It’s true that the whole grid went down. No flashes, no exploding fuses, no flames suddenly rising from substations; one moment you’re busy fudging about in cyberspace, finding all kinds of fascinating stuff to read and not actually work, and then there’s no power. Then you look in your mobile to see what’s happening and that doesn’t work either.
By Tim Cooper
At 12:33 CET, 28 April 2025, the entire Iberian Peninsula was switched off.
The first total power outage in Spanish history. One hour later the streets seethed with zombies and heavily armed Maoist revolutionaries, while four grim looking individuals on horseback floated in midair above the local government building, sipping bitter dregs and shouting imprecations in Aramaic.
Sounds cool, but the reality was, as always, much more prosaic—and sadder.
It’s true that the whole grid went down.
No flashes, no exploding fuses, no flames suddenly rising from substations; one moment you’re busy fudging about in cyberspace, finding all kinds of fascinating stuff to read and not actually work, and then there’s no power. Then you look in your mobile to see what’s happening and that doesn’t work either.
Whatsapp goes like a sedated snail. Forget Google, it just sends you a picture of a dinosaur and a terse message telling you what you already know: that the connection’s down. Our physiotherapist was in the house right then, trying to deal with my partner’s rampant lumbago and she had a better phone connection. So, she sort of took on the role of official announcer of the breaking of the First Seal.
There was no power, anywhere in Spain.
The very first thing that came to my mind was, “why the fuck don’t they give prior notice when the world’s about to end? Where are the fiery, blood-red comets? The deluges of blood and natterjack toads? Omens! We must and shall have omens!”
The view from the window was very Iberian: crowds of happy sinners gathering at the bar to get drunk and celebrate an unexpected day off, grandmothers moving at frightening speed to buy up all the bread at the baker’s, the greengrocer doing a roaring trade from panic buyers, and the pharmacist and his staff loafing around in the street, enjoying the sunshine.
That was it. No zombies, no Spetsnaz.
Naturally, like any good survivalist, I hurried down to the street and bought a lot of fruit.
It’s hard to decide what’s necessary when you don’t even know what is going on. Then the phone connection got better (briefly, then it disappeared again, reappeared again, and carried on like that for the rest of the day). A total outage, no one knew why or how; the usual doom-mongering about cyberattacks, the Russians, a fire in southern France.
From then on, a long day of adapting to the weirdness and discovering how hooked you are to stuff that you should flush down the pan, like the damn mobile, or information, because you must always have data.
When something on this scale happens, the mind goes on a real spree, fed as it was in this case by the total absence of facts, and funnily enough all that you thought about how you would react in such a situation turns out to be bitter bullshit.
I think the worst moment was when I started to think this could be bad. There’s a lot of tension in Europe right now, and far too much talk about war, so when the whole grid in your country takes a nose dive, the mind does tend to wander off into dark places, like death.
And that’s when I had a realisation: I do not live in the now, I do not accept my life, I still believe right down in my bones that I have lots of things to do and be, I have lots of money to make and fun to have. It all came down to one long whine: it’s just not fair.
You can read books by Lama Zopa Rinpoche about death and think, “oh yes indeed, I really do need to value my precious human existence and work on my Dharma practice and accept the inherent fragility of my existence” and then death, or the mere idea of it, starts breathing its hot breath on your shoulder and the only thing you can say is “wait! Not now! I want to go to Athens for my holidays!”
No doubt it’s nice to sit in your forested retreat centre for a 900 dollar weekend on impermanence and how lojong will make you truly resilient, but do many people in these places really understand just how impermanent things can really be? How scary life can get? How whatever Dharma practice you have acquired can go tits-up when the lights go out? How very necessary it is to be kind when you do not want to be?
Suffering, like power outages or wars, can be unexpected and take unexpected shapes.
It is not often televised; it tends to be live and direct. And discovering just how deeply tied you are to samsara, right down to your toe fungus, is no joy ride. Seeing how your fantasies of understanding impermanence are just a patina that covers your very real fear of the end of the world before you get to where you’re convinced you want and deserve to get to, is not an easy process.
I spoke to a neighbor and his girlfriend on the street right in the midst of the scene from Quo Vadis at the nearby bar. When I asked them how they felt about the outage, they smiled and said “oh, we’re from Venezuela, shit like this doesn’t bother us.”
Then I remembered the importance of being kind, and told them that whatever they needed, I was there for them. The smile on the guy’s face made me think that perhaps it hadn’t all been worthless.
The lights went back on at 01:16.
The next day, there was a meme floating around with a picture of a little girl crying and saying, “I don’t want to play at historic events anymore!” I know how she feels. Pandemics, invasions, American isolationism, AI, collapses of the national power grid… But, if you’re honest with yourself, it all points to one thing, you’re never ready, not really. You can buy lots of tinned food and batteries, but you’re never really ready.
Not inside.
Impermanence, non-self, dukkha; absurd mind games until the lights go out, when you realise that you’re a sad, sorry spiritual materialist and you have such a long way to go.
Tim Cooper is a more or less practicing Buddhist and recovering alcoholic who’s lived in Spain for over half his life. After many years of stumbling about in the lush gardens of Buddhism, picking one flower here and another flower there, he finally settled down and is trying to make sense of it all in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, and generally trying to be a bit nicer. He works as a translator, teacher and facilitator with fellow ex-drunks. He likes flowers, rugby, bad science fiction films and cooking. He also likes to think he writes like Hemingway, but the rejection slips tell another story.
Photo: Pixabay
Editor: Dana Gornall
Did you like this post? You may also like:
Comments
- Why I Became Buddhist - March 25, 2026
- Perfectly Imperfect: Life is One Continuous Mistake - February 23, 2026
- No Flights to a Prison State: A Global Call to Boycott Travel to Myanmar - February 19, 2026
“And that’s when I had a realisation: I do not live in the now, I do not accept my life, I still believe right down in my bones that I have lots of things to do and be, I have lots of money to make and fun to have. It all came down to one long whine: it’s just not fair.” ===> OUCH! Glad I’m not the only one… Ha. Thanks for the good reminder to keep doing the work I will never finish.