Paris in Springtime

Beauty everywhere.

There is something special about this city. People have said this for decades of course, but it still holds true. There is something about the beauty of the place, and the water that runs through it. The beauty of Paris starts with the Seine, but what continues the esthetic is the people — those who create the grand art and architecture, those who value it enough to place it above simple economics, and those who bring their own style and energy to the streets.

There are other cities where lots of people are jammed together in a small space, and it feels oppressive. In Paris, it feels like a beautiful mosaic. The young children in a school group singing on the street, while stylish businesspeople hurry toward the Metro. The older folks and tourists sitting in a streetside cafe watching the world go by, sipping the most wonderful champagne. The old woman walking with a cane and just the right scarf.

And the museums! The Louvre, the Musee d’Orsay, L’Orangerie — each its own treat to take you away from the world outside and offer you perspectives that are new and exciting. Objects that take me back hundreds of years, and others that project me into a place beyond time.

It is the simple things, isn’t it? The food, clothing, art, the parks surrounded by beautiful buildings, the giant Eiffel Tower surveying the bustling activity all around it. The greetings people give each other. The kisses exchanged without fanfare or awkwardness. It all adds up to something special — the City of Lights.

There is some philosophical glue that holds it all together. I think the way people view the world is different here.

We took a tour outside of Paris, in the wine country near Reims where they make fantastic champagnes. As we were driving through the French countryside, our tour guide casually mentioned that some of the areas we were passing had been destroyed during World War I, and other parts torn up by World War II. Yet the winemakers and their families continued to produce what they could, and there were improvements and innovations throughout those terrible times. People adapted and survived.

It occurred to me that what I was hearing was the echo of existentialism — the idea that people are seeking meaning through exercising their free will, exploring choice and personal responsibility. Existentialists don’t believe in an objective moral truth. Instead, they act in ways that depend on the circumstances they face.

The history of Paris shows amazing resilience in the face of every kind of challenge. The city was captured by Rome in 53 BCE, and has been home to uprisings, protests, and wars ever since. These events led to the existentialist ideas of Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus. Both were seeking meaning in the face of what appeared to be absurdity, and talked about the loneliness of humanity. In the United States, this was countered by Thomas Merton, who wrote:

We must all believe in love and peace. We must believe in the power of love. We must recognize that our being itself is grounded in love; that is to say, that we come into being because we are loved and we are meant to love others. The failure to believe this and to live accordingly creates instead a deep mistrust, a suspicion of others, a hatred of others, a failure to love. When a man attempts to live by and for himself alone, he becomes a little ‘island’ of hate, greed, suspicion, fear…The whole outlook on life is falsified. All his judgments are affected by that untruth. In order to recover the true perspective which is that of love and compassion, he must once again learn in simplicity, truth, and peace, that ‘No man is an island.'” (Thomas Merton, No Man is an Island)

It feels like the French have learned this. Love and beauty are valued. Maybe I just needed to be in a place that felt civilized, apart from the daily stream of selfishness and intolerance that I see on the news at home. I’m sure that exists in France too, but I don’t want to think about it. Let me have my fantasy for a few days before I return to the struggle.