Anton Chekhov famously observed that if there’s a gun in the first act, it’ll go off in the third, but he was talking about plays. Life has no plot. Much of it is spent eating, sitting around, wandering aimlessly along a street or, if you’re lucky, lazily enjoying the warm sunlight on your face. This is not the tale told by popular cinema or theatre. In life it is far more likely that the gun will be put in a cupboard and gather dust. In life the drone of traffic can be oddly companionable; music floats through the air from the open windows of passing cars; groups of people talk and don’t listen; conflicts are not resolved; conversations hum around you, and it’s a relief they mean nothing. A gentle contentment can emerge from such detachment, born of the realization that the world, despite its volatility, can occasionally ask very little of you.
-From Frieze Magazine archive
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