Tracing the spark

Tracing the Spark

Hey, I’m Bastian — and I’ve been spending more than 25 years with stories, ideas, and the things people make of them.

I’ve worked as a journalist, written two plays that made it onto the stage, taught creative writing, and played bass in a few pretty good indie bands. And at some point I realised that something else kept drawing me back:

**old books, plays, films and works of art.**

I’m less interested in the question:

*What did the author want to tell us?*

I’m more interested in:

**Why do we keep coming back to certain stories?**

What is in there that survives the passage of time? Where is that little spark that suddenly jumps across?

I call this **Tracing the Spark**.

I look for the places where an old text suddenly has something to do with our own lives. Sometimes it’s a big idea. Sometimes it’s just a sentence, a look, a joke, or a strange little scene.

In *Winnie-the-Pooh*, it might be a bear wiping the last traces of honey from his nose and getting himself ready for an adventure because he wants to be **ready for anything**.

In *Don Quixote*, it might be a magic potion that doesn’t work at all — and yet somehow keeps two people together.

Maybe that’s what makes a classic a classic: it doesn’t simply stay the same.

**We change — and suddenly the book changes too.**

That’s why I don’t want to explain why these stories are great.

I want to go inside them with you.

**Come along. Have a look.**

P.S. How you can help

If you enjoy my search for these sparks, have a look at my YouTube channel. A like, a subscription and — best of all — watching a video all the way to the end really helps me, especially at the beginning.

And apparently, it’s not just the person behind the channel who appreciates that. The algorithm does too.

🙂

See you soon!