Alex guarda il cielo

Italian text
The world is no longer joyful. We stand on the edge of an abyss: because we have lost the ability to listen to our eons-old mind, the inner self that was once in harmony with nature and God. So how to save ourselves?
By living a life of passion, dreams and challenges. By striving towards the impossible without fear of death or folly. Just as racers do: from Alex Zanardi to Doctor Costa's beloved 'centaurs' of the World Motorcycling Championship, these modern-day heroes achieve feats that echo the fantastic tales we once listened to as children. And only by heeding these modern tales can we hope to overcome the technology that oppresses us, regain happiness through sentiment, not reason, and re-conquer with our hearts a place in paradise lost.
People sometimes do things without even realising it. Or, rather, they do certain things in the belief they're doing others. And these odd short-circuits of intention occasionally produce something to be treasured. This is exactly what happened when Costa and Zanardi decided to write a book together. Alex's humour and straightforward speech was intended to dilute Claudio's philosophy and cynical realism to give us a balanced vision of the world, first in the dark shades painted by the doctor, then in the lighter tones of the champion. Then there would be stories, presented almost as fairy tales, of those - the riders and racing drivers - that offer us an escape route, salvation from a menacing scenario. This initial idea spontaneously generated much more: a book in which two men of talent and humanity reveal their inner sentiments, giving the reader insights into the minds of two fascinating people. Claudio Costa is the man who only feels alive when his riders need him, only when the adrenalin of urgency floods through him. The rest is boredom, because everything – or nearly everything – is all too clear to him. Yet his passionately-told tales offer the lacklustre life of the man in the street a much-needed injection of awareness, an invigorating dose of oxygen. Alex Zanardi is the man who died and arose. And now, although physically handicapped, he still beats the world's best touring car drivers (and has consequently become an inspiring example for anyone who has been hit by misfortune and is on the point of giving up). To see how he achieves this read page 127: childhood frustration was transformed into the adult willpower of a man determined to bring himself back to life. Today, more than ever, it is stories such as these we need to listen to.