by Sanda Taranu Boucheron | Jan 27, 2015 | Inspiration |
I am not Charlie Or about the freedom to do vs the freedom to be I have met my dear friend Margot, amazing writer and author of the previous post “The Freedom to Offend” last week over lunch. We talked a bit about the article in progress, the events, world issues (and us, well of course). We agreed the topic would be even more interesting if open to discussion. Just for the heck of it. Well, elle est confused, je suis confused aussi. Any problem on the table – as clear as it may seem at a first glance-, put in front of another point of view becomes a riddle. Should we need the freedom to feel we are better than others, in other words to offend; the freedom to become dependant on something – like porn or marihuana for example- in order to feel free ( isn’t that called a pleonasm btw?) And the theorem can be applied to a countless number of equations. Endless ways of splitting the hair in four, as an old Romanian saying would go. I often refrain from commenting on opinions different from my own because I believe everyone has the right to feel and believe as they find fit, as long as that does not hurt anyone. And maybe because I am not sure my point is the good one given I do not always necessarily study the case from all angles. But hey, sometimes is fun to have “elevated” conversations like this one, so hop on. I felt, undoubtedly like pretty much any human being on the planet, that the attacks...
by Margot Nightingale | Jan 22, 2015 | Paris |
SHOCK I’ve been here before. I know this interruption to the morning routine, this onslaught of news and information blaring from the television and radio like jagged spears. I’ve heard the siren song rushing across town. I’ve choked on smoke and ash, tasted the detritus of aftermath. The crushing pain and loss of innocence under a burning blue sky. On a grey day in Paris, years later, a red sea of fury is released. An amalgam of red and grey and black flames. Violence and chaos being the last refuge of a tired mind. Murder, confusion, protest. Tout est pardonné. One who knows his devil knows his God Do they? Do we? Je suis confused. I’ve had a few heated conversations with close friends since the attacks in Paris on Charlie Hebdo. We are all pained for the senseless loss. We feel untethered. But deeper into the conversation, differences emerge. Freedom, it turns out, is an incendiary concept. I’m not confused about what feels right in the nettle of my bones and I express it in company. Over dinner, at coffee, in the street.. everybody is expressing their expectations and boundaries of freedom. I feel as though I’m wrestling no grey matter about liberty and freedom of expression. But I must be, on some abstract level. The only way to set our eyes apart from propaganda, blasphemy, or provocative editorial is to possess enough education to know the difference between dogma and intellectual resistance. Those who wish to be offended, will take offense. Then they will take prisoners and the spiral begins. Of course this is the crux of the problem. Education. From Malala...
by Rebecca Earley | Jan 19, 2015 | Paris |
Note: I refrained from posting this in light of the recent Anti-Charlie events and the violence surrounding them. I had written this post before they occurred. In the end, I decided to still post it. I’ll let you, the reader, decide if you agree with my decision or not. You know how you will always remember where you were on September 11th? Well, now I will also remember, very vividly, my 29th birthday. It was near lunch time on January 7th, when I received a BBC notice on my phone saying that two people were shot at the Charlie Hebdo magazine office in Paris. I looked up and asked my French co-workers, “What is Charlie Hebdo?” They looked at me and answered quietly, “a French satirical magazine that is often targeted by terrorists.” I quickly searched for the Charlie Hebdo website to see where the office was located, but the site would not load, making me wonder how quickly the shooting news was traveling. It finally refreshed for a second and I saw a glimpse of the area code “75011,” which is near where my boyfriend and friends’ office is. I frantically kept refreshing the page until finally I was reassured that the office was far enough away from anyone that I knew and started packing up my things to head to lunch. At lunch my co-workers and I were all laughing and keeping the mood light discussing birthday and new year plans. I grabbed my phone to show them a photo, when I saw the latest BBC news update: 12 dead at the Charlie Hebdo attack. By the...
by Julia Willard | Jan 16, 2015 | Inspiration |
Happy New Year! The year 2014 was an exciting year for the authors of My Paris Story, the book, both as a group as well as individually. Many of us had huge successes that we have discussed on our own websites and blogs. I encourage you to look at our Author Page and check them out. ~~~~~~~ January is always a time to reflect and look closely at what has been achieved in the previous year, as well as to look forward to what we would like to bring into our lives in the coming year. We know that many of our readers have a special connection with Paris – whether you wish to move to Paris at some point or you just love to live vicariously through those of us who live here already. Our book is a testament to how that can become anyone’s reality – even for those who have never foresaw a move here. So what do you wish to create in 2015? A newfound zest for life? Greater confidence in yourself? More opportunities for discovering new things about yourself? A deeper spiritual practice? These are all noble goals and I’m guessing at least one of them is close to a goal you already had in mind for 2015. But what if we really zeroed in on what you might be seeking through these or any other number of goals… What if we just said, ‘screw it, let’s just surrender’? You see, nowhere in My Paris Story do you find a story of one of us fighting to get to Paris. We all just let go, some earlier in the process...
by My Paris Story | Jan 12, 2015 | Paris |
