17 February 2012

Deutschland

“This is what I thought: for the most banal even to become an adventure, you must (and this is enough) begin to recount it.”

– Jean-Paul SartrĂ©


Adventures don’t happen in everyday life. Minute-to-minute, hour-to-hour, day-to-day, engrossed in the banality of the passing of time. Life slipped and squeezed between highlighter stains, sips of coffee, snippets of lectures unprocessed.

And every so often, a break, a breath. Reflection, recounting events – a plot thickens, a them. Recollect the climax, drift to the denouement. The banal becomes exalted, every step drawn out into an Odyssey.

Man is either a teller of tales, or he lives, he exists. Should life be told, portrayed recounted and broadcast with every step, every breath? Or felt, touched, lived?

An adventure, perhaps. Or a banality. Germany this summer – a notebook, a camera and film, and yes, none of you.