What are you missing to be happy? | Simona Atzori | TEDxLakeComo

Painter and dancer, member of VDMFK (International Association of the Artists Who Paint With Mouth or Foot). In 2012, Simona is nominated Knight of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic by His President Giorgio Napolitano.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community.

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(Applause)

I was not here once,

I am here now.

And mine is not a fairy tale,
it is a show of life.

I love art because it allows me
to communicate directly,

at a pre-conscious level,

to access the language
of goosebumps, gut feelings,

butterflies in your stomach,
tears and smiles.

That language is like an embrace,
a universal embrace.

It doesn't matter
whether you have arms or not;

if you are really tall
or as short as they come;

if you are white, black, yellow or green;

if you can see or are blind
or wear coke-bottom glasses;

if you are fragile or a rock;

if you are blond, or have purple hair
and a crooked nose;

if you are stuck on the ground

or look at the world from the sky-s
the most unexplored depths.

A real embrace, no cheating;

it is an embrace and nothing more.

Your art speaks for you, beyond anything;

it will reveal who you are,
regardless of what others see,

regardless of what others want to see.

Sight is an overrated sense
and if I, a dancer and a painter, say so,

you can believe me.

I was not here once,

but a beginning is needed and this is it."

(Applause)

This is the preface to my book,

in which I talk about my life experience

and it is titled: "What are you
missing to be happy?"

A somewhat tough, provocative question,

with which I wanted
and I want to invite people

not only to read my book

but also gain an understanding
of my life experience.

I chose to start with a dance video,
because I am a dancer.

And art sometimes
really speaks on your behalf.

In theory, there would be
no need for words,

as dance, painting and music say it all;

but in the course of my life,

I realized that people also needed
to understand why a child first,

then a girl and a woman without arms

should choose to become a dancer,
to dance, to paint

and to do whatever life brings my way.

At that point I realized
that I also had to use my voice

to share the gift I’d received,

a gift which I had not only received but,

with the support of my wonderful family,

I’d also decided
to transform into true life.

Sitting at this table,

I feel a bit like a teacher
who’s come here to teach you something,

but I assure you
that is definitely not the case.

Indeed, I believe that life
cannot be taught,

but must be lived by each of us.

Still, it can be shared with others

and this is one of the greatest

and most beautiful things
that life is giving me.

However, I cannot share
my experience with you

if I am not at ease at all

and I assure you that I am not
at my ease at all just now,

even though I am very comfortable.

So, I’m going to do something
that a lady really shouldn't do,

but I came here just for you.

Meanwhile, I’ll sit on the table
so I can see you better

and one thing I must do

to be myself is to...

nice shoes, aren’t they?

Painted leather... they are nice,
but wearing them makes me feel trapped,

I feel tied up because my feet,

which you have seen dancing,
which carry me around,

in reality for me are above all my hands.

So let me introduce my hands to you

and now I feel freer
to tell you about myself

in the most sincere and truthful of ways.

And as a ten-year-old girl
once said to me,

"Simona, it’s not true
that you have no hands,

your hands are just further down”

And I found that

the most beautiful definition
anyone could give

and I am not surprised that it was
a little girl who came up with it,

because she actually focused
on the use I put them to:

since I have no arms and no hands,

my hands are there, only a little lower.

In theory, what I did,

using my feet as hands,

is something you could all have done,

only you were born
with your hands a little higher up

and therefore you didn't need
to transform your feet into hands

and sometimes actually, I confess,
I'm a little sorry for your feet

as I always see them
constricted in shoes...

(Applause)

Another little girl, quite recently,

after I had been
gesticulating for a while -

- as you can see, I am a true Italian,
because I gesticulate -

and this little girl said,
"‘But how can you walk?"

because she had seen them
as hands, no longer feet,

they had stopped being feet.

I realize that this,
in the eyes of others,

can seem quite extraordinary,

because it is something
that is not so common,

but I assure you that for me
this is perfectly natural.

I am not saying it came easy,

because I believe that we all know
very well that in life nothing comes easy

and it is often from the most
difficult things

that we can draw out,
we bring out the best in ourselves.

Which brings us back to the question,
"What are you missing to be happy?"

We think we need everything
in order to be happy,

and always think of happiness
in terms of reaching a goal,

completing a course:

we obtain a degree
or achieve any other target in life,

and tend to see in this the end,
the moment that will bring us happiness.

I discovered instead that for me
happiness lies in the journey itself,

in being able to discover that every day,

even at the most
difficult time in our lives,

we can still have a moment in which,

we steal, let’s say, we grab
some happiness for ourselves.

I learned this in the course of my life
thanks to my extraordinary parents,

thanks to a family
that welcomed me as a great gift.

And this was the best start for me,
the best I could have;

and then together
we forged our lives, we learned.

My mum always said
that she grew up with me,

realizing that my hands
were a little lower,

understanding that some things at home
had to be placed elsewhere.

But that became our normality:
it was our approach on life.

And I always think that
if with our simplicity and normality

we managed to do so -

considering that our starting point
was somewhat different from other people’s

and I do not mean more difficult or worse,
but simply different from other people’s -

we can all do so

and there can be no excuse
to stop and say,

"No, we can't do that."

This is the most important thing
I can share with others.

I am happy to have shown you
the video of this dance -

it is not a random video.

I have been dancing for so many years,

dancing in important theatres
and I actually have loads of videos -

by the way there I was working
with Marco Messina,

a dancer from the
"Teatro alla Scala" in Milan -

but that was a special ballet,

because that day, last year, in 2012,

my mother was going to be operated on.

And I would have liked to stay with her,

but she didn’t let me,

because I was to dance in this event.

And she said to me,

"You must go and do
what we fought so hard for,

and this dance will bring us luck".

It was a concert for the Pope,
it was broadcast on Rai1,

and let me tell you that I left that day,
by train, with a truly heavy heart,

but I knew that she was right,
because she was always right,

she always knew, from the first time
she held me in her arms,

that our life would be special:

perhaps more demanding,

but intense,

and that we were not
to let anything prevent us

from doing what we have to do.

So I danced for her. And every time
I dance that piece again,

every time I show the video,

I see her smiling down at me

because six months later
she passed away, on Christmas Eve.

So now I understand
the importance of that video,

the importance it continues to have

in my life and in the life
of the people I meet.

And this is a gift, a great gift,

because even through pain

we can understand things that help us

truly make sense of what at the time
we think we are losing,

what we no longer have, what hurts us.

So I tell people about my happiness,

but I also speak about it
through the difficulties I encounter,

through my pain and loss,

with a language that allows me

to reveal the love I feel
and my zest for life,

for this incredible gift that life is.

A great Pope, John Paul II, said,

"Take life in your hands
and make it a masterpiece."

Regardless of the fact
it was spoken by a pope,

I believe it is a piece of advice
we should all heed,

because we all have a life
which is our masterpiece

and every day we can choose
to add an extra brushstroke to it,

a touch, or at times, erase something,
we can also do that also,

to make it ours, a living work of art,

which enables us to see the day through

with a smile and to wake up with a smile.

This is my philosophy of life,

this is the way I choose to live
every single day,

and I love sharing it with others,

through dance, through painting,

through my book

and through the events I attend,

through what I had
more plentifully than others,

perhaps, or what I had exactly
in the same measure as others,

but which I wanted, I held on to
and I continue to want and hold on to,

which is my life.

I’ll leave you with these words,
"What are you missing to be happy?"

but not to ask you the question,

but because perhaps all of us, every day,

should wake up with something

that gives us an incentive to ourselves

not to always perceive
everything as burdensome,

but to seek even on an ordinary day,

a rainy day, one of those days
when everything goes wrong,

a small smile and a crumb of happiness,

which is not the height of happiness,

the big one,

the one I refer to when I say
that I am shamelessly happy.

I say this knowing very well
that it is a challenge, day after day,

to make sure that a bit of that happiness
that I have accumulated

become a cascade of joy, of love.

Let me end with the conclusion of my book,

which says: "It is not rhetoric:
Life is indeed a dance."

The choreographer made me enter the scene

in a somewhat sensational way.

The rest of the cast
hadn’t been expecting it

and they were initially a bit scared,

but they made room for me
and I became a dancer too.

Like everybody else,
I have my strengths and weaknesses

and by dint of dancing
I have worked out what they are.

I am like Samson,
I have strength in my hair

and like my grandfather,
I have strength in my smile.

I'm like a bumblebee,

I fly even though I don't have wings

and like Anna, I don pink shoes
in spite of wearing a body brace.

I love swings.

I am as rash and impulsive as my mother

and then I need silence, like my father.

I am happy, inordinately,
shamelessly happy

and it is a joy to tell you
about my happiness.

My weakness is that
after having danced a lot,

painted and spoken, I feel fragile,

as if emptied,

I feel exposed, and even if I wish
I never had to step off the stage,

put the finishing touch to a canvas,

or stop chatting,

I have to,

otherwise I might get lost
in the eyes of others

and I would no longer be myself, Simona.

When that moment comes I take a bow,

I take a deep bow to acknowledge

those who have given to me
their time and heart.

I feel my hair slide down my back
and touch the ground

and my breathing gets more regular,
and I see my feet.

Then I begin to entertain a new dream."

(Applause)

I’ll put my shoes back on. Thank you.

(Applause)

Thank you.