writing in the dust

Still, there’s that faint glimmer of hope we feel when we sense, in other people, the same kind of attentiveness to life that we take comfort in. Why else would anyone watch Haneke films or read Sebald? The material is grim, but it’s redeemed by the quality of the attention.

Teju Cole. This is something I’ve thought about off and on over the years, but I’d like to reflect on it more deeply and carefully: the sense we have that paying attention and having attention paid to us — noticing and being noticed — is in some way redemptive.