The importance of reading

    I´m sure that you´ve heard a million times about how important it is to have the habit of reading, how it can improve your culture and your life. In this post I want you to fall in love with reading. I want you to discover the magic of it. 

We have so busy and fast lifes that it is beyond our imagination to think about spending our time reading a book. We are used to things getting done really quickly, we despair when the internet goes a little bit slowly, when we wait on the bus line. In short we are used to  fast living  and not really taking our time . That's why reading is a less common habit or activity nowadays. I think that it's connected with  the fact that we don't take our time for almost anything. Multitasking is an example of it. 

When the word book or reading come to our mind , we think about long complicated  books and Netflix seems a lot nicer. But the truth is that there is a book for everyone. There are so many kinds of them. Reading is an activity that helps you to improve your concentration. When we read at blogs or in social media we are actively interrupted by notifications, the comments, looking at the likes of the post or sharing them. We are not completely immersed in our reading. On the contrary, when we read a novel we practice what is called “ deep-reading”. We are fully concentrated in our lecture.  Nowadays TDH is  sadly a very common condition , that´s a proof of how mindfulness is each time less habitual. In fact reading  strengthens your brain, it reforce the brain connections and the longer you read , the stronger they get. It's widely known that people who have the habit of reading have a more extensive vocabulary, this is called the Mathew effect in reference to the Bible´s versicle. This can  help you even to get a job. because companies are searching to hire people with communicative skills. 

However your vocabulary is not the only thing that grows with reading but also your general culture. As I've already said there are so many kinds of books that you can learn a lot of new information. Even if you read fictional novels , those give you information about the culture, the epoch of the characters, the history background  .  Or you have more conversation topics for your daily life or when you meet new people . Also researchers have found that long-term fictional readers tend to sympathize more with people because they have a “ theory of mind” ; the skills of communicating, building and maintaining relationships ; more developed.

Another benefit of reading is that it reduces your stress levels, a study led by Edmund Jacobson, who is the pioneer of the progressive relaxation, proved it . For his study he created a machine who measured the knee reflex movements of the subjects tested depending on what activity they were doing. He discovered that the people who were reading had more relaxed movements. Another study tested the cortisol ( the hormone who causes stress) levels in the blood in persons who were doing different activities. They found out that reading relaxes us as activities like yoga or tai-chi.  Furthermore, the habit of lecture boosts your self-confidence . There is a concept calle “ self-efficacy”, is our believing that our actions can have an impact in the world which is true. When we read fiction books where the characters go through different situations and they evolve as a better and stronger  person,  reforce our feeling of self-efficacy, we are also capable of doing this.

Loneliness is something we have all experienced. But there is a big difference between being lonely and feeling lonely. Reading a book will not change the fact that maybe in this moment you are living alone  for example, but it will change the  loneliness feeling that you have . Books are a great company, you connect with the characters, you are transported to the place of history. A study made on older people proved that the ones who had the habit of reading felt less lonely rather than the others.

These days we live in a bubble. Why? Because even if we live in a time when almost all the world it's connected, we are updated about the news all around the globe, we have plenty of information of all kinds, we tend to just look at what it´s according to our beliefs, likes and dislikes, etc. We follow people who think like us, we read newspapers of our political inclinations and even our social circle it´s similar to us . And actually this has a name , it's called  the “filter bubble” effect. So thanks to reading we can discover many different points of views, realities, beliefs. In fictional and no fictional books. That's the magic about reading. You can travel all around the world without even moving of your couch.

Book recommendations:

-Sophie´s world- Josteein Gaarder. It's an INCREDIBLE  book that narrates  you the history of philosophy through the adventure of this young girl called Sophie and her mentor Albert.

-Samarcande- Amin Kaalouf. It´s a fictional novel about the life of Omar Khayyam, a great  persian poet and mathematician. 

-Notre Dame de Paris- Victor Hugo. I´m sure you´ve heard the history of Esmeralda and Quasimodo. It's truly worth reading. 

- A little light of the spiritual laws- Diana Cooper. I just can't express how much I love this book. It explains to you easily and beautifully the spiritual laws that rule the universe in order to be available to understand more the life and be the master of it.

-100 years of solitude - Gabriel García Marquez.  Another great classic , it's a fun and amazing book. I love the “ magic realism” used by the author and the beautiful metaphors and quotes from the book. 

-The life you were born to live-Dan Millman. Numerology it's a great science that guides us in life and helps us to understand us more, our purpose in life and how to achieve it. In this book you will understand what it´s a “ Life path Number”, which is yours, and how to take action depending on it. It's a very specific insight of your numbers and your life +  it has a lot of spiritual laws at the end of the book.

Jean Honoré Fragonard, Young girl reading

La préciosité

The word "precious" was borrowed from the Latin adjective: "pretosius": which has value.The precious movement was born in France in the 17th century, and culminated particularly between 1650 and 1660. It is located during the regency after the government of Louis XIII. It was born as a challenge to the coarseness of the court of Henry IV where the courtesans were rude, liked salacious jokes  , the unsophisticated language . 

This movement is present throughout Europe, each country develops its current: in England there is euphemism , in Spain gongorism (style research, taste of images) in Italy Marinism ( hyperbola, antitheses, metaphors) All these movements seek a refined and elegant style  . This movement trespasses the bounds of literature and is converted into a way of life.  The main aspects of this movement are: the taste for distinction (the importance of sustained language (periphrase and metaphor, culture,elegance), the courteous love in which the woman is an idealized and inaccessible being,the art of conversation and even the questioning of marriage. Also there is the creation of neologisms like , congratulate, anonymous . 

They used  periphrases such as "the mirrors of the soul" to designate the eyes, a simple armchair becomes a «convenience of conversation» They oppose the too realistic term or evoke «vulgar» realities: corpse, vomit, sweep, The broom becomes «the instrument of cleanliness». The precious always seek a more elegant, refined life and distinguish themselves from the common.  


What characterizes this movement in France is the development of precious salons, of a cultivated company that meets in its salons most in the district of Marais . The precious ones, as we call them the women who run these salons or also called “Hotels”. The mistresses of the living rooms often receive their guests in a room, sitting on the bed. The courtesans thus form a circle around the mistress of the house. These salons are places of entertainment (  champagne, board games, etc ) but also a cultural crossroads ( debates, poetry, readings of works ,etc). The first big and famous salon in Paris was that of the Italian Marquise of Rambouillet who in her “Blue Room” welcomes aristocrats like Mme de Lafayette , Mme de Sévigné or the poet Voiture. Another very important salon was that of Madame de Scudéry, who every Saturday brought together bourgeois . 

The literary genres privilege by the precious: idealistic novel (pastoral novel that stage shepherds and shepherds who have a chaste love or heroic novel), poetry, eloquent letter or badine. The great works of this movement are, l Astrée d Honoré d Urfe ( pastoral novel) Clélie and Le Grand Cyrus ( heroic novel) by Mme de Scudéry or Correspondances de Madame de Sévigné.

Nevertheless this movement was contested by great figures of the time such as Molière, in the Précieuses ridicules ( 1659) where he criticized the extravagance of language, clothing and manners. This movement is very influential , it has an influence on the loving mores that become more refined , the language also on its part becomes more refined one could say that it anticipates the classical language but also it has brought a simplification of the French language, even if it seems contradictory (author, reply, aisne), and we use periphrases created in this era as for example: to have spirit, to be confused with someone and the place of the woman in the intellectual life, they are rather interested in novels and poetry, they judge and write literary works.

Les précieuses ridicules of Molière