That life goes faster and faster is a lament that travels from the supermarket line (as long as you have time to chat in the human assistance line and don't cut corners at the self-checkout) to psychological therapy.
Time has stopped being perceived as a valuable commodity and is now understood as an extinct matter.
There isn't any, no one has it, we don't have any left.
Meanwhile, long-term plans are selling faster and faster.
And more expensive.
Tickets for Aitana's concert at the Bernabéu were sold out in 72 hours a year in advance, not to mention those of Taylor Swift, who turned Ticketmaster into a virtual pilgrimage to close an event a year from now.
Although planning for months is not just a fan phenomenon.
The same thing happens with cinemas, airplanes, rural houses, musicals or restaurants.
The question is why?
John Lennon's legendary phrase, “Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans” has stopped working in 2024. Now it turns out that life has already happened and that we only have plans left.
It doesn't matter if you are 14, 30 or 70 years old, the shared feeling is that the meaning of life has passed you by.
And when you feel something like that, it happens that good plans are confused with the good life.
And it makes sense.
After all, if the present is suffocating, the most sensible thing seems to be to buy a ticket to the future.
But how do horizons narrow?
Why is the present inhospitable to us?
There are those who claim that the cell phone is to blame for everything, that it disconnects us from the art of living.
But it's not for that reason, certainly not alone.
Every day we witness two bloody wars with no clear direction, after a pandemic, with the planet at risk of extinction, with permanent economic crises, with people dying on the shores of the beaches or the border and with the extreme right lurking behind each electoral process, when not governing in favor of social regression in more and more countries.
The horizon of life feels legitimately threatened and our purpose cannot be other than to expand it as much as our imagination allows.
Or the wallet.
You take away the horizon from life and people begin to put horizons wherever they can.
And the new horizons are consumption.
Time has become instantaneous and lacking both present and perspective.
And since you can't live like that, the logical question is, then what do we do?
Does anyone have a plan?
And hey, one day you find out that Aitana has a really cool plan for next year, which she says she will do for sure, if you come.
That there will be a Champions League final, that New York will still be as beautiful as in the movies in six months, that there is a restaurant where if you reserve in advance they will serve you a charcoal-grilled sirloin
tataki
that erases the unpleasantness of any night.
What do you say?
Well yes.
Which is worth paying for.
And wait.
And run a little more to earn a little more and pay even more.
Because with each new plan there is someone who offers us the possibility of acting, of deciding what to do, where to go and even who to do it with.
And how much does that cost?
Does not matter.
Every day we are one step closer to paying whatever it takes.
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