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Is parting really a mixture of sweetness and sorrow, as Juliet would have us believe, and if so, why?
Wisdom, and also common sense, would tend to suggest that if we actually had our most deeply desired wishes fulfilled, 24/7, they would no longer really qualify as desires, which are generally considered to be things we would like but don't have, at least not nearly as much as in our imagined 'ideal world'.
So my leaving Paris, then, streaming out of Gare de Lyon southbound, past less fortunate souls, whose Parisian 'adventure' caravans have run aground on no-man's land just outside the city lines, stirs mixed feelings.
On the one hand I'm a little sorrowful to think I won't be able to take new pictures of the capital for you, or wander around Paris until the weekend. On the other hand there's a certain sweetness in being reminded just how much I enjoy living where I do, which is easy to forget during winter train strikes, for example.
If I had a third hand it would be shaking the second, because there is also a certain delicious anticipation about looking forward to seeing or being with the object of one's desire after an absence.
Absence is what makes the heart grow fonder, they say. However, they also say that familiarity breeds contempt, which is why I'm always disappointed there isn't another fancy Shakespeare quote along the lines of 'Getting back together is such a monumental anticlimax', but there doesn't seem to be and I'll just have to live with it or invent my own I suppose.
Which brings us to the rather thorny question of what it would actually be like to lack for nothing. Ever. Forever. Owch!
I don't know about you, but that strikes me as one hell of a scary prospect, although it seems to be what millions of people are hopefully waiting or praying or blowing themselves up for on a daily, well, 'lifely', basis. No challenges, no hopes, no surprises, no desires and no feelings of accomplishment for efforts expended (and no thanks for it either). You've got it all: Eternal Boredom. Now there's a thought.
I haven't boiled myself - hah, that should be 'booked' myself, I love a spelling 'corrector' with a sense of humour - on that particular trip, so you can be reasonably certain that I won't be subjecting you to these Parisian perambulations until the end of time.
So get 'em while they're hot and I'll prepare a new batch ready for when I'm back in town. I'm getting excited about it already.
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© 2011 Sab Will / Paris Set Me Free - Contact me directly for photo tours, interviews, exhibitions, etc.
2 comments:
Never having to go without anything you want? Just look what it did to Elvis, Michael Jackson, and all those too-rich people who can buy anything, including friends and love, but still destroy themselves. IMHO, once you have nothing to want, to dream of, you have lost the reason to live because there is no point to life.
Unfortunately a lot of people don't see it that way, and spend their whole lives thinking they just have to 'get through it' for better times to come, which I think is a tragedy. But I could be guilty of presumption in saying that, because I'm not them, so that comment is only valid for me in the end, of course...
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