We finish the annual cycle with more and more hit lists; the best books, movies, series… It’s okay, it’s practical, it helps, as long as we don’t become uncritical consumers of any simplified digital organization of culture, because favorites lists represent, in the words of the ingenious Màrius Serra, “a cartographic modality that aims to prioritize everything and that generates contractors and countercontractors where we can vent the competitive drive that characterizes us. Lists are a clear expression of the power balances that humans generate, because any list includes and excludes at the same time, clarifies, orders and reaffirms.”
Be careful, then, with resigning yourself to consecrating without nuances the triumph of the winners that condemns everything else to ostracism; to surrender to the binary system of ones or zeros; to the abolition of gray scale due to reduction to the absurd; to “Either Caesar or Nothing” and from there to fame as an end in itself, enhanced by the addictive algorithms of social networks.
Against the perverse dynamics of screens, journalism committed to the rescue of society. Criterion, rigor and weighted information. I have said it other times, famous people are not interested; The interesting people are interested, and the good media is dedicated to making the interesting people famous for the benefit of the common good, not interesting the famous so that leisure ends up being the opium of the people.
It is also traditional that, on these special dates, we attend an authentic coven of good wishes. Between advertisements for cologne and nougat, messages of peace and love proliferate, which this year contrast more than ever with the terrible paradox of the news about the inhumanity of war.
As for me, as the years go by, I notice that I crave proteins less, I find it difficult to eat a heavy meal and I become even more sentimental. I have always been a quick tearjerker, but now, as an adult, I get emotional at the slightest. Although it may sound cheesy, I am more stimulated by displays of human values, I look for them and appreciate them, but that doesn’t mean I spent the holidays watching sweetened Christmas-themed comedies with happy endings. It hasn’t even crossed my mind.
With the only exception, of course, of the one who must be the mother of them all, always with the permission of her grandmother, which is Charles Dickens’ Christmas Carol. Yes, this year I wanted to revisit It’s a Wonderful Life as a family, the 1946 classic. And, of course, the little tears have fallen again.
As you all know, Frank Capra’s film is about how important it is to be a good person and how transcendental it is for the entire society not to settle for being just ambitious and competitive, but to do things for others without expecting anything in return. The story is naive, old and in black and white, but its wonderful moral remains more relevant than ever. The only truly essential ones are good people.
Help, accompany, care, be kind, worry, share remain the essential verbs. Hence its tremendous capacity to generate gratitude. And now that great restaurateurs claim to dedicate themselves to thrilling, I’m going to tell you the last time they achieved it with me.
Last week, a few days before Christmas, the multi-award winning, globally admired, perennially sought after and persecuted, one of the three main protagonists of the once again declared first restaurant in the world, Mr. Josep Roca, decided to take the car and drive the 117 kilometers that separate Celler de Can Roca from Món Sant Benet to bring me a book.
I’m sure he had a thousand much more urgent, rewarding and rewarding things to do. Of course it was infinitely easier, more practical and even cheaper to send it to me by messenger, but my dear Pitu traveled the hour and thirteen minutes that, according to the browser, separate our two workplaces to leave me a book dedicated to him and his brother.
Two and a half hours on the road in total to deliver your latest book in person to someone who is no one (although you also know that you are no less than no one). What’s more, he left it to my colleagues from Alícia and, with that elegant discretion that magnifies his figure if possible, he left without even waiting for me to thank him in person. I caught him in the parking lot about to leave and I begged him to give me one more moment sharing a coffee.
It ended up being almost two hours talking about nothing and everything, about the past, the present and the future, about what is worth it, about colleagues, about restaurants, about exhibitions, about lists, about competitiveness, about the problems of the farmers, of biodiversity, of addictions, of technology and gesture, of ego, of the wine that is coming, of the university, of the planet, of the professional and biological family, of how much we will miss those who have gone and how important it is to take care of those who are there while they are there.
What do you want me to say, I still shudder remembering the generosity of such a seemingly simple action. And I think that it is fantastic to work to excite, but that you also have to know how to live to excite and be moved by the little things.
I end up remembering that I try to include practical, feasible proposals in my articles, because denouncing is necessary and analyzing is essential, but as the eleventh thesis on Feuerbach says “Philosophers have done nothing more than interpret the world in different ways, but what it is about It is about transforming it.”
This last leaflet of the year will be no exception. I propose, for 2024 that begins, to exercise ourselves by doing things more frequently for others, just because, not for fame or reward. Let’s start once a week if we are not trained. Those who already do it – surely the majority – should persevere until they effortlessly achieve daily practice.
Let’s visit someone, meet them for a coffee or a drink, watch an old movie together sharing popcorn and a blanket, give them a book, read it if their age no longer allows it, invite them to eat, cook for those we love and even for others if it comes to it… Let’s check every day of the year how beautiful it is to live.
Tinkle! (another angel has gotten his wings).