The Tetraeder
"Quiet, humble, yet not bashful..."
You brought wonders to my world.
I was going through some significant lulls in my life in Germany when Easter came around. My dearest called me up out of nowhere to ask if I wanted to go on a motorcycle trip with him after about a life time of not talking. He wouldn't tell me where we were going. I could only say yes. Not that I would know where he's taking me to anyway.
When I saw him, I could not believe how much I have changed after months of struggling to internalize my not-nearly-perfect experience for the past couple months in Germany. I was on-edge, skeptical, self-pitying and angry, to say the least. I felt like as if I was the character in Paul Auster's books. A recurring character that, under different names each time, seems to appear stories after stories, books after books. --- Lonely, alienated people, starving, shocked and scared but in denial of his/her plight for he/she would not admit defeat, forever lingering in the darkness hoping to catch a glimpse of excitement, adventure in other people's life. A character that if he/she cannot battle fear, he/she become a part of the fear. --- I was that person, standing in front of my dearest again, he who seemed to have been unchanged by time, still fun, sane and sensible yet apathetic to me worse than ever before, I found my new self unacceptable and almost disgusting in the face of such stability and tranquility that seems to waft from him and his surroundings . Very quickly, I was readjusted to the peace around me. We went from town to town from West to East of the Ruhr area. Small town, big town, small city, big city...I quickly found solace, in his company, in the Ruhrgebiet.
The reason why he took me there, was because Ruhrgebiet is the 2010 so called Culture Capital. In the European world is a big deal.
Ruhrgebiet is a place more prominent than the rest of Germany of the "empty nest" phenomenon after industrial bloom after WWII, and decline of labor intensive activities in the last twenty years. It was teeming with rusted copper structure, abandoned warehouse, disused coal mines, evacuated Nuclear plants, empties fuel storage and more. But what is more prominent is the sentiment of hard working, single minded determination and indifference to change in the atmosphere. All these what would have really been "ugly" parts of the old industrial Germany were ingeniously turned into beautiful art galleries, design museum, art museum, science museum, astronomy museums, exhibition hall of modern life, forums for voice of Germans from small cities and town. Beautiful sculpture stands alone on the artificial mountain from the material dug out from the coal mines which turned into a park overlooking the Ruhrgebiet, as a quite, humble monolith, showing the world what we can achieve, if they are willing to slow down and listen to the stories of the small people below with big and dirty jobs that fueled the economy of Germany for the past decades.
I was very moved by my visit. The Tetraeder is really just as beautiful as the Eifel Tower in Paris. The Eifel might have been a feat in 1800s architecture. But the Tetraeder, and the Gasometer, and the Zollverein, and many more historical monument of industrial Germany that I have not seen, were definite feats of human struggle against nature, of determination, of just getting your hands dirty and doing what you gotta do, for yourself, for your family, for your country, and most importantly, not shouting to get credit or recognition and be complacent about one's place. It is the whole biblical idea of serving others that I witnessed and felt strongly over my visit. The quiet, humble, yet not bashful craftsmanship and leadership of the German people in technology, in Architecture, in engineering, in art, in social science and many many other disciplines, I found out, is what I really like about Germany.
It's always helpful to witness something bigger than oneself. Then one would realize that, oh yes, there really are things much more important, much more unfathomable, much more challenging than the difficulties one is facing. Looking at the ruins of the houses of Kings and Queens, touching the rusted turbines of the steam engines from the war, staring down at the world around us that is toiling ahead into another day from the top of the Gasometer, one cannot help but re-prioritize things that are important to oneself in life.
Take it easy. Take it easy.
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