I have been since the Armageddon (that is, from the blackout on Monday) reading loas to the momentary return to the medievo. That if the conversations with the neighbors, that if the transistors, that if the children playing in the street, that if to read a … Book without interruptions … It would be necessary to give a thought to the romantization of the end of the world, to the minimum services fail.
The line that, given the misfortune, separates the unleashed irresponsibility of the admirable stoicism is very fine. And one thing is to fit sports the ‘third world’ homeland and another is to celebrate it with choreographed dances and applaud on the balconies. As if the return of the electricity supply was an unexpected gift, as for some it seems that the plane lands after a flight without shocks. One thing is the civic response and another the acclamation of ineptitude. And it should not be confused.
It was Monday and, suddenly, we fell on a Sunday, stubborn and tax
To me, this Apocalypse caught me in the center of Madrid, which is like the end of ‘The fight of the fight’ you caught with Eward Norton in a building with a view. I did not see anger or go, but much confusion. People who looked at their mobiles as if the unlikely, even possible, had just happened before their eyes. There were their entire lives, resting inert in the palms of their hands (also in mine).
There were our families, our friends, our work, our information, our money. They were there, we knew it, but we didn’t have access to it. That is like not. It was Monday and, suddenly, we fell on a Sunday, stubborn and tax. Perhaps from there the love for throwing ourselves to the terraces before beer was to warm up.
But it surprised me, and much, that the act of reading was celebrated. As if it were something unheard of, which does not happen in other circumstances. Can’t we do it if they don’t force us? Should everything else fail to get to it? Why does our attention attract us? Statistics indicate the opposite: more than 65% of the Spanish population read books in their free time.
And, of them, more than 50% are frequent, and non -occasional (14%) readers. But then … Who is surprised, then, to read in a blackout? To the other 35%? Surprising a transistor to batteries, now that we listen to can be in our mobile phones, such as and when we want. Or some kids playing on the street, in a Madrid that, normal, is taken by cars and does not seem the safest for their physical integrity.
And an urban ordering traffic in the middle of the Gran Vía with the traffic lights off, and a guitar playing its guitar without asking us for money in return, and an improvised gathering between strangers in a bank in the Plaza Dos de Mayo, or an enlightened groceries with candles.
All those things surprise, by unusual. But that we are surprised by a book in someone’s hands is bleak. Is an end of the world necessary to give ourselves to reading? Or are they only those who never read those who admire it as one of those things that was done before, such as cooking to the fire or sitting in the freshe to talk with the neighbors?
There is something sad in the idealization of adversity and, in some way, connects with the surprise before a book. As if the pasmados before reading were the same ones who applaud when the light returns (or lands an plane), which are recorded dancing next to a train that does not go and those that shout that you will have nothing but you will be happy.
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