biscuit in your latte to be art, perhaps tagging the bakery so you can get free cappuccinos for the next three months. Baciami senza rete Rudeness in the age of the Internet and technology seems to know no bounds: everything seems to be permitted, respect for others is now an obsolete concept, a habit of old gentlemen resting in some country cemetery. Seduction begins with a mole, or rather a difference, something that distinguishes uniqueness. The actresses who have left an indelible mark on our memory are those who had some small flaw: feminine (and masculine) perfection leaves no impression and causes no disturbance; it may work for a photograph or an advertisement, but not for the construction of a myth. And if tomorrow our children can finally live in a world where a computer can be absolutely competitive with human intelligence, what will be their task and their destiny? To control megacomputers or be controlled by them? A young talent, however innovative and creative they may be, if they remain isolated, even if connected to the world in a virtual way, will never be able to express themselves as those who have daily opportunities for real contamination. Parents need only ask themselves one simple question: if a boy or girl has never wanted for anything, how will they know the need to build something for their own future? All children have talent, as Maria Montessori said, but not all are creative in the same way. To nurture their creativity, we need to make them confident in their abilities and not dependent on anything: a very difficult task for any educator. Digital technology is, and must remain, a tool, not an end in itself. With regard to the anthropological changes it constantly proposes, we need to speak words of wisdom and assert common sense. Technocrats are citizens like everyone else, not emperors of the new world. Elogio dell'amicizia Incipit I went there in winter, following a winding, narrow road that descends and climbs the peaceful banks of the lower Po Valley. Beyond the hood, the inevitable mist, a gentle reminder of seasons when you couldn't even see the road signs, when to get home you had to follow someone walking in front of the car along the strip separating the road from the ditch, when the old folks remembered how in their day the opaque blanket was so thick that you could rest your bicycle on it. Quotes Friendship arises from life's opportunities, often from fate, but to become an indispensable feeling, it needs to be based on shared emotions, not emotional mediocrity. Friendliness applied to teaching has a relaxing effect on teachers, as it makes them feel magically irresponsible: authority is tiring and must be constantly reaffirmed, while this decadent form of equality requires no effort. I figli non crescono più Hold your head high and don't set limits on your ambition: limits are there to be overcome through passion and ability. It's not true that you have to accept yourself in life; rather, it's essential to know that you can improve yourself, whatever season you're going through. Each of us has the right to think that life is a long road, where you can and must try, make mistakes, and try again. The task of a psychiatrist is to accompany growth, to accompany pain and not erase it; if anything, they must try to ensure that the damage is not repeated, that it does not sprout a weed that infests one's entire existence. On the other hand, I have always thought that the profession of teacher is not and should not be a job for just anyone: a civilized community should know this. It is love that acts like a disease, but it works in reverse: it is good when it infects, it kills when it heals. New technologies bring with them new responsibilities for adults. The idea of limits—and its intrinsic, unfortunately persuasive, pedagogical force—was created to control people, to force them to grow up within a fence, to live in mortification: it constitutes the pedagogical path to frustration, a progressive annihilation of expectations and the most basic existential ambitions. Every magnificent man has a weakness that makes him precious. Thinking up and broadcasting a program means contributing to the construction of the culture and language of the younger generations, so television cannot exempt itself from playing a primary role in education. Those all-black clothes smack of defeat, they reek of collective mourning. Il coraggio Incipit Many years have passed since I first began to grapple with the verb “to educate.” It happened by chance, not by choice. After all, to deal with education, you need to have reached a certain age, one that allows you to have accumulated experience and knowledge, perhaps to have become a parent, to have met thousands of teachers and parents. So, gradually, “educate” became a word in my everyday vocabulary. Indeed, it became a useful exercise for better understanding people and, more generally, a metaphor for interpreting our culture. Quotes The courage to educate, which is so greatly needed, lies precisely in the ability to take away, not to add. I have always thought that a nursery school works well when a child arrives in the morning clean and returns home in the afternoon dirty: it means that an emotion has passed through him that may have the taste of flour, the color of a marker, the shape of a magnificent plasticine sculpture. Indignation is a fierce picklock, a lethal weapon precisely because it arises from oppositional thinking, from special consideration, from an analytical evaluation of what one intends to criticize. It is not a bazooka, but a sharp and astonishing foil. It takes courage to be indignant. When art is purely an aesthetic exercise, it is boring and mediocre. Art, representing the human condition, must be disturbing. Impara a essere felice Incipit I know you've never asked me.At least not explicitly.Yet I think it would be right for you to ask me if I'm happy, if I've ever been happy, and why. And if I'll be able to be happy again in the time I have left to live. Quotes The idea that happiness is a ‘'ready-to-wear’' feeling, easy to find, generates a very low threshold of antibodies against boredom, induces emotional satiety, and this entails, in the medium term, an enormous risk for young people: emotional emptiness, sensory detachment from reality, the absolute denial of desire and passion. (p. 15) Being free has a cost, but not being free costs even more. Being happy is demanding, but not being happy requires even more effort. (p. 42) Every ideology or religious faith should be oriented toward the attainment of happiness, because it is the only way to allow for the hope that tomorrow will be better than today, and not just the same. Then there would not be so many followers and faithful ready to sacrifice themselves in the trenches of the “just cause”; churches would remain deserted and politics would be only an exercise in good government that would not make anyone's fortune. (p. 49) Happiness lies in the courage to challenge oneself, to demand something from one's destiny without letting it run its course without our contribution. (p. 66) Sex and sexuality have been tools through which man has sought happiness. Since common morality has allowed us to engage in sex without love, the belief has spread that it represents a piece of Eden within everyone's reach. In reality, the frantic search for pleasure at all costs has taken something away from the knowledge of our identity, precisely through the trivialization of eroticism, now reduced to free genital exercise. This has led to the erosion of a complex idea of human eros, which should not only not be flattened to the necessity of reproduction, but also not simplified and reduced to a mere meeting of cells, a banal hormonal issue. This is also because genital happiness is among the most ephemeral and leads to premature melancholy. (pp. 79-80) However, there is a happiness linked to eroticism that does not necessarily involve the sexual act. The sense of pleasure and ecstasy, for example. Ecstasy evokes an extraordinary, astonishing image. It means ‘being outside’, the feeling one experiences when one manages to detach oneself without resorting to the repression of one's condition. (p. 81) What is the meaning of ecstasy today? That is, sublimation, the archetype of wonder and enjoyment, the loss of self and rationality, freedom from the obligation to desire. Is there anyone who seeks all this, [...], without artifice, without elaborate recipes? (p. 82) The most contradictory aspect of sex-centric culture is that it coexists with rationality, invokes it. The highest meaning of eroticism lies instead in the courage to detach oneself from one's surroundings, to abstract oneself, to elevate oneself to something else. Courage, a fundamental characteristic of ecstasy, lies in trusting oneself and one's senses, in letting go of all stubborn certainties. Happiness can only be found in unawareness and in the ecstasy that represents it supremely. (pp. 82-83) You should learn that life, like love, is the only business whose balance sheet must end in the red: you have to give everything without calculating what you get in return. The body has its seasons, and the youthful ones are not necessarily better than the later ones. True travelers are not rich people but curious ones. They are not looking for comfort, but for novelty and surprises. My profession has taught me that the most difficult and improbable thing is to change. Yet the pursuit of happiness lies not in preserving, but in the courage to change the course of events. Happiness is like a train without a timetable: one comes along every now and then. You cannot predict its arrival, nor know when it will leave again. Your job is to go to the station. Illness is a communicative language, not an anarchic mass of crazy cells. Sometimes our body is dissatisfied with the life it leads and complains, tries to resist, criticizes the brain for its choices. Loneliness sometimes has unexpected, surprising colors and nuances. It is an empty room where your soul and your sensitivity resonate. Unhappiness is a swamp where only surrender and renunciation dwell. Never give up on the idea that happiness can't be found for you somewhere in the world. Don't even do it on the last day of your life, because there will always be someone close to you who needs to glimpse it in your eyes. I have never believed that a fat person is more unhappy than a thin person, unless they are on the payroll of a fashion company. Excessive protection prevents maturation, thus also blocking emotional development and happiness. A teacher does not train; they educate and elevate. L'autorità perduta Incipit Pavullo, a radiant day at the end of the year. There is a festive atmosphere in the village, with the inauguration of a new nursery and elementary school. Everyone seems proud: authorities, teachers, parents, grandparents, curious citizens. The celebrations begin, the fanfare slowly descends the avenue between the flower beds to reach the gates. The recently sown grass has not yet sprouted, and the young trees stand slenderly propped up by wooden poles. Quotes I see a great desire for conformity around me. Young people have breathed this air and tend to reproduce what adults have been developing for some years now: an antagonism towards anything that smacks of risk. And the bad thing is that many young people are likely to apply this to their life plans. The puppy must learn that a rule is a rule and does not change according to the mood of the person holding the leash. Good ideas in education cost nothing, except the courage to have them and want to implement them. Music, as Maestro Claudio Abbado said, is not important for children to become musicians, but to teach them to listen and, consequently, to be listened to. The anthropological change in parents and grandparents therefore risks weighing on an already dramatic identity crisis among educators. Fill your computer screen with your own ideas, not those of others. [...] what the crisis teaches us is that now more than ever we need to go back to thinking, planning, and experimenting. In the United States, no economic magnate has ever left this world without first naming a foundation, university, museum, or theater after himself. Here, multimillionaires rush to hide their money in some tax haven to keep it available for their children (who will thus grow up to be boors and multimillionaires). The first and most immediate response that a parent tends to give when faced with an episode of obvious intemperance on the part of their child is to defend them, contravening the most basic rule of educational common sense. Reins are not coercive tools, but fundamental pedagogical instruments, just like a rider's spurs. Reins control the most exuberant impulses, while spurs encourage the rider to dare to overcome obstacles, or rather, their own limits. La gioia di educare Believing in oneself means having faith in others, and therefore in the possibility of relationships, love, help, and solidarity. As long as there is thought, there is dignity, and as long as there is the courage to be concerned, there is freedom. The ritual of giving is complex; sometimes it is done spontaneously, other times the gift masks a need for blackmail: giving is not free, it always requires something else in return. The teenager does not know who they have been and fears that they will not be able to become what they dream of being: self-awareness is the result of a long, complex confrontation between precarious stages of one's identity, and the group allows one to reflect oneself in others, to learn to recognize oneself and others. Mediocrity annihilates, flattens, makes everyone the same. Imagination and dreams highlight our inner resources, that is, our very secret of living. The word “[work] flexibility” has become synonymous with “exploitation.” The laws that created it have been used by public and private managers to have thousands of young workers at their disposal at low cost, who can be blackmailed on a daily basis simply by waving the specter of termination of their employment contract. School should teach us how to be alone, to live our passions, to put emotions at the center of our lives. I wonder: is it possible that no entrepreneur has ever reflected on the simple fact that temporary work produces a temporary identity, which is the opposite of the idea of a profession based on passion and merit, which is the only guarantee of quality performance and high productivity? It is not television or the Internet that causes discomfort to children and adolescents, but rather a certain unwillingness on the part of adults to be there for them. If you give a child everything, you take away what is essential: desire, the fundamental feeling needed to build passion. Without culture, there is no freedom, no choice. There is no social growth, nor real well-being. Libertà Incipit Many years ago, I had the good fortune to hear an extraordinary monologue performed by Gigi Proietti at the theater, based on a poem by Roberto Lerici, a Florentine playwright and screenwriter who lived for many years in Rome, where he died in 1992. I was blown away by it. Quotes Perhaps, in these years of prosperity, what has been most lacking are lofty figures and examples, such as the magnificent ones that past generations knew. Many of us thought, or deluded ourselves, that certain words, certain achievements, could be forever, imperishable, carved by our fathers on the stone of our most glorious history. One of these, the most important, we even took for granted: freedom. As long as Western man lived in poverty, he needed to know that he was not alone, and the network of relationships and mutual dependencies was a necessity; but as soon as development distributed some small economic privileges, complicity and solidarity—that is, the awareness that alone we are nothing—became obsolete words, symbols of submission, relics of a time that must be erased from the present, in which the most radical self-sufficiency is exalted. And with it, the never truly dormant sense of one's own superiority. This is why the manipulator, today as yesterday, must use simple but effective phrases, words that excite the gut and numb the freest minds. How can we fail to understand that when children are not taught from an early age to respect any rules, once they become adults they will suffer from a form of “psychological AIDS” that leads the individual to not recognize (not possessing “specific psychic antibodies”) any form of frustration because they are completely unprepared for failure? I wonder what could be more demeaning for a father or mother than to abdicate their role and responsibilities as parents in order to avoid the headaches inherent in any educational effort. Identity, including national identity, is therefore a much broader and freer concept than what many today prefer to tailor for themselves and, claustrophobically, decline. It does not indicate rigidity, but a perpetual flow. Even today, for many people, their freedom is built on and based on the non-freedom of others: this has been the case for centuries when slavery was useful for economic development, and it continues to be the case today in new and more hypocritical forms, perpetuating the same arrogance and barbarism as always. The idea of taking one's own life is, paradoxically, a vital, slow, and progressive process, which is, all things considered, consistent, because it must lead the individual to accept that outcome as the only way out of their painful, intolerable condition. And to achieve this, strength, determination, perseverance, and also an enormous amount of courage are required. Passione Incipit When, many years ago, I began restoring the house I had bought in a village on the northern border of Lazio, I found, among the weeds, a shrub that produced strange purple spikes. Emilio, the gardener, suggested I keep that plant, not only because of the unusual color of its flowers, but also because of its ability to attract butterflies. I followed his advice, and now that Emilio is no longer with us, I am left with the memory of a simple, gentle man, capable of waiting for nature to surprise him with small, unexpected passions. Quotes Better to find ourselves shipwrecked by passion than grounded and sated by too many comforting reasons. How can I now, in their classrooms, explain to these kids that no alarm clock is necessary because it is passion that will keep them awake? Why do so few parents or teachers make them understand this day after day? How can we fail to show our young people that only those who possess great passion can make the impossible possible? Love, just like passion, is anticipation, unlimited trust, wonderful madness, a living and disruptive fire. Passion is not a linear feeling; it can never be represented by an algorithm or any artificial intelligence program. People don't meet, they choose each other all the time. I am repulsed by those who say that everything has a price: this is said by those who have sold themselves a thousand times and find it natural that others should do what they themselves have not shied away from. If Falcone and Borsellino had had a price, they would today be mediocre magistrates, alive but useless, not enduring beacons for consciences. Newspapers, websites, and television keep us up to date on events that seem to plunge our community back into a primitive age. Clearly, we have modernized, but we have not become civilized. Perché siamo infelici Incipit Autumn, about ten years ago, in a “squatted” high school in Rome, as repeated on posters from various committees stuck up in the lobby and corridors alongside information about seminars and alternative lessons. Quotes Can't the toxic seed of today's unhappiness be traced back to that silent crowding, that fleeing/escaping, that loss of individual and collective identity? Doesn't a certain metropolitan frenzy resemble the anguished continuous escape of hamsters in a cage that is too small, forced to chase their own tails? Contemporary man tries in vain to escape so as not to have to recognize the shadow of his own soul, so as not to have to come to terms with his own unheard-of unhappiness. Just like boredom, melancholy is a fundamental human feeling, a companion on the road to solitude. To combat unhappiness, however, we need more than a simple wish, more than mere hope: we need effort, the effort to think about the new, the unseen; the courage to respond to the attraction of the unknown, the unpracticed. Sfamiglia Incipit The little secret of these pages is contained in a simple word that conveys the meaning of a shared journey: accompanying. “Eating bread together” is the lightest and most profound meaning that Brother Francis attributed to sharing a challenge, a concern, pride, fear, dignity: the essence and joy of not being alone in valuing simple and courageous things. Quotes Sooner or later, everyone experiences the treacherous wind that tears their sails. The important thing is not to become that wind, not to legitimize the torn sail as a symbol of one's existence: this is the real blasphemy, the sacrilege against life. Gray is predictable, colors much less so. Boredom tells us that everyday life has become predictable, that a change is needed, a breath of fresh air. In short, boredom announces its opposite. The tendency to avoid experiences of fatigue and pain influences all forms of emotion. This leads straight to the most terrible form of anesthesia: indifference. Speed prevents us from recognizing ourselves, just like those trains that fly over beautiful countryside, preventing us from smelling its scents or recognizing its flowers. Freedom means doing different things together, the opposite of what happens in a hypermarket. In education, elegance is as fundamental as charisma. Solitudini Incipit I hate the smell of talcum powder. I just can't stand it. Maybe that's why I don't like barbers, not even the ones in small towns, with their wooden-framed windows, chairs with paper roll headrests, and large mirrors hanging slightly forward. Quotes I, on the other hand, stayed. It's true that there is a certain age difference between me and my sisters, yet I couldn't free myself from that burden as they had done, without regrets, without guilt. I remained, tenacious or determined, but always with hatred; a hatred that I deluded myself into thinking was directed only at him, at the other, but which instead silently sank into me, too deep inside. I remained attached to that poisoned root as if my confusion had knocked me out. Then, as if my senses had suddenly awakened, I took revenge: I don't know exactly what for, since it was my weakness that made me stay. This compulsion was sick, I knew that all too well. It was a morbid and perverse bond that forced me to exaggerate just as my father had done with his sexual harassment. (p. 17) I could only give in without mediation, so much had the smell of the crash taken hold of me, engulfed my mood, ruled my senses. I detested my inability to resist, yet I was flattered by his blatant and brutal desire to have me totally and immediately. I knew full well that if I had to fall, I might as well do so as disastrously as possible. And so it was. (p. 21) I experienced acceptable melancholy, brief moments of predictable despair, long moments of narcosis. I had learned to love that losing restlessness, almost to take pleasure in it. Perhaps it was the pain, the detachment, and the squalor that I had needlessly experienced in the years that had passed so quickly that made me fear my evening solitude too little. (p. 25) It has been raining for three days; I haven't worn my contact lenses in I don't know how long. I feel like I can't leave the room anymore. The cold and damp have clumped together this suspended time, squeezing out a melancholic juice: inevitably forcing me to think. I am curled up on the bed, wearing three sweaters on top of each other, to no avail. The rain has interrupted the road works that haunted me, deafening and exhausting like a discordant fanfare. Either the noise or the rain, either way boredom. Either way, the emptiness. An emptiness that is even understanding, never bitter. A complacent emptiness that has crept inside me as silently as poison. I have known it for a long time, it no longer surprises me. (p. 59) I tried to do it on my own. For a while, I thought I had succeeded, and I was even pleased with myself. Then I felt myself slipping. I didn't fall, but, unseated, it was as if my foot had remained trapped in a stirrup and my body was forced to drag itself along, wounded and helpless. Every day my resistance crumbled more and more: I lived in the nightmare that this creaking would overwhelm what was left of me at any moment. (p. 66) Sull'amore Incipit One of the many highways leading north from the London metropolitan area. Traffic flows slowly, the sun sets late, as it does every evening in England: a summer that drags on between showers and warm, cruel sunshine. Quotes Marriage is the ultimate tribute to a loving union, but it also involves exercising understanding and adapting to the other person, that is, to their different individuality. Self-esteem is not built with parties and nice clothes, but in the difficult moments of life. Words can hurt or soothe; we should all learn to use them better. A pinch of jealousy can work wonders, but two can spell disaster. Incipit of some works Cuori violenti When I first enter Casal del Marmo, Rome's juvenile detention center, it is a cold winter morning illuminated by a clear sun, buffeted by a strange wind that smells of salt, as if the sea were just behind that squalid suburb north of the city. Dannati e leggeri Mirò is not her real name; Selim called her that: she was Mirò in her grandfather's mind. Selim called his granddaughter Mirò and his daughter Cleo, I think because of an Italian poem. Dove abitano le emozioni How many homes does a heart inhabit along the path of a lifetime's heartbeats? I belong to the last generation of children born at home, as was the case in villages until the mid-twentieth century and thereabouts, thanks to the hands of caring midwives, who were called “comari.” I cannot imagine the exact and detailed circumstances in which eyes were opened to the light and the first cry was heard. Of course, there was certainly training for that ritual. Houses were full of life and newborns, who were swaddled in bands because, it was believed, they would grow up straight. Those were times when children were considered a blessing and a support in old age. Educare oggi The reason for this meeting is simple: we are very concerned. But let me add: it was about time we became concerned. Gli incontri sbagliati We have all experienced the ups and downs of first love. When we test ourselves with the intense emotions of meeting another person: joy, amazement, despair, surprise, that unique and wonderful sense of complicity, of fusion that makes us say: “Yes, this is the man, the woman of my life.” Il rifiuto di vivere If, in line with a fairly widespread opinion, suicide were to be interpreted as a ruthless indicator of the contradictions in the path of human progress, the trend in its spread should reflect and highlight every setback, regression, or improvement in the process of evolution of our own society. but the peaks and troughs in the epidemiological data do not support linear correlations or allow for such unambiguous and simplistic interpretations: rather, they raise questions that lead us to seek more complex references. L'eros Eroticism is something that comes from afar. In fact, I am convinced that it comes from when we are small, tender, and unaware, living in our first nest, the welcoming, sweet belly of our mother. In fact, if we use an ultrasound to check what happens in a woman's uterus when she caresses her belly, where her baby is beginning the great adventure of life, we discover something extraordinary: the fetus moves toward its mother's hand, that is, toward the caress that gives it pleasure. This is the first form of communication of a human being and it is an erotic communication that does not pass through words, but through the senses. Indeed, through a single sense, touch, which, contrary to what many people think, does not only work on erogenous zones. There is no part of the body that does not respond to the stimuli of a caress and is not a potential source of pleasure. Of course, there are points where satisfaction is particularly intense, but the important thing is that our senses, all five of them, allow us to enjoy life on so many different levels. Le dimensioni del vuoto We adults often believe that children are as far removed from thoughts of death as happiness is from sadness, or light from darkness. In fact, we tend to attribute to children that part of our world that we feel we have irretrievably lost: a playful and carefree relationship with life. It is as if we think that the process of maturing itself brings with it, like an inescapable and specific burden, the awareness of anguish and pain. In short, we look at children as beings who are profoundly different from us; indeed, we tend to expect the world of children to remain uncontaminated by the anxieties of adults, impervious to our existential pain. Le malattie della disoccupazione In recent years, while some studies on unemployment have tended to consider it as the inevitable “cost” of social and economic progress, others have sought to demonstrate that its quantitative extent is much less significant than official sources indicate, and still others have considered it a catastrophe for which there is no remedy. Naufragi A brief dizzy spell, enveloped by the monotonous song of a disheveled wind. Punctual, a few minutes before six in the afternoon, sliding down the dark, smooth steps of one of the long alleys that wind down from the upper part of the village towards the marina, he descends, drawn by an inevitable appointment. Non mi chiedere di più A pensive man walks along the sidewalk that runs alongside a park in the north of the city. Cigarette between his lips, hands buried in his pockets. He quickens his pace between streetlights, distrustful of the darkness. Cars pass slowly in the mist, but he pays them no mind, his gaze fixed on the pavement as he steps around puddles. He pulls the collar of his denim jacket up around his neck. He is in a hurry. He looks young, with broad shoulders and stocky legs like an athlete. Voi, noi The tent was erected in winter, just before Christmas. I lived in a large square, so large that it was called a meadow, surrounded by a row of low, squat arcades, where the fog was less dense and grainy during that season, populated by dark coats. It was in that immense open space that the tarpaulin swelled with air and imagination like the magic of a hot air balloon: it happened one morning, as soon as the light of day restored geometry and meaning to that place, otherwise incongruous with my dreams. Everything followed a slow rhythm, punctuated by the sound of the sharp blows of the mallets driving large nails into the ground to secure the tent, and by the shouts and screams: finally, the canvas took on the shape of an enormous fortress erected as if by magic every year, right there in front of my windows, just as the nativity scene figures were being unwrapped from their newspaper wrappings. And the wait began. Bibliography Maurizio Andolfi, Vittorino Andreoli, Edoardo Boncinelli, Eugenio Borgna, Bruno Callieri e Paolo Crepet, Perché siamo infelici, Einaudi, Torino, 2010. ISBN 978-88-06-20271-2 Mario Botta, Paolo Crepet e Giuseppe Zois, Dove abitano le emozioni. La felicità e i luoghi in cui viviamo, Einaudi, Torino, 2007. ISBN 978-88-06-19016-3 Paolo Crepet, Baciami senza rete. Buone ragioni per sottrarsi alla seduzione digitale, Mondadori, Milano, 2016. ISBN 978-88-04-66881-7 Paolo Crepet, Cuori violenti. Viaggio nella criminalità giovanile, Feltrinelli, Milano, 1995. ISBN 88-07-17005-1 Paolo Crepet, Dannati e leggeri, Einaudi, Torino, 2004. ISBN 88-06-17246-8 Paolo Crepet, Educare oggi, Enea, Milano, 2012. ISBN 978-88-9557-291-8 Paolo Crepet, Elogio dell'amicizia, Einaudi, Torino, 2012. ISBN 978-88-06-21260-5 Paolo Crepet, Gli incontri sbagliati, Mondadori, Milano, 2005. Supplemento a Donna Moderna. Paolo Crepet, I figli non crescono più Einaudi, Torino, 2005. ISBN 88-06-16979-3 Paolo Crepet, Il caso della donna che smise di mangiare, Einaudi, Torino, 2015. ISBN 978-88-06-21262-9 Paolo Crepet, Il coraggio. Vivere, amare, educare, Mondadori, Milano, 2017. ISBN 978-88-04-68186-1 Paolo Crepet, Impara a essere felice, Einaudi, Torino, 2013. ISBN 978-88-06-21261-2 Paolo Crepet, Impara a essere felice, Einaudi, Torino, 2015. ISBN 978-88-06-22466-0 Paolo Crepet, L'autorità perduta. Il coraggio che i figli ci chiedono, Einaudi, Torino, 2012. ISBN 978-88-06-21580-4 Paolo Crepet, L'eros, Mondadori, Milano, 2005. Supplemento a Donna Moderna. Paolo Crepet, La gioia di educare, Einaudi, Torino, 2008. ISBN 978-88-06-19497-0 Paolo Crepet, Le dimensioni del vuoto. I giovani e il suicidio. Feltrinelli, Milano, 2000. ISBN 88-07-81586-9 Paolo Crepet, Le malattie della disoccupazione. Le condizioni fisiche e psichiche di chi non ha lavoro, Edizioni Lavoro, Roma, 1990. ISBN 88-7910-443-8 Paolo Crepet, Libertà, Mondadori, Milano, 2019. ISBN 978-88-04-71872-7 Paolo Crepet, Naufragi. Tre storie di confine, Einaudi, Torino, 1999. ISBN 88-06-15338-2 Paolo Crepet, Non mi chiedere di più, Barney Narrazioni, Siena, 2014. ISBN 978-88-98693-04-7 Paolo Crepet, Non siamo capaci di ascoltarli. Riflessioni sull'infanzia e l'adolescenza, Einaudi, Torino, 2001. ISBN 88-06-15785-X Paolo Crepet, Passione, Mondadori, Milano, 2018. ISBN 978-88-04-70533-8 Paolo Crepet, Sfamiglia. Vademecum per un genitore che non si vuole rassegnare, Einaudi, Torino, 2009. ISBN 978-88-06-19842-8 Paolo Crepet, Solitudini. Memorie di assenze, Feltrinelli, Milano, 1997. ISBN 88-07-17022-1 Paolo Crepet, Sull'amore. Innamoramento, gelosia, eros, abbandono. Il coraggio dei sentimenti, Einaudi, Torino, 2010. ISBN 978-88-06-20300-9 Paolo Crepet, Voi, noi. Sull'indifferenza di giovani e adulti, Einaudi, Torino, 2003. ISBN 978-88-06-1666-94 Paolo Crepet, Francesco Florenzano, Il rifiuto di vivere. Anatomia del suicidio, Editori Riuniti, Roma, 1989. ISBN 88-359-3307-2 Category:1951 births Category:Living people Category:Psychiatrists from Italy Category:Sociologists from Italy Category:Non-fiction authors from Italy