Day 3: Wrap up — Coffee & more

It is a funny thing but it turns out memory of an experience sometimes trumps the experience itself. You can re-live the memory over and over again even if you cannot really ever have the experience. In memory, good things grow to become better and bad things tends to get worse. In that way, we are being made fools of by our own damn brain. For instance, physical pain is often misremembered or rather the brain blocks it, no woman would ever give birth again and people would shy from surgery or medical treatment.

Now, let’s get to what is the point of this epiphany, I got a tattoo. I was truly happy and content for the first time since I made my way all the way to the other side of this giant Eurasian continent. My problems were still there: I still didn’t know what I was doing, I felt lonely and overwhelmed but somehow getting my tattoo was a new experience. Different. Like, hope but permanent.

It made me want more new and stupid things so, I went and had cereal at Cereal Hunters cafe. It is an amazing place and the luckily the manager spoke English so instead of picking any leche (milk) I got to pick leche de avena (old milk) which was great. I picked multi-grain cherrios and peanut butter clusters with chocolate flakes as topping. Even with the sugar rush: it was worth-every-bite. I want to come back to Madrid just to visit cereal hunters cafe.

Unbeknownst to me, day 3 happened to be my last day in Madrid. I wasn’t prepared to say goodbye yet but nothing’s ever easy or expected. The only way for me to get to Almeria (my next destination) is early morning Tuesday. Even though I missed my chance to eat a savoury waffle at Crepes & Waffles or visit the Temple of Debod or Ritiro Park, I promise there will be a next time Madrid. This turn of events reminded me of this Bill Waterson quote:

There is never enough time to do nothing

Museo Nacional del Prado (fancy for, the art museum)

My sister is an artist, I am not. That’s how I would start before anyone throws something at me on the internet. I am not a judge of brush stroke versatility or the artist’s intention for painting the same scenes from religious texts (Old testament, New testament, story of Moses, Saint Peter and Dream of Joseph) over and over and over again. I mean, it only made me think that all work and ideas are derivative.

Now, please don’t get me wrong. I do like some interpretation of Crucification of Christ better than others (a sentence I never thought I’d say) but after walking for over two hours watching each painting and reading similar text made me realise a few things:

Noses are a defining facial properties (who’d have thought?): Italians artists drew it differently from the Spanish who did it differently from the Flemish who were widely different from French. They all were different depending on the artist and not on the subject. Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder; Eh Keats? You can also call it the observer effect though physicists might kill me for that one so I’d better shut up.
The colour palette went from vibrant to sombre between the 15th to 18th century which is strange. Even sad or gruesome images were drawn more vibrantly around renaissance but the colours became more subtle and matching the theme of the painting in later years.
Portraiture totally explains our selfie driven culture. Now, everyone can have a portrait, you don’t need to be a king or a freak.
Society has never accepted the odd one out, the freaks even before the click-driven economy of the internet which is trying to produce the weirdest or cutest or most likeable (* insert example here)
Greek mythology makes for the best scandalous stories and therefore, the best paintings and statues. I suppose this is the human need for gossip. We like the story of that Jupiter seduced Calliste (by taking the form of Diana) which meant Callisto did not remain chaste. There is this painting that represents her not wanting to bathe in the river in the fear that they would see the pregnancy bump. It explains our current gossip culture, our fascination with celebrity gossip and why for the life of us we do not yet have a unified theory of everything. Well, maybe not the last one cos string theory cannot be proven so there’s that.
Religious art exists for a reason: art needed patrons to be able to connect and spend endless hours on it. All the people with money had strong religious beliefs and were sometimes heads of states. Of course there were wars and milestone events which is why we have paintings of Second of March, 1808. Nowadays, we have geek & nerd art patroned by the common folks. If you’ve ever bought an iron man mug or Hermoine’s time turner or a CPG grey hoodie: you are a collector and you are just like Philip II was. Human.

Everything that exists or has existed is iterative and we are always building on top of what previously existed. We can try to improve it, use brick instead of clay to make houses but we do not abandon the concept of housing and start living in trailers suddenly (well, not all of us). I find this an important idea to muddle over in my mind. We are shaped as a species by our collective past. We should not forget the effort that was put in to get us where we are. Before we claim we know everything, we should know that that is not possible anymore.

I didn’t take any pictures of the museum. Across from it there there was a park. In the park was a fountain and at the corner there sat this beautiful woman writing, and I felt connected to her in spirit. So, I took her picture.

Final words of wisdom

Madrid has been a gift of a city with its introduction for me to the Spanish ways. I haven’t yet offended anyone (as far as I know) and I have tried to be as nice as possible. I have also eaten the best food, learnt a few new words but mostly, I’ve felt invigorated with the knowledge that there is still so much more for the world to offer. That’s what at the end of the day, I take from my time here: the scale of things are usually hard to remember but very important to never fully forget.

We are mere speckle of dust on this planet which is a speckle of rock in this galaxy, which is a speckle of gas in this universe and yet, we matter. We matter if only to each other.

Fin.