Goofing off, rambling, are literary and artistic virtues that, in real life, have their dangers. In Pale Fire, one of Nabokov’s best novels, a character becomes a murderer out of distraction.
Half of those who are reading me now have their heads elsewhere, according to a study in the journal Science. The philosopher Jesús García Cívico, author of La condición dispistada, is one of those who has studied more deeply the vast fields that include distraction and, thanks to him, I discovered that our brain consumes the same active energy as in supposed rest, concentrated that counting the beams, so intense is the activity that it seems not to be.
Being in the clouds, that condition shared by the genius and the idiot, is uncomfortable when, at parties, you are greeted by people you don’t remember and you think of the wisdom of García Márquez, who spent his Alzheimer’s years hugging people and telling them: “I’ve known you since we were little!”. If it was true, it was already; and, if not, the pointed one interpreted it as a display of enormous affection or, in case they had just met, as a brilliant example of crazy humor.
In order not to lose the thread, I return to García Cívico, who manages to make the form of his book, a winding prose in the hands of a disoriented essayist – who, therefore, makes unprecedented connections -, fit like a glove to the purpose of his analysis, full of cultural references. “We like to be in another band because it seems like a safe zone”, I emphasize in case I later forget it, like the reason Harmon O. Nelson gave for separating from Bette Davis in his tumultuous divorce proceedings: l ‘actress read too much, her readings kept her away, she escaped with them even when her husband had guests.
And don’t suffer. To be in the moon of Valencia – for those who arrived in this city later than the closing time of the gates of the wall and were forced to sleep on the ground – to be in the fig tree, to have the head at quarter past three or standing in front of the open fridge without remembering our goal brings us together with authors like Josep Pla (“bathing is one of the most beautiful and fascinating things you can do”), Enrique Vila-Matas or Robert Walser.
What were we talking about?
