Dani’s questions

This article is published in number 44 of Vanity Fair on newsstands until November 2, 2021

With the book of answers we have – so to speak – played a bit ‘all. A question that buzzes in your head, the random opening of the pages of the tome, and the truth there, at attention, black and white, waiting for you to dispel any doubts. To overturn the consolidated dynamic comes Daniela Collu, in the library with Why not?: 264 questions between Hamlet and Cryptic to be dealt with in a strictly random way, and to be answered after taking a deep breath. And then just throw everything out with the exhale.

How are you?
“Well, how are you?”

No, seriously: don’t you find this to be one of the most beautiful and underrated questions ever?
“Every now and then I do this test: I answer exactly how I am -” But you know that everything is really going wrong and I have a beginning of depression but I’m sorry to tell the others because we are all made of shit? ” – and on the other side I see the most total bewilderment. But now I am really very well ».

A nice purple cover. It is not superstitious.
«I don’t give a damn: I don’t believe in horoscopes, cards, let alone God … I don’t believe in anything. Apart from psychoanalysis ».

Your book looks like a psychotherapy subsidiary.
«It is so. In any type of path of this kind, the questions are fundamental. It all starts with the desire not to dodge them anymore ».

The bottom line is that, in the end, questions are more important than answers?
“Well, the answers close the conversation, the questions keep it open.”

Could it be that she also broke her balls a bit to give answers to anyone on Instagram?
«It all stems from the desire to tell what I have understood in 3 years of questions in my Group Therapy: that we are all in the same boat, but that each boat has its specific problems. Those who take on the water, those who no longer have a sail … I haven’t broken my balls, but I’m afraid. I feel the responsibility of this continuous search for certainties. We will come out better, we said. But we understood that it did not happen that way. I get a lot of questions about the sense of failure, about confusion, about not knowing how to be with others anymore. Questions that can be answered: they need reasoning, to go to the bottom. Of other questions, in short ».

When was the last time she said “why not”?
“I decided to leave the radio for a while, even though there was no reason to. Let’s see what happens, I said to myself: it’s something that reassures me a lot, tell me ».

Bizarre.
“Maybe it’s something of us of the VAT generation generation.”

Which question is asked most often?
“It’s important? It is always necessary to put things back into perspective, to establish the specific weight of the events that occur. But I’m not Gandhi, I don’t always succeed ».

When you need an answer, who do you turn to?
“Anyone, really. Monstrous Pipponi attack on anyone who comes under fire. I have a group chat of friends which was originally called “Help” and which gathered all the people I wanted close in times of difficulty ».

And what is the chat called now?
“Love and blasphemies”.

But I’m not going to ask you why. Is there a category of questions that is more difficult to answer?
«Those that involve a temporal quantification. Nobody wants to be told a generic “it will pass”. You should be able to say: “It will pass in a week”. I can tell you that you don’t die for love, it’s a very good truth, but I can’t tell you when you’ll come back to think that a spritz and a carbonara will solve your day ».

What questions are left out?
«Those closely related to the male or female world. It is a book without a genre ».

Out of curiosity: what is a purely masculine question?
“What if she doesn’t give it to you?”

And a female?
“What if he doesn’t call you back?” But this trick of stereotypes just didn’t interest me. “

This might have been the easiest interview in history – all I had to do was ask her some of her own questions. And that’s what I’ll do. The first of the book: “What are you afraid of?”.
«Sbam, we start with a bang. When you realize what you are afraid of, you casually ask yourself a series of questions – why do you have it? Can it pass? Do you want to let it pass? – and you understand almost everything. I’m afraid of being alone ».

I continue: “Do you still have the dreams of when you were seven?”
«I wanted to be Pope. I came close, influencers are the closest thing to a virtual religion that exists: adoration, mass, official iconography. The book is also as big as the Bible. Today, however, I am an atheist, baptized, epicurean ».

What is today’s dream?
“A huge house in Punta Rossa al Circeo with a swimming pool and a fireplace, and knowing that the 20 favorite people of my life have the keys”.

Another of his questions: “What do you fear everyone will think of you?”.
«That I am not good. I have a certain familiarity with people’s shadow areas, flaws, rot, and I know I’m heavy, manipulative. But I would like to remain a good person. For good, clean ».

Again: “How many lives do you have?”
«Infinite, how cool! Life is one: it is unthinkable that you spend it all in the same way, with only one person, in the same city … ».

I had also marked this one, but then I had decided not to do it to him: “Why does love end?”.
«Let me do it. For the same reason it starts: by accident. It is useless to encyst to find out more ».

The first excruciating question that as a child kept me from sleep for whole nights was: what is after death? Did it happen to you too?
“In this I feel like a mass of organs. I always tell myself: at most I die. Okay. My psychologist told me one day that I had gotten to the point where people usually come to the “end of life”. I made the living will 5 years ago: dismember me, if someone needs my molar, give it to them, and the rest in the wet ».

Would he have a question just for me?
“If tomorrow you could decide the fate of the world, who would you start with?”

From me. Are there other possible answers?
“Holy cow! From the planet, from the weakest, from those who are incapable of understanding and willing ».

It makes me feel bad. One for the readers of Vanity?
“Who is the most important person in your life?”

Who is his?
“The!”.

How much does the book cost?
“16 euros and 90”.

My therapist wanted 100 per hour, I’d say it’s a good investment.
“I think that after this interview I have to give you the 100 euros.”

In the photo by Roberta Krasnig: jacket, adidas by Stella McCartney.

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