The Selections Collector

In the title I am not referring to any coach of the national soccer teams who have given more disappointments than satisfactions to the fans of this beautiful sport in Honduras, but to a character who appeared in front of my house offering me to exchange copies of the extraordinary magazine Selections. That man was not wrong when choosing me as a possible candidate to accompany him in his strange, but comforting pastime, since reading those publications (which no longer circulate in the country) was one of my entertainments for many years and, therefore I still have some of those literary gems.

Selecciones del Reader’Digest, also simply called Selecciones, is a monthly magazine in book format that contains topics written in Castilian Castilian and very well written to keep the reader’s interest until the end.

Since 1940, when this magazine appeared in Spanish, generation after generation of Spanish speakers have turned to its pages to enjoy sections such as “La risa remedio infallible”, “Quotable quotes”, “My unforgettable character”, “Enrich your vocabulary” and original articles on international politics, sports, cinema, medicine, scientific advances and many etceteras. His style is conservative and emphasizes traditional family values.

In Honduras, this exceptional magazine stopped circulating profusely in the 1990s, when mobile telephony and the internet began to evolve at an accelerated rate. This brought, as a consequence, a substantial change in interpersonal communications, in the media in general and in our lifestyle.

It is worth mentioning that well used, the social networks of this technological “boom” can provide us with great personal benefits; among them, invigorating our communications or enjoying a good digital book, although for many users, especially older ones, it is not the same to read it in PDF than to have the printed work in hand. As the Portuguese José Saramago, Nobel Prize in Literature said: “One can cry over the pages of a book, but not over the hard drive of a computer.”

Before this technological avalanche hit us, to know the meaning of a word we had to turn to a heavy dictionary and look it up carefully in alphabetical order. The bulkier, the more complete was the monstrosity. Now, through Google, just by clicking on the word dictionary we can search for any linguistic unit and the meaning that we want to know. Unfortunately, these tools are less used by the vast majority than those that only provide fruitless entertainment.

We must warn that social networks are capable of creating addiction and making users, especially young people, lose interaction with their social environment and even with their family, but the most dangerous thing is that they become victims of sexual predators and other thugs, who they use the nets to catch them. Users sensitive to emotions can also follow fatal slogans, as is the case of the La Ceiba security guard, who took his life with his regulation weapon playing Russian roulette and recorded the outcome on his Facebook. Faced with this situation, the dilemma is how to issue legislation that guarantees the safety of Internet users without affecting freedom of expression and communication.

In any case, it would not be enough if there were more promoters, not only from Selecciones magazine, but from many other reminiscences with cultural influences and healthy recreation to help mitigate this digital pandemic or the covid-19 pandemic. Even to ward off the ghost of fears caused by our personal problems or the situation in the country.