Who is he? What is he doing? When did he arrive and how long will he remain here? With any luck, time will tell us all. For the moment, our only task is to study the pictures as attentively as we can and refrain from drawing any premature conclusions.                                                                                                                                -Paul Auster  Travels in the Scriptorium

 It’s so easy to fall off.

 22 Jan ‘08 :  Today I saw a man at the post office, he spent twenty minutes just sifting through two carrier bags full of his possessions, bits and pieces strewn over the counter and at his feet. He was searching for some proof of identity. Breathing heavily and extremely overweight he no doubt had numerous health problems both physical and mental. Feel sorry for him? Can’t bear to look because it could happen to you? A sudden change in your circumstances, the swift decline into long periods of solitude, which, in turn will eventually bring chronic health problems, the comments muttered under your breath and strange movements done in private, slowly crossing the boundary into the public domain. Soon enough you will be a drama unfolding before the very eyes of the people in the queue at the post office. It’s so easy to fall off. 

When asked to explain what influences me, how and why, this becomes one of the most difficult things to do. I suppose I am preoccupied with solitary figures, the ones just walking out of sight, encapsulated in a blanket of their own thoughts, stripped of any pretence, facing the stark truth that the world is a continuous series of very costly personal experiments where things can and will change rapidly, with no certainty of the outcome.