NUMERARIO: Empírico, where are you? It’s very hot, and I’m dying of boredom. Let’s do something.

EMPÍRICO: How lucky you are. I thought no one got bored anymore.

N: It’s true: it’s one of the great successes of our time. We’ve replaced boredom with addiction, and in the process, we’ve elevated the level of other vices.

E: A philosopher said that a generation incapable of boredom would be incapable of great things. Now we spend almost all our time in front of a screen, absorbed, like farm animals, wasting life consuming garbage content. To top it all off, everything is boring, but no one is bored.

N: Don’t talk nonsense, Empírico. One should avoid quoting philosophers as much as possible, especially if they’re as serious as yours: a generation that can’t be bored has defeated boredom, and that’s all. The great revelation of digital technology is what we’ve always known, that is, that we are animals, and that it’s much better to be an animal than to be human. Besides, we should be grateful that it has turned something as vulgar as boredom into a delicious luxury. But do me a favor, tell me what’s showing at the cinema.

E: Well, they’ve released many new films this week. For example…

N: New releases! How horrible. Isn’t there something at least thirty or fifty years old?

E: They’re showing Amarcord, at the eight o’clock session. I didn’t take you for a nostalgic. What do you have against new movies?

N: The new and the old don’t exist in art, but for some reason, old works are the only ones that know this. New ones keep demanding our attention simply because they think they’re contemporary. I find it very irritating behavior.

E: You won’t argue that it’s reasonable to see new works because we expect to feel closer to them. There are timeless classics, no one refutes that, but current stories speak to us about the present, about how life has changed and where we are. It’s easier for them to challenge us directly.

N: Empírico, I’ll argue anything as long as it’s not reasonable. The reasonable is, after all, an almost entirely insubstantial matter. It’s a strategy of businessmen and scientists to appear respectable, and an outdated one at that. Life itself, everything that matters, is very unreasonable. I challenge you to find a single work of art that is reasonable, or a single dying person who gives value to this deceitful word. As for your argument, you’re completely wrong: there’s nothing more relative than the present. There are as many presents as there are people, or as moments in a person’s life. Take any instant as an example, observe it carefully and you’ll see that there’s a multitude of times in it: the present disappears. Grab the moment: in it there’s the rough sensation of the knee’s contact with the pants; the memory to which this sensation transports us, ten years ago, in the kitchen of the childhood home; we see a piece of bread that takes us back to two hours ago, when we decided not to follow the diet so strictly after months; there are remote hints of anxiety that remind us that we have to make a call in the next fifteen minutes; and if we can understand the meaning of all this chaos of sensations and perceptions, it’s only thanks to experiences we’ve accumulated over decades. Where is the present? It’s not there: its existence is a fiction, a bluff, and not a particularly charming one.

E: All this sounds very interesting although a bit improbable, convoluted even for you. What’s the point of all this? No, don’t change the subject. Tell me, what relationship does what you’re explaining have with what I was saying about the relevance of new movies? You always do the same: you start responding and end up digressing.

N: You’re absolutely right, dear friend. I’m afraid I’m nothing but a dilettante, an amateur of the improbable. It’s the only thing worth it. I’ve dedicated my life to succumbing to distractions. I consider the conclusions of a debate irrelevant and that conversing is, deep down, useless. And besides —what greater pleasure than ignoring the topic one should address, don’t you think? It’s a small rebellion I practice daily. It sounds extravagant, but I’m not really very original. I’m just replicating the history of humanity; one asks about sticks and the other responds with pears: we call the resulting misunderstanding communication. But allow me to try to answer you. What is a contemporary work of art? A work with which we manage to get excited, simply. The contemporary, like the present, is a personal invention. All epochs are actually contemporary: you just have to know how to see through that superstition called «history». Homer and Dante touch; Homer and Borges too. Achilles is the lost brother of General Patton and Hector has been reborn and plays football in a university team, as a central defender. As for a contemporary work, it’s nothing more than an artifice that’s alive for us, that remains young despite the years, that manages to transcend what we call «time». That’s why there are old works that always seem new and new ones that quickly become old.

E: Do you mean that the era doesn’t exert a certain influence on the relevance of a work?

N: Relevant to whom? There’s nothing that determines the relevance of anything except personal whim, which if one is lucky says: Ah yes… this interests me, this is alive for me.

E: As simple as that?

N: You think that’s simple? For something like that to happen is extremely exceptional: if it happens once, it’s worth having lived. In our daily existence, there’s hardly anything that’s authentically contemporary. In reality, almost everything is dead, or at most half alive. We believe we live, but we constantly deal with death, with people who are dead, with dead books, dead movies, dead experiences…

E: Dead to us, you mean.

N: Dead to us, yes, to whom else? As I was saying, it’s death that is the norm and not life. But sometimes, inexplicably, and, believe me, this is one of the greatest enigmas of our existence, something appears that is alive. You like literature. Tell me, haven’t you sometimes felt that a character, that a passage from a beloved book has felt real, that it took on an authentic life, a life that felt full and vibrant, with an overwhelming force, and that when you turned your gaze the people around you seemed pale and lifeless? I see you shaking your head, but I know you’re lying and that you’re a rascal: loving literature means having experienced at some point that unreality is more real than reality, or to recycle the terms I’ve been using, that it’s more alive than reality. But excuse me for getting so solemn. You don’t mind? Well, you should. You’ve always been too formal. By the way, let’s go see Amarcord. There are still a few hours until eight, but this way we can stretch out and chat. I’d like to tell you about a book I’m planning to write, in which I put into practice some of the ideas we’ve been discussing these days. It will be titled The Provincialism of Experience, and it’s a small plea in favor of imagination. Fellini’s film will be perfect as an appetizer: there’s no film of his that isn’t based on a perfect contempt for reality.

E: Let’s go out then. It’s much better to chat while walking than sitting. Let’s talk, let’s talk… I’d love to know about your book. By the way, I’m interested in what you say about the contemporary, and maybe you’ll manage to convince me, but I still have my reservations. I ask you to put provocation aside for a moment: Don’t you think there’s a sense in which being contemporary to something means sharing an era with that something?

N: Perhaps, as long as we admit that the epochs of history overlap each other, without much respect for the calendar. I know beings who are contemporaries of Virgil and some who live side by side with Voltaire and Diderot. One day I’ll introduce you to the latter, they’re charming people, although it’s better not to offer them wine.

E: But historical conditions are not so relative. I mean, circumstances determine one and one’s tastes. We have more in common with people of our time. It’s not the same being a Spaniard in our century as a Frenchman of the 18th century or a Roman of the 1st century BC…

N: Historical conditions! What a pompous word. Who cares about historical conditions? Historical conditions, historical superstitions… Of course everything is relative, and I’ll say more, everything is relative to our stupidity. As for your examples, I absolutely agree, but let me add a detail: it’s not the same being a Frenchman from tararí street as a Frenchman from tarará street.

E: You’re laughing at me. Very well, go ahead. Meanwhile, I’ll try to explain it another way. My thesis is that there’s something that transcends the individual. While the perception of time is subjective, one can also speak of a contemporary time that doesn’t depend on us. I know you don’t like these terms; believe me, I’m trying to speak with simple words. Take as an example a work of fiction that deals with social networks, the queer movement, artificial intelligence, climate change: shouldn’t it challenge us more directly than a 19th-century novel about the existence or non-existence of God? What do Dostoyevsky’s problems matter to us? There’s a series of historical conditions, if you’ll allow me the expression, that make us who we are, that influence our tastes, interests, and even our emotional range. A story with mobile phones and introspections on sexuality is closer to us, that’s all. After all, «consuming», and forgive me for using this odious word, consuming art consists of empathizing with the emotions that the artist proposes to us. The more we manage to empathize, the more satisfying the work is, the more deeply it touches us. Now answer me without using rhetorical tricks.

N: I see you’re still the same rascal as always. Tricks? You know you can’t ask me to renounce my tricks. It’s a cosmic impossibility. This conversation is a rhetorical trick. Everything is a trick. «You», «me», «the world»: tricks, nothing more. It’s the first law of pataphysics, one can only speak with tricks. Besides, what would be the point of conversing if there wasn’t a bit of magic? Regarding your argument about historical conditions, I’ll grant you that victory, as long as you promise not to use that expression anymore. It’s one of those vitiated terms that contaminate any conversation; as soon as you’re not careful, you’re talking about politics. By the way, let’s turn around. This street is horribly straight; it would be a tragedy to arrive at the cinema too early. This way? Perfect… You know? I was waiting for you to mention that word, empathize. If it didn’t seem so antipathetic to me, I would have brought it up myself. Just pronouncing it gives me a small gag reflex. The Greeks with their good sense already intuited that it smelled rotten and that’s why they gave it a negative meaning: for them it was indicative of excessive sentimentality, it was the first demonstration of bad taste. Empathy is the resource of small souls, it’s the affected reaction to the familiar, comprehensible, known thing, that is: provincial. Empathy is to art what provincialism is to public life. As I was telling you, I’ve developed a general theory of provincialism. It’s a fascinating topic. I’ve come to the conclusion that provincialism is the great creator of bad taste and everything tacky, and that, in our age of globalization and internet, the province is bigger than ever. The province grows… But look at my manners. You haven’t even asked me about my book and I’m already drilling you with theorems. We’ll talk about this later. Let’s change the subject. Have you noticed that Barcelona is a city of terrible architectural quality? It’s the world’s best-kept secret. I suppose it’s so obvious that it will be impossible for tourists to discover it, but… What do you say? You want me to continue? Well. You asked for it. Empathy… Where was I? Ah yes: empathy is the gregarious instinct in art, the need to feel identified, to comfort oneself with that sad consolation of feeling equal to others. Art worth its salt is antithetical to empathy. It’s too individual for it. It’s an art that says: here I am, and I dare to be different from everything and everyone. You’ll never understand me! When people try to interpret it, it laughs and disappears. Good art is always contrary to its species. Once I heard a critic praise a film, not knowing that he was actually insulting it. He said: «a profoundly human drama…» Well, authentic art gives a sensation of inhumanity, that if we delved deep enough into it something terrible would happen, or at least we would lose something essential and be left lost, as if hanging adrift… I see you think I’m too dramatic and don’t take me seriously. I’m glad! Mockery is the beginning of all understanding.

E: I’m not mocking you, I find your grandiloquence amusing. It’s an endearing quality. Please, continue.

N: Great art is associated with the feeling of strangeness, of disidentification, of dissolution in universal consciousness. Enough. See what you make me do? Talk for long enough and you’ll end up saying things like «universal consciousness». One should stay silent. You say a work with mobile phones and social networks is closer to us. Exactly: that’s the first reason to reject it.

E: Are you legislating that one shouldn’t interact with art made in our own time? That we should only see and read old books and movies? Please, be brief.

N: Brevity! : it seems like a succulent challenge. It’s impossible, and I only accept impossible challenges.

E: …

N: Alright, alright. Legislate? I legislate that everyone should do what they want. I legislate nonsense, good humor, and masturbation. Or rather, I don’t legislate: I just doubt that there’s such a thing as «our own time», and I declare that empathy is a poor motive for art, and moreover morally suspicious. Are you surprised? Did you think I was an immoralist? You’re wrong again. Under my cynical appearance, I’m a rigorous moralist, almost a theologian. We’ll talk about that later. But I return to your question. You know I don’t like to make you impatient; I want you to see that I’m a very polite person. As I was saying, great art eludes its time, time in general. That’s the reason why great artists are almost always ignored in life.

E: Then how do you explain that there are also great artists who are highly appreciated in their time, and not only by the general public, but by other great artists as well?

N: I doubt that what you propose is as valid as you think. Authentic art is always misunderstood. Being picky, one would have to say that misunderstanding is consubstantial to greatness. A writer as perceptive as Roberto Bolaño recently expressed it like this: «first requirement of a masterpiece: to go unnoticed.» But let’s accept your premise for a moment. If an artist is given due recognition in life, it’s because he actually has nothing to do with the era that recognizes him. The only creators worthy of that name are those with whom we cannot empathize, the inhuman ones, those who belong to a different galaxy. If you want to understand the beginning of the 19th century, or the Spanish-French war, don’t turn to a painting by Goya. It’s a mistake that historians frequently make. If your intention is to understand a century, study what was said in the press, in parliaments, businesses, and the rest of the so-called necessary activities, but above all avoid its people of genius. These only explain themselves. Goya is not from the 19th century. When he resembles it, it’s only because he uses its most rudimentary aspects, like technique or themes, for convenience. But his spirit? Maybe with time we’ll understand that he belonged to the 23rd century. Only artists of little originality belong to their century. But please, let’s leave this topic: we’ve been on it for too long. It’s very bad manners to insist, and even more so with such heavy ideas. Besides, we’re about to arrive at the cinema: you can already smell the old stink of the new releases from here.

E: Let’s leave it for now, then. Let’s enjoy Amarcord, and we’ll return to this idea that empathy is contrary to good art. Don’t think you’ve gotten off the hook!