I feel free and strong. If I were not a reader of books I could not feel this way.
Walter Stone Tevis [1928-1984]
I have to admit that I didn't read Walter Tevis' novels and short stories, but I did see The Hustler (Robert Rossen, 1961), The Color of Money (Martin Scorsese, 1986) and The Man Who Fell to Earth (Nicolas Roeg, 1976), all movie adaptations of his stories, so it is to me a little so, as if I would have known him as a writer.
[Young, sexy and definitely jackass:
Paul Newman as the pool player Eddie Felson in The Hustler]
For sure I can relate to his experience as a reader of books, since it is the same for me: books helped me massively to get over childhood, the teenage years and a lot of other tough stuff in my life and this never changed, even now that I am an adult woman living a fulfilling life I am absolutely thankful for.
To me books were and are a chance to learn something new, to win a different perspective about things, to discover something I didn't know anything about before, to get valuable input about topics and problems that matter to me, to have fun, to get better at speaking a foreign language in a pleasant way, to find a useful solution about some issue, to challenge myself, to enjoy the time while standing in line, and so on.
Being a reader of books is magic.
[Lovely tribute to Roald Dahl's Matilda, by Aaron Renier
Image source: Drawn blog]
I would say that I have the same feeling (or an even stronger one) about being a movie watcher, since I spent most part of my life watching a huge amount of movies, I studied cinema history at university and worked over ten years long in the cinema field. Watching movies was my life. Until I realized that living my own life is way more interesting than watching movies. And yet, being a movie watcher saved me more than once. It made me feel free and strong and safe and self-confident and smart and... you got it..
The same happens with writing.
The same happens with dancing.
The same happens with swimming.
The same happens...
It doesn't matter what makes one feel this way. For someone it can be cooking a yummy recipe, for someone else it may be working out a couple of hours at the gym, for another it can be traveling on the highway while driving a motorbike.
[Grease 2 (1982) by Patricia Birch:
a very bad musical with a couple of interesting songs
and a coooool rider driving a motorbike Honda CL77]
The trick to me is then bringing in one's life more and more of that, while limiting and decreasing as much as possible everything (and everyone) that has a negative, depressing, disheartening influence.
It is that simple, even if often it is not easy at all. But 'simple' and 'easy' are not synonymous, you know.
What about you?
What does make you feel free and strong?
Tags: Self-confidence, Literature, Cinema, Book reader, Movie watcher, Walter Tevis, People, Quotes
