Museum

My parents took me to a museum and like when your parents take you somewhere, you don’t really have a choice. Of course I could escape the museum, but that would sadden my parents and is generally condemned by society. Follow the rules, you know. Don’t take photographs, don’t act rudely, don’t go beyond the “staff only”-sign.

What is the point of the museum, I wonder as I wander among the paintings, corridor upon corridor of paintings depicting various things. Some are really fun making me feel happy inside, others are just terrible and I am glad when I get to move on to the next one.
Corridor upon corridor, painting after painting. There are some hundreds of paintings in each corridor and clearing a room feels like an accomplishment, kind of like when you finish a level in a game. I keep trudging on no matter how bad some of the art is.

After each painting I am given the opportunity of leaving the museum, the possibility to just move on. Sometimes after a row of really bad paintings that option might seem good. It’s all trash, isn’t it, with no meaning. You go to museums to pass time, to get educated and to look good in front of strangers. At the end of the day you don’t actually get much out of it, do you? It’s just a place to stay during rainy weather.

But hey, I paid for my ticket. I’m going to see this museum to the end. If I leave it now, I’m not getting my money back, no refund, and they’ll never let me in the museum again. I’m here now, I’m not going to give up. At some point a nice painting will show up again and I’d be terribly upset if I would have left the place just before I got to the good part.

Does it matter if I get to the good part? If I think there’s no point to going to the museum, does it matter if I enjoy it?

Yes.

I’m still in the museum. Painting after painting, corridor after corridor.  Without even meaning to, I learn new things I will never need after I get out of the museum. Irrelevant things that I pick up on only to forget them once the helpful info-sheets are gone. But in this moment it is the museum that matters. Even after my parents have walked ahead of me, even when I come across the most repelling painting so far, I will prevail. At the end of the day, that museum will have had some meaning. That meaning isn’t found in the brochures, not in my parents’ coaxing, not in the museum guard’s bored look, not even in getting out. It’s up to me to enjoy my stay. So corridor after corridor, I wander, determined to see every painting there is for me to see, whether or not it has a meaning. Which, now that you think about it, it probably doesn’t.  But that’s okay, no worry. It is easier if you don’t think about it.

What’s the point of the museum. As it turns out, it doesn’t actually need to have a point. I used to ask “what’s the point?” about everything. My dad said that not everything has to have a meaning. He wasn’t talking about museums, but I think I can borrow that quote.

I don’t know where we’ll go when we have seen the museum. Nothing special, I think. Nothing where this museum will matter anymore. No “leave a review” emails. I don’t need to think about that. I’m on a vacation, so I might as well enjoy my time here, while I can. There might be some nice painting still to come.