on the self

In his delicious book The Art of Travel, Alain de Botton explores ideas of travel and The Self.

Travelling, he suggests, offers us an opportunity to encounter our ‘best selves’.

Unlike at home, where where our ordinary, unchanging life keeps us bound to our ordinary, unchanging person (someone we might not essentially be) travel can allow us to feel ‘returned to ourselves’.

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And then: a contemporary art space. Glass, stainless steel and sharp lines juxtaposed with the soft stone and gentle curves of the castle next door. (lovely.lovely.)

A video installation. And from the darkness emerges the single voice of a broken artist. A man who experiences two selves: a ‘Real Self’ (artist) and an ‘Other Self’ (factory worker). Two selves (stone and glass?) that cannot, he says, co-exist.