The shadow we're missing
In times uncertain in every aspect, the promise of impossible certainties becomes a blinding and addictive opiate. Certainties that function as temporary refuges from a world that is increasingly difficult to digest. But the temporality of these certainties is more ephemeral than ever, laying bare their lack of real substance. They are pseudo-certainties thrust upon us through information overload and technological algorithms, which transform any legitimate concern into an avalanche of easy, conclusive, and reassuring answers. Answers that offer instant comfort, but which then leave a deep void, an absence of meaning that seeks only to be filled with more immediate stimuli, with extreme dogmatism, with simplistic and salvific narratives, with trap-like refuges that promise protection while imprisoning us in a desperate meaninglessness, hunting noise, excess, and emptiness.
We leave no time for silence, no time for stillness, for reflection, for slow and honest conversation, for the care that comes with having time. We leave no time for the time that life needs to be cared for, to be inhabited, to be shared. We live passing through spaces, not living them; consuming them, not loving them; managing them, not listening to them.
Things happen quickly. Attacks come from many sides and with varying intensities. Some pierce us directly, others we observe as seemingly distant spectators. And while everything accelerates and intensifies, bewilderment overwhelms us, and we no longer have time to articulate our anger. When we want to react, it's all over. Surely this is the feeling shared by many of the people who, in recent weeks, have organized to prevent the felling of seventeen beautiful shade trees in the Plaça de Llorenç Villalonga in Palma. In haste, without real dialogue, with strictly technical and security arguments—ah, security, that magic word that justifies everything, that legitimizes everything, that operates on the fear fueled by those in power—seventeen healthy trees were felled in the early hours of the morning. And suddenly, that's it. A swift execution, a gag law that silences any possibility of direct action, a subsequent press conference to explain the supposed reasons, and the hope that time—this accelerated, festive time, saturated with information—will do its work: cover one thing with another until everything is forgotten.
This is what they intend. For oblivion to do the dirty work. For the noise to swallow the indignation. For people to get tired. But what happened in the early hours of December 18th is not an anecdote or a simple episode of urban management. It is a symptom. A symbol of a way of understanding the city, life, and power. That is why we need rage now. But not an explosive, fleeting rage, but an organized, persevering, tenacious rage. A rage that gives no respite, just as the Palma City Council gave no respite when carrying out an avoidable tree felling.
May the shadow of the beautiful shadows that are no longer here be dark and long. May it loom over the decisions made and those who made them. May it be uncomfortable, persistent, preventing the consciences of those who, in the name of "security," kill life from sleeping soundly. Because we must ask ourselves: security of what, of whom, for what purpose? What certainties are these that legitimize such barbarity? Which urgencies are real and which are constructed? What power is being wielded now, and for whom? Which strengths are being protected and which weaknesses are being despised and eliminated?
Now, therefore, we must not let go. It is necessary that the beautiful shadows become a symbol. A symbol of what we no longer tolerate, what we no longer believe, what we will not forget, and what we will not remain silent about. In a world gripped by emptiness, by dehumanized technology, by security as dogma, by false certainties, and by political arrogance, may we offer calm, memory, and perseverance. May we use every tool at our disposal so that what happened—with the beautiful trees felled and with so many other imposed decisions—is not forgotten, so that there is no impunity, so that accountability is demanded.
To reclaim trees is to defend the life they want to take from us. It is to reclaim the right to inhabit the land we live on and love. May the shadow of the beautiful trees felled be long for those who condemned them, and may it be, at the same time, a refuge and a symbol for all those who have mourned them. A vivid reminder of what true protection is, what refuges we need, and what certainties—fragile but honest—are worth defending.
