Comfortably Numb: Not knowing Mallorca

What do any of us know about Mallorca? There are visitors who come to the island for just a few days who know more. They know more because they come with their curiosity aroused. They are more often than not German and not British, as the British are an appallingly incurious people.

The any of us that I refer to are those of us who live in Mallorca, those of us who take pride in the paradise nature of the island, those of us who bask in the reflection of this paradise, those of us who might even boast of it or use it as a justification for presence on the island, despite the dreadful hardships that have befallen Mallorca, despite the inconveniences, the discriminations, the feigned "friendships" with local people that too many expatriates are prone to believe exist.

Outside of the small communities - and they are small, unless they are in Palma or perhaps the conurbation that surrounds Palma - there is the great unknown. It is an unknown of negligent immobility and of the smugly familiar which insists that, within these small communities, there are paradise vistas, paradise restaurants and paradise beaches, but which is only aware of what resides elsewhere because of received wisdom. It is an unknown of the comfortably numb, comfortably coffined into the padded satin lining of death by the cuts of thousands of experiences, views, landscapes, seascapes that exist outside of this numb familiarity - all missed, mortality-encroaching realities. It is an unknown that is boxed in, that is unwilling to ever escape, to explore, to become aware through own eyes of what is otherwise made visual through the internet or the media. It is an unknown that knows but does not feel. It is an unknown of many in Mallorca who have never known Mallorca and who still don't know Mallorca.

There again, why should you ever know Mallorca? It is the fate of residence that inaction takes over, that repetition dominates, that the familiar and the easy dominate. Not just Mallorca. It is the same anywhere. Because it's there, it ceases to be important. It is just there, and there is reassurance in it being there, whatever it is, be it mountain, town or coastline.

Mallorca is not big. It is small but it is nevertheless vast in its possibilities. Its smallness is such that it should be known, but it isn't. Real knowledge is confined to the few. The rest who profess knowledge have none, because all they know is their own bailiwick, their own tiny domain of paradise. Banyalbufar, Biniali, Búger, Caimari ... how many more should I quote, and how many more are unknown?

Get up, get out, just go. Anywhere. Take a look. There are amazing places that surround you. They are known to be there, but they are unknown. Don't let them be.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.