Warsaw

W‑Z Route Tunnel, 2022, acrylic on canvas, 80 x 120 cm

Aldous Huxley and Erich Fromm claimed that the city is an artificial and abstract reality, forcing anonymity and resembling a termite mound unnatural for us. They believed that we, as humans, are more like wandering wolves than organized ants.

I walked through the city, wondering which animals we are closer to.

I held a magnifying glass to the face of one passerby.

“Do you kill for profit?” I asked.

“Only for fun,” he replied.

That didn’t fit a wolf. I moved on.

“Are you an ant?” I asked a leaflet distributor.

“I am very hardworking and have always served my queen. But if I agreed, I would fall into contradiction, since ants do not speak human language. It would be just like saying: ‘I cannot say a sentence in Polish.’”

The leaflet distributor struck me as unbearably pretentious. I looked for someone else.

“Are you a wolf?” I asked a hooded man at a bus stop, pointing at a bone lying beside him.

“I am.”

“Then eat it!” I kicked the bone toward him.

The guy actually picked it up and began gnawing on it. When I pulled a photo of the moon from my pocket, he started howling terribly.

“Don’t pretend,” I snapped, irritated.

I returned home tired of these pretenses. The relationship between the city and humanity still occupies my mind. Do I realize my potential in the city? Do I fulfill my dreams here, or am I merely one of the workers in a factory of neuroses?

Vistula Boulevards, 2023, acrylic on canvas, 100 x 70 cm

I stood by the river and was not disappointed. She came. For several days I had been secretly watching her; every day at the same time she came with her dog. Only today did I dare to speak to her.

“Everything flows…” I began, in a slightly sentimental tone.

I expected a smile, maybe silence encouraging me to continue. But she only replied:

“Everything cannot flow.”

Her bizarrely realistic answer surprised me.

“But everything is in constant motion, measurable in time,” I explained with a patient, understanding smile.

“In that case, everything is measurable in time, but it does not flow.”

Her words somehow hurt me.

“But time itself flows,” I insisted.

“So is it the river that flows, or time?”

“Both!” My nerves were starting to fray.

“If anything here flows, it is only this river,” she replied. “But even it may not flow at all if what flows is time. Then we are dealing with an apparent movement that we call flowing.”

I suddenly pulled my wallet from my pocket and threw it into the river.

“Look, that wallet is flowing right now!”

“For the reasons I mentioned, I will not believe in any flowing you speak of.”

She began to leave. I grabbed her hand and said:

“Look at me. I am constantly changing in time. I was an embryo, my body grew, my mind changed, I suffered and laughed, I ran and loved. It is an endless series of changes of which I am the accumulation. Everything flows and will not stop, even when I die.”

“That is not flowing. Those are, at most, changes.”

That was too much. I ran and jumped into the water, which carried me away. Staying afloat, I shouted for her to look at me.

I only managed to hear her say with disdain:

“What motionlessness stretched out in time.”

Bar Źródełko, 2026, oil on canvas, 70 x 70 cm

I wandered through the streets, searching for those accidental encounters that make life in a big city extraordinary.

A passerby in a baseball cap approached me.

“A well‑known cliché says that accidental encounters make life in a big city extraordinary,” he said, as if reading my mind.

I had to agree with him.

“And yet, if you look closely, everything is still the same,” he noted. “Every passing tram looks like a repeat of yesterday’s tram, endlessly repeating the same routes.”

“A bit of order is necessary; without it, chaos would reign,” I replied. “But the magic of the city lies precisely in the fact that within these repeating patterns, certain deviations occur.”

The stranger laughed.

“There are no deviations. If you mean people and not trams, notice that only the figures change. The diversity of behaviors, thoughts, or statements is an illusion. You simply fall for this ancient deception.”

I thought, bewildered, that I was talking to a 20th‑century Parmenides. Just what I needed—to be told that everything is one, or that the road up and the road down are the same. Anger grew within me. I was preparing a clever retort, but he continued:

“You cannot see anything that is not you. You bring into reality only what you already know; and reality is you, because how could it be anything else?”

I still couldn’t find a good retort, which only intensified my fury. I noticed he was about to speak again. I felt I simply had to punch him in the face. I stepped closer and hit him so hard his cap fell off. Then I realized the bastard was right: it was my own face.

Tam Tam Restaurant, corner of Foksal and Gałczyński Streets, 2021, acrylic on canvas, 100 x 70 cm

One summer, in the Year of Our Lord two thousand and twenty‑four, the city was struck by a terrible curiosum, something I had once read about in the “Kuryer Czerwony” or “Tygodnik Ilustrowany”.

It all began with a certain lady in a slim dress with a bello jabot, who suddenly lost control of one of her limbs at the market. The limb twitched convulsively, as if it were a completely autonomous organism; soon the movement spread to her entire body. What’s more, others began joining the poor woman. New passersby, in a strange transium, threw their arms up, jumped, clapped, drooled, stuck out their tongues, though no music was playing. A dangerous epidemic swept through the crowd, which danced day and night without rest. The possessed fainted, then woke up and continued dancing.

Doctors declared that these people needed bloodletting or leeches applied to their backs. Moralizing theologians believed medicine was useless, since the illness, in their view, resulted from sin. Soon the most popular belief was that the devil had visited the city.

Scholars were almost certain that it was a violent compensation for a sedentary lifestyle and too much legume consumption. As I describe these events, I sit now in my chamber in a blue jerkin with a band over my eye, drinking two tankards of small beer from my mug; my torch is dying out and I slowly fall asleep. Deus magnus est.

Plac Zbawiciela, 2020, oil on canvas, 50 x 70 cm

Much is said about how the market destroys small family businesses and intimate service centers, but too rarely does one notice that the matter is not so black and white, and that the blame also lies on the other side.

One day I needed to make a copy of a key. I went to a small, old workshop, undoubtedly run for generations by masters of the craft.

“I’d like to make a copy of a key.”

The man behind the counter replied:

“You see, I don’t make keys if I don’t know what they are for and what their purpose is.”

I must admit, I liked his work ethic.

“I understand. I want to make a copy of the key to my apartment,” I explained.

The locksmith frowned, as if he didn’t understand.

“But what is your apartment?” he asked.

“A place where I live.”

The man shook his head in disbelief.

“But what does it mean to live somewhere?”

“To permanently occupy a certain place in space,” I replied, already a bit irritated.

“Permanently?” he asked with a smile, as if he had caught me in some foolishness.

“Of course, within certain time limits, defined at least by the duration of my life.”

“What does the time of your life mean?”

Here I must admit he cornered me. I no longer let myself be drawn into these games:

“You’re playing unfairly. You know perfectly well that my answer must refer to some concept of time, which can always be questioned on the grounds of modern physics or philosophy.”

“I only want you to convince me that what I do makes sense. I want to perform work that is justified and necessary. I am not a mindless mechanical robot.”

I left without saying goodbye and gave up on the key.

Studio Theatre, 2021, acrylic on canvas, 70 x 100 cm

She emerged from the crowd, then disappeared again; I almost lost her. Finally, I found myself next to her and got straight to the point.

“Would you like to get lost with me?”

She agreed, and we began getting lost.

“Let’s start with time,” she suggested. “Then we’ll deal with space.”

A sarmatian horseman flashed before my eyes; a moment later, an unidentified flying object.

“Everything is spinning before my eyes,” I said with satisfaction.

“Because we are spinning together,” she replied.

A moment later we met again, in the same place, which helped us lose our orientation even more.

The walls of the tenement houses began to fall, the streets cracked open. Curbs floated into the air, and trams descended underground. Suddenly, a beautiful memory emerged from within me. It was soft and warm; from that moment on, it always accompanied me whenever I felt like doing nothing.

Vincent, Nowy Świat, 2023, oil on canvas, 50 x 70 cm

She was beautiful, breathtaking. Her hair—thick, springy—resembled the finest bottle brushes. Her legs—strong and firm—were as long as pan handles. Her cheeks were healthy, shining like a polished soup ladle. Her eyes were like lightbulbs, ready to burn out from anger but also from passion. I had only one problem with her, one that kept me from ever fully loving her: she was a “jar girl”.

Bajka Café, Nowy Świat, 2021, acrylic on canvas, 50 x 70 cm

In the café I was still wondering whether people are wolves or ants.

An elderly woman sitting at the next table spoke to me.

“Shall I tell you a fairy tale?”

I really liked her proposal.

“Long, long ago, when people walked the streets, every step was different. It was a work of art that brought you closer to your goal. Now every step feels foreign. It makes you move backward and lose time.”

She took a sip of coffee and continued:

“Once, people respected time because it was running away. But for a long time now it has been known that time has already run away, and we stayed in place. It’s not even clear where to look for it.”

She pointed at her cup:

“Coffee used to give me energy, and now it only takes it away. Sometimes it starts to smell like it used to, but that ‘used to’ escapes with the steam rising above the cup.”

She sighed loudly and rubbed her eyes.

“Long, long ago, when I was young, I didn’t lie, and now I lie all the time. It’s very hard for me to believe anything I say. It’s a pity that this fairy tale I’m telling is no longer true, but on the other hand, all the words used in it remain somehow real.”

I looked at this fascinating old woman and was struck by how big her eyes, ears, and teeth were. She explained that she had them so she could see me better, hear me better, and eat me better.

Suddenly the waiter appeared, and she jumped up and ran away, surprisingly fast for her age.

It is thanks to such unexpected encounters that I love life in the city.

Old Town, 2020, oil on canvas, 100 x 70 cm

Our city is famous for its hospitality, although strangers should know how to behave so as not to bring the anger of the crowd upon themselves.

I have often seen lynchings of people who were not well‑oriented or simply did not respect our culture.

Much is said about the secularization of the modern world. But not here. Various spirits dwell in roofs, paving stones, and bench backs. Once they demanded sacrifices, but fortunately times have changed. Now they only expect to be remembered and noticed. Usually it is enough to honor them in your thoughts.

I remember when I moved to the capital, I behaved like a complete barbarian. Walking through the market square, I thought of nothing except that I needed to buy lightbulbs. One passerby quickly sensed my thoughts:

“You are ignoring the sphere of sacrum,” he said, displeased.

To be honest, I did sense ominous presences in the benches, asphalt, and walls of the tenements, yet I behaved as if they were dead.

My rent was raised quickly. Suddenly every neighbor started a noisy renovation. My lungs hurt terribly from the pollution. Buses never arrived when I needed them.

But when I began to think seriously about the spirits, everything changed. I am free, people like me. I don’t know why, but now they call me Black Tomek.

Muranów Cinema, 2020, acrylic on canvas, 100 x 70 cm

For several years I have been afraid to go to the cinema.

It all started with one unfortunate screening. I sat down with popcorn and pondered the concept of psychoanalytic projection—that is, in short, projecting the contents of one’s subconscious onto the external world.

I looked at the screen… and on the screen the projector displayed my thoughts and imaginings.

When I realized what was happening, I couldn’t control them. There appeared the lightbulbs I needed to buy; the digits of the PIN to my bank card; the sins of gluttony I had never confessed.

“What humiliation,” I thought. “I’d rather be naked.” Immediately the screen displayed a memory of my naked body.

I was in the cinema and not only did I watch nothing; rather, everyone watched me. So much for anonymity in a big city. Worst of all, the girl I had recently met by the river was in the audience.

Kebab Sahara, 2021, oil on canvas, 50 x 70 cm

A man sat on a bench and opened his pita. Something inside moved—according to his order, it was lamb.

The animal looked at him with tired eyes. The man wanted to say something, but nothing sensible came to mind.

It was clear he should apologize. But is “sorry” enough? If you are going to eat someone, one word is probably too little.

“Spicy sauce or mixed?”

“What’s the difference?” he had asked the vendor earlier.

“Spicy screams, mild squeaks.”

The man chose mild, but his lamb remained silent.

Cities are defined by the presence of humans and the absence of animals, but that is a convenient lie. On every street and in almost every refrigerator you will find countless remains of other species, transported and stored in secret, forming the organic foundation of urban existence.

The lamb finally broke the silence:

“In Plato’s Republic, Socrates stated that limiting the diet in the ideal polis to flour, cakes, cheese, figs, and olive oil would benefit not only health but also the peacefulness of the citizens.”

These words were wise, beautiful, and true. But the man did not understand them.

Fountain in the Saxon Garden, 2022, acrylic on canvas, 80 x 120 cm

People complain a lot about modern youth, and quite unnecessarily.

One day I drank a lot of coffee and was really talkative. Sitting in the park, I stopped a passing teenager:

“Have you ever wondered what a city park truly is? A place where we actually encounter nature? Or rather a pathetic trick by which humans deceive themselves into believing they are renewing a relationship (forever lost) with the Neolithic. In short, is a park nature or culture?”

The boy took a banana out of his backpack and began eating it. I continued:

“Symmetry and order reveal the influence of human imagination. The worst are those trimmed lawns. And yet, the more closely you look, the more you see the hidden, primordial disorder that can never be fully geometrized.”

The teenager threw the banana peel into the bushes.

“To be honest, it’s unclear how to think about all this today. I won’t pretend that being in a park means being in a forest. On the other hand, even living in a city, I must have something of a prehistoric nomad in me. You don’t have to be a hippie to know you descend from other hominids.”

The boy calmly unwrapped a piece of gum and put it in his mouth.

“It’s fascinating that the species homo can reflect so much on itself,” I noted. “But the basic problem is that the distinction between culture and nature is unconvincing. Nature is too broad: it is everything that exists, and therefore culture as well. And if so, then the city and the park are also works of nature.”

The boy took out the gum and stuck it to my forehead, saying:

“You stupid monkey.”

I was delighted by how easily he understood and how accurately he summarized my argument.

Karowa Street, 2019, oil on canvas, 100 x 70 cm

Alfred Jarry considered the bicycle a perfect extension of the human body. Accepting this view, I could never understand the anger pedestrians feel toward cyclists on sidewalks. It would be like complaining that pedestrians use their legs.

My mind unconsciously pushed this idea to its ultimate consequences. The old belief says that a human is a soul clothed in a body. But what if the bicycle is also part of the body? I don’t know when exactly I realized I was talking to bicycles.

“Good morning.”

“Good morning,” replied a road bike with a slender silver‑steel frame.

“Do you believe in God?” I asked.

“I don’t believe—I know He exists,” it replied. “Desire proves the existence of water. Likewise, the desire for God proves His existence.”

“Freud thought that’s wishful thinking,” I countered. “We create God in our minds when we need Him—when we’re sad, lonely, or afraid of death.”

“Perhaps,” said the bicycle. “But even if that were true, I don’t see how it would be an argument for atheism. God could have instilled in the human mind that when one is sad, it naturally turns toward the Creator.”

I was delighted by the clarity of its reasoning. I mounted the bike, and as I gained speed, I felt as if my spirit were rising—or rather approaching its true homeland.

Wrzenie Świata, 2020, acrylic on canvas, 30 x 24 cm

Sitting in a café has many advantages. It’s not only about observing other people or animals. It’s also a reflection on the origins of life. A common mistake is thinking that a café encourages only sociological contemplation. A baguette, for me, is a reflection on the mystery of the beginnings of agriculture and settled life. Coffee is a pretext to consider the cultural influence of the Arabs or the enslavement of the Slavs. Does no one remember that the English word slave is related to the word “Slavs”? What’s fascinating about thinking is that no matter where you start, you always end up in the same place.

Sometimes I get coffee so black that it absorbs time and space. When you add a little milk, it spits out the past and various possibilities. But I always drink it black, because sometimes it puts me in euphoria when everything disappears.

Gate of the University of Warsaw, 2022, acrylic on canvas, 40 x 30 cm

By nature I avoid all contact with strangers. I accept my family and a few friends I met in childhood. Starting a dialogue with someone outside this narrow circle is, for me, merely a stimulus to indulge in a certain passion I admit to with shame—malicious snobbery.

Today I passed a woman on the street and said “good morning” to her. She replied the same and walked on, completely unaware of what had happened.

My “good morning” was not an ordinary “good morning” that anyone can say, but a conscious reference to the classics of European literature.

By saying “good morning,” I referred to the famous dialogue between Bilbo and Gandalf from the opening pages of The Lord of the Rings. As some may recall, Gandalf wondered what Bilbo meant when he said “good morning” (was he wishing him a good day? stating that the day was good regardless of what he thought? feeling good himself? or perhaps suggesting that one should be good on this day?).

In any case, I was not greeting that woman—I was quoting Bilbo Baggins aloud, which of course she did not notice at all. Unaware of anything, she went her way.

My remarks to strangers are usually filled with such intertextual references, but one must be exceptionally well‑read to understand them.

Church of the Visitation Sisters, 2022, acrylic on canvas, 40 x 90 cm

Once, a certain religious reformer walked naked through the Old Town; he was caught and written up by a police officer.

The reformer explained that he had built his heresy because of tourists. Tourists, after all, pose an old moral problem. On the one hand, they provoke us to test the virtue of hospitality; on the other, they awaken the worst instincts in people. Not only because they make noise or drink excessively. Not even because they threaten our marriages. The worst thing is that they show no respect for holy places. The theologian did not mean that they enter our temples with shoes on. No—he believed that the entire world is a sacred sanctuary. And if so, one should walk barefoot everywhere. But why limit it to feet? It is absurd that only a bare foot should be a sign of respect. The whole body should be naked. That is how one worships the Lord, how one sets an example for tourists, but also for residents.

His words convinced and converted the police officer.

This story clearly proves that our city is permeated with a spirit of tolerance, and that it is worth talking and caring about good argumentation, even when it seems controversial.

Hotel Bristol, 2023, oil on canvas, 100 x 70 cm

One of the charms of city life is that you never know when you will meet a famous figure.

One early morning I couldn’t sleep and went outside. And whom did I see walking through the streets with a melancholic step?

King Stanisław August Poniatowski.

“Praised be Jesus Christ,” I said.

“God bless,” replied the monarch.

I told him about my trouble sleeping. He explained that he himself sleeps well; he gets up early only to walk through the city before people appear.

“I thought the king was dead,” I admitted.

“Power and history have granted me immortality,” he declared.

I learned that he lives in the Royal Łazienki Park, though he rarely goes farther.

I asked him many things: what life in the city used to be like, how he judged his reign, what he thought of changes in the modern world. But he did not understand these questions—he lived beyond time, like a memory.

Food Trucks, 2023, acrylic on canvas, 70 x 50 cm

One day a mutt was walking through the city.

“Hello, doggy,” I said. “I’ve heard you’re man’s greatest friend.”

“Greetings, friend. That’s true. Nevertheless, racism prevails in your world.”

I was surprised and asked for an explanation.

“Racism is a sad doctrine without scientific basis,” he began. “Every race has its ups and downs, sometimes on top, sometimes underneath. The superficial differences visible to the eye result only from adaptation to one’s environment. For example, your skin color is merely the result of living in a temperate zone, where the lack of sunlight was compensated by lightening, that is, reducing pigment, which also protects against rickets.”

I slowly began to understand where the dog’s reasoning was heading.

“You value ‘purebred’ dogs; the mutt, however, functions as an inferior being. This turns the theory of evolution upside down. Every mutt is not only a unique miracle of nature, but progress. Every mutt is like Keanu Reeves, with his Chinese‑Hawaiian‑European heritage. It is no coincidence that in mixed martial arts Americans and Brazilians dominate—nations of mutants. Mutts are mutants. Dogs of the future. If not for the stubborn clinging to breeds, God only knows what forms of canines would already be living in this city.”

Again I felt ashamed of belonging to the human species.

“Do not be sad, brother,” said the mutt. “I see repentance in you, and I see no guilt.”

He patted me behind the ears, and my mood immediately improved.

Lake Czerniakowskie, 2025, acrylic on canvas, 60 x 80 cm]

I went to the beach. Once there, the river terrified me. Humans are not made for swimming. Swimming is a controlled struggle for air, essentially constant existence on the threshold of death, something everyone has grown accustomed to. It is an example of how an ingrained custom can obscure reality.

Once, an interesting scientific experiment was conducted. Descendants of “exotic” peoples whose customs had once astonished Western visitors were educated in the style of our anthropologists. This time, they visited Europe to point out what seemed to them the strangest, most “exotic” custom.

They listed walking dogs on leashes and sunbathing.

It is amusing how everything we do can be considered a custom, an artificial construct covering the essence of things. Swimming and sunbathing are customs, but so are writing and reflecting on customs. There is no way out of this vicious circle. One cannot break through to natural, unchanging reality using culturally shaped, variable words.

This claustrophobic reflection intensified my anxiety. I thought I needed a massage.

Boxing Gala in Front of the Palace, 2026, acrylic on canvas, 80 x 120 cm

What distinguishes contemporary Western culture from earlier stages of its development is a clear and explicit awareness of human health.

Today, health has been elevated to the rank of a virtue. After centuries of contempt and disgust for the body, of ignorance regarding its needs, we suddenly live in an era of yoga, physiotherapy, and massage.

Unfortunately, sometimes it turns out that mentally we still remain in a bygone era. Let’s not be afraid to say it plainly: we are a post‑communist country.

Today I bitterly realized this when I went to a massage studio.

“A massage, please,” I said.

The man behind the counter looked at me suspiciously.

“And why a massage?” he asked.

“Because I’m sore.”

“Sore?” he repeated, surprised.

A line had formed behind me. I heard various voices.

“Sore…” someone repeated mockingly.

“And who isn’t sore, my good man,” said someone else.

“If I weren’t sore, I wouldn’t come here.”

“If I weren’t sore, I wouldn’t exist at all,” someone added.

“And why should he get a massage and not me?”

The man behind the counter pulled some papers out of a drawer.

“You must write an application for a massage.”

I stepped aside, filled out the document, and returned.

“Too late,” he said.

“What do you mean?” I asked, surprised.

“It’s too late because you were late.”

“But I need a massage.”

“Someone else is already being massaged, someone who also needs it.”

I looked through the slightly open door. I saw a man being methodically caressed by a pair of professional hands (call me crazy, but I could swear the man being massaged was King Stanisław August).

Much time must pass before we truly catch up with the West.

Protest on Krakowskie Przedmieście, 2020, acrylic on canvas, 50 x 70 cm

More marches and protests in the city.

“My statement may seem controversial,” said one politician from the podium. “Perhaps the words I am formulating here will offend someone, especially since I do so without emotion and with full awareness of the possible consequences. We all have certain expectations regarding what should be said and what should not; what has meaning and what does not. However, I believe that we do not always have to submit to these expectations, which is why I allowed myself to make this statement!”

The crowd began to applaud; some screamed in ecstasy.

But from the other side of the street, his political opponent could already be heard:

“Sentences are built from words. They possess a certain grammatical structure. I would like to promise my voters here and now that I will never utter anything that is not built from letters and words, that does not connect into specific chains of meaning that can be heard or read!”

Again, huge applause, euphoria.

I did not take either side of the dispute: for some time now I have been distancing myself from politics; it’s not for my head.

Regeneracja Café-Bar, Puławska Street, 2024, acrylic on canvas, 50 x 70 cm

What I like about life in the capital is the presence of intellectuals. In all those cafés for writers, professors, or students, I feel like a fish in water.

There are certain places where the concentration of intellect is so strong that it intoxicates me. On Friday I went to one of the popular bookstore‑cafés.

What a party it was…

We started gently enough—with Hölderlin’s poetry and Lichtenberg’s aphorisms. But suddenly someone said they were in the mood for phenomenology and brought the first volume of Edmund Husserl’s *Logical Investigations*.

At that point I was already half‑conscious.

Not long after, some madman pulled Roland Barthes’ A Lover’s Discourse from the shelf.

“Won’t you read with me?” he asked.

My head was spinning, but I read, because in such matters I have never been assertive.

I wanted to go home, but in the corridor—through which I couldn’t squeeze—people were reading works critical of structuralism. Someone shoved Umberto Eco’s A Theory of Semiotics into my hands.

I was really feeling sick. I had eaten very little that day.

Someone tried to help me by reading some columns from “Le Monde” into my ear. But that didn’t help at all.

Soon I fell asleep on the floor.

I woke up in a completely post‑apocalyptic reality. Torn dust jackets. Broken glasses. Books left on tables and chairs.

I noticed that only a group of the most hardcore partygoers were still awake. Half‑conscious but stubborn, treating sleep as failure.

I approached to see what they were doing.

They were reading Stanisław August’s Memoirs backwards through the lens of Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalysis.

General Charles de Gaulle Roundabout, 2024, oil on canvas, 80 x 100 cm

In the darkest and quietest night, among empty streets, there he is: the man who delivers food on a bicycle or scooter, carrying it in a thermal backpack.

He is a silent witness, a secret presence. You may suddenly wake up from the worst nightmare or suffer from insomnia, which triggers the obsessive thought that only you are awake. But then you remember that somewhere out there he and his bicycle also exist: this thought brings a certain comfort. He is the only shadow that does not inspire fear.

Some mistakenly think that he professionally satisfies someone’s hunger, but in truth he is the one being fed by an endless stream of revelations.

When he hands over the warm plastic bags at the door, he does not need to look at faces. Most often they appear less real than the whispering stairwells or gateways he passes through.

Ethnographers claim that when an elder dies in some African tribe, it can be compared to a library burning down: so many stories and sacred myths perish. Perhaps our man with the thermal backpack is not a storyteller; perhaps the truths he has learned are entirely untransmittable. But one thing is certain: like no one else, he has come to know the hidden order of the city.

Cafe Carma, Plac Zbawiciela, 2019, oil on canvas, 100 x 80 cm

Here is a great peculiarity of human culture: what is unique and rare is valuable; something becomes valuable simply because it is rare. A fossilized snail shell or an old coin, the most miserable remnant of medieval architecture, for example a fragment of a barn—these are great monuments. Moreover, everything rare begins to appear as if it possesses a soul. Nothing is more stimulating than a shabby old tenement house. But a city composed only of such buildings becomes what is called a backwater.

The same is true of customs. Once ordinary and everyday, today they form a gateway to a forgotten land of memories and dreams.

I just saw a man rushing out of a bakery, practically sprinting, jumping down the steps to grab something he had left on the windowsill before entering: it was a still‑smoldering cigarette.

The sight filled me with extraordinary vitality. Who could tolerate the old collective smoking at the table? And yet now, before my eyes, flashed the faces of uncles who are no longer in this world. What secret beauty radiated from them.

For the rest of the day I listened to music on a Walkman; everything seemed endowed with a soul.

Między Nami, Bracka Street, 2024, acrylic on canvas, 50 x 70 cm

Yesterday in a restaurant I saw a man making a phone call. He sounded intelligent and outraged. Because of the noise I couldn’t understand exactly what it was about. I only caught phrases like “a scandalous chain of mistakes,” “three hours,” “I demand an apology.”

Today I saw him again. He was sitting and eating pasta with his phone in hand. With a tense face he was again demanding some explanation that no one was able to provide.

Resentment and the desire for apologies are fascinating traits in humans. You can offend someone, for example by bumping into them with your shoulder, but it is enough to say “sorry” and the problem is solved.

Every person is a collection of certain more or less strange needs, whose fulfillment is limited or prevented by other people and their needs.

People are obstacles to themselves.

But it’s not even about real, physical people. Even when absent, they irritate and frustrate us in our thoughts. Every hermit battles anthropomorphic phantoms. We delude ourselves into thinking we are a single, coherent personality, when in fact a good dozen of them live within us, all competing with one another. Much is said today about overcrowded cities, but this is a much older problem: the archetypal, ancient model of a noisy city is the human mind.

Efes Kebab, Francuska Street, 2024, oil on canvas, 70 x 50 cm

This is an old and overused motif in literature, especially French literature: to stroll through the city, preferably to pick up the trail of some mysterious woman, a guide who will lead you into the realm of the unconscious. Philippe Soupault in Last Nights of Paris practically recommends stalking: following an unknown beauty in order to enter a dimension of extraordinary events and sensations.

Fortunately, times have changed. Today we have more interesting, less anthropocentric alternatives.

This morning I spotted and followed a pigeon.

Gray, with charming spots on its neck; its wings shimmered in shades of graphite and silver. At first it barely moved. It pecked at something, flew a few meters, then returned to the same place.

I couldn’t get over the mystery of its existence. A symbol of peace, of the soul rising to God—reduced to the role of a homeless inhabitant of urban gutters.

I wanted to ask him about so many things, but every time I managed to form a question, he only nodded approvingly. He understood everything. Like a perfect psychotherapist. Like a mother. This bird united all opposites: it was the scum of this world and at the same time a messenger of heaven. These revelations exhausted me emotionally and I returned home.

This is how one strolls through the city today, Mr. Soupault.

Powiśle Power Plant, 2021, acrylic on canvas, 24 x 30 cm

Sacred groves, caves, or streams are pure paganism. The Latin term paganus meant a villager.

Christianity was born as an urban religion. Cathedrals, Gregorian chant, or bishops have little to do with the natural world.

But now we have entered another stage. God is no longer in the city; He has become invisible.

Yet this is precisely the extraordinary theological paradox. God reveals Himself through His own absence. The more He is not there, the more we need Him, which means the more He is. Secular societies are a square circle. Look closely at this unbearable concrete jungle and car‑filled chaos, and suddenly you will remember where you come from, where you are going, and what the purpose of everything is.

Zgoda Street, 2020, oil on canvas, 70 x 70 cm

I was passing one of the streets where a building complex was under construction. I asked the workers what was being built here.

“An investment,” they replied.

“I don’t understand,” I said, puzzled.

“We are investing here,” they explained, pointing at the concrete mixer.

“Call the manager,” I said.

The manager came and confirmed that they were all investing here.

“That is a wrong and pretentious use of the word,” I said. “You demolished some old tenement house and are building some kind of gargoyle.”

“It will be a private, gated housing estate.”

“But it’s the world that needs protection from you!” I shouted.

I threw myself at the concrete mixer and chained myself to it, to protect the city from collapse with my own body. Soon some sinister figures dressed in black appeared, looking like agents of foreign powers.

“We are real estate agents,” they admitted.

They tortured me for a long time until I finally broke.

We went to a notary to sign a lease agreement—of course, an occasional one.

“Now you are investing with us.”

I somehow came to terms with it. Every month I give them almost my entire salary. But surely I’ll get something out of it. They couldn’t have tricked me, right?

Warszawa Powiśle Café-Bar, 2019, oil on canvas, 80 x 100 cm

People want to meet in the city less and less often, and I understand that. Today’s technology enables a comfortable, immaterial life; that is, after all, the greatness of the internet. You drift through it freely, avoiding the disappointment that may arise from the confrontation of two bodies. It is the realization of the Gnostics’ dream. The ancients hoped that after death bodilessness would become possible, while we enjoy it already in life.

That is why the city has become something so alien and uncomfortable. It combines stone and steel with the immaterial sphere hidden behind the screen. This leads to many awkward situations.

For example, today I suddenly began sliding my finger across the face of a postman.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Scrolling,” I replied.

The strangest thing was that he allowed it and began making sounds resembling notifications.

Sometimes, when I cannot find something at home, it is hard for me to believe that it is not enough to type its name into a search engine.

Having a body is a great waste. We must consume enormous amounts of food to maintain all these internal organs, muscles, and the skeleton, which can essentially be seen as parasites feeding on what constitutes our essence—our mental life.

I also dislike how the external world confronts me with randomness. Falling rain, sudden noise or movement, tripping over a curb. I prefer the more algorithmic, orderly reality of those bespectacled people from Silicon Valley.

I was joking.

By the Vistula, 2019, oil on canvas, 50 x 70 cm

One may wonder what a human is, what a city is, what life is.

Unfortunately, all such reflections are a regressus ad infinitum. We define a human using certain words—let us say we adopt Plato’s definition that a human is a featherless chicken. All right, but these words require further explanation using other words. What is a chicken? What is featherlessness? We must define the chicken, and the components of that definition will also demand explanation. And so on, endlessly.

This is the problem with understanding the world through language. That is why intellectuals, writers, and thinkers so often seem completely detached from reality. People expect them to say something wise about life, but if you corner them, it turns out they don’t know how to pay their bills or that they always fall asleep with the lamp on. And it is no wonder: they chose a profession that consists of playing with infinity and madness.

It is always worth remembering, however, that there are other methods. Words do not exhaust all possibilities. One can, for example, look—and through the image grasp the essence of things. That is why good painting is so valuable.

Unfortunately, to explain why this is so, I would again have to use many words, and at some point one must finally fall silent.