Saturday may in fact have been the most hilarious and chaotic day of my entire life.
We didn't have a trip, so Hannah, Ellie, and I decided we were gonna go check out this super cool town area called Moret-sur-Loing. I didn't set my alarm properly, but I still got to the train station at 8:30 am as planned. The inactions of a certain person (wink) resulting in a postponed departure time of 10:30 am. No harm, no foul. I just hung out for a while and all was well.
We boarded the train and went a ways into the countryside. When we got off, we were met with a flood of people trying to get to Fontainebleu, a beautiful park on the way to our destination. There were so many people just crowding buses and we were lucky to get on one of them. We drove off into the woods. At one of the stops, someone asked if the bus was headed to Paris, which was odd, because there is no bus headed to Paris. Little did we know we would be thinking the same question later.
The day passed normally. It was fun and the place was so cool. We ate lunch on the river; the people were polite and friendly, which was nice. We were joking around and having a grand old time together, and we turned the subject to movies. We were half-deciding what movie to watch tonight (spoylare alaerte: doesn't end up happening) when an upside-down duck reminded me of the life preservers in Titanic. I suggested it and was met with an obstinate "No." from Hannah. Again, much laughter and jokes ensued. However, as we were walking to our fated bus stop, I said, verbatim, "Alright, if the next store on this street we see says Jack, it's a sign we are watching Titanic." I thought for a moment. "And all French variations count too, so Jacques… doesn't matter, they all count." Thirteen steps later? A sign that said Jacques. Literally, Rue de Jacques. I couldn't believe it. We died of laughter.
After a brief pause for a sweet indulgence of sugar, we continued down the road. We waited a bus stop. I wanted to listen to "All I Want For Christmas is You," but I had to be careful, lest any French person witnessed such a scene. I partied with an abundance of caution and pressed pause at all the critical moments. A bus went by in the wrong direction. We reasoned that it would soon be turning around and take us in the right direction. We waited many more minutes. A bus goes flying past on the other side of the road. The saddest small voice comes up from Hannah: "That… that was our bus. That was our bus!" It sped away like an F1 car. I think they made the same sound. We walked up the street to find a larger bus terminal and got on the next one. We were pretty sure he said the name of the place we were trying to get to for our train, but we kept a providential eye on Google Maps to see where we were headed. In the middle of the woods, we stopped and picked up a random man. Then we didn't move for about ten minutes. We were very confused. Mr. Bus Driver wouldn't pick us up at the stop but would pick up a random man on the side of the road? Rude.
After scraping his mirror on a tunnel, Driver Guy finally gets to our stop. This place made the hurricane of boarding the buses look like a spring sprinkle. There were so many people and we just jumped in the crowd as it surged towards the train to Paris. We had to stand in a very close circle of three, and held pinkies for stability. We also imagined what it would look like if we were just zooming through space as if on a train, but you couldn't see the train. Just us floating through the air at a couple hundred miles an hour. Hilarious.
We were starved by the time we got back to the big city, so we found somewhere to eat in the pouring rain. We were comically stuck waiting for someone to come out of a public bathroom. After that incident, we wanted to find somewhere to hang out that wasn't in the rain. We landed on some board game café only a few minutes away. We set sail.
It was a cute little place that cost 7 euros for a game and something to drink. The girl working there was very sweet and made sure we were comfortable. This seems like an appropriate time to say they only take cash. Instead, she waited until after I had finished wiping the floor with Hannah and Ellie's tears from masterful losses in Ticket to Ride to say they only took money in the paper form. She told us there were two ATMs around the corner. I left my jackets as collateral and headed out into the cold to find these stupid ATMs. We found them. Neither of them worked. We found another one a short walk away, which did work. As we were headed back, we saw a group of other young adults trying to use the ATMs we used before. "Hmm," I thought. "Someone should tell them they don't work and to use those ones. But I don't speak French, and they are across the street…" I reasoned with myself. They were kind of staring at me at this point. Like an absolutely crazy insane stupid idiot person, I decided the best course of action was to hold up the money I had gotten like a proud child and gesture in the direction of the ATMs with my head. Genuinely the dumbest idea I have ever had. They all just looked at me puzzled, which made sense, since it was freezing and I was doing jumping jacks and such in short sleeves just before and probably looked drunk and high at the same time. Embarrassed, I stomped my way back to game café. Guess who walks in as I'm paying? The kids. Turns out they had accounts with those ATMs and knew this place only took cash. I literally hid my face on the way out. Then, to top it all off, I had to make my way through the 7 Levels of Hell at Les Halles, aka Pandemonium, aka the worst metro stop of all metro stops.
Much of the rest of the week was just fine, I had me some class and such.
Yesterday, we headed to Switzerland. Geneva is a weird city. It has a very unique vibe that has a very slight, ever present danger level, yet it also feels kinda like what I imagine Norway to feel like. I memorized a whole route to Starbucks in 30 seconds and then got totally lost on the way back. Geneva is super expensive, by the way. Horrendous. If you are a broke college student trying to save money, don't come here.
You know what hits you like a truck full of bricks on the freeway? 60 euro fees for out-of-country phone issues. I got to Switzerland and within minutes was informed that I'd used 60 euros worth of internet, yet somehow none of my included 30 GB of included data. Did I mention it was included?
It is raining, and I think it will continue to do so.
I read The Crucible a few days ago. The book felt eerily familiar, like I'd lived in their world at some point. I realized that I had. Although we don't burn people at the stake or sentence them to death, how often do we make up their crimes and hang them in our own minds? How often are we begging for our lives in someone else's impossible mental landscape, only to realize such pleadings are fruitless and that they will think what they want? The physical extremes of the play are not pervasive in day-to-day life, but the mental errors that led to them are. I think it is an especially potent warning for any monoculture, including the one we live in, that complete and utter unity of thought will lead to the collapse of it all.
The psychological implications of the novella were also worth noting; how far is a human being willing to go when under stress, belief, or societal pressure? When caught in a potential lie, Mary's friend betrays her completely until a better chance to wreak vengeance comes along. Since the book was written partly in response to McCarthyism during the Red Scare, it is easy to view the work through that lens. When communist witchcraft was mentioned, accusations flew and innocent people were killed. Why? For many, it was the genuine desire to free themselves from the devil they had come to believe was so close to overtaking them. In a culture where overall belief incriminates one type of person and one way of thinking completely overrules the rest, only one person has to raise the accuser's finger and suddenly the seesaw never comes down again. Right-wing? Liberal? Christian? Mormon? Gay? Atheist? Group rejection is always there, it's just a question of where your flavor isn't favored.
To lessen this effect, evening the percentages is often a good way to make things a little better for those who can't. This isn't always practical, and sometimes may be impossible. In these cases, each member of society gains some more responsibility to walk outside their own shoes. You may have to temporarily abandon what you believe or know in order to help another. Having grown up in the LDS Church, this is one that is often ignored in that context. Imagine meeting an atheist (trust me on this one). Instead of saying something like "I'll pray for you," or thinking, "I hope they feel God's love for them," you have a much larger and more difficult responsibility. They don't think like you, so your beliefs have absolutely no stance in their life. You have to switch gears. You must suspend your beliefs for the moment. It doesn't mean you've abandoned them. You are giving them a brief hiatus while you become something for someone else. There are 90 long years of life to believe whatever you want as strong as you want. But you only get a few moments to show up for other people. Helping an atheist may be hard if you're only used to one way of thinking. You must be them for a moment. Think of how much more personal your help might feel to them if you imagined, for a second, that there were no God and acted with that assumption.
The same is true in the other direction. If you are an atheist working to help a Christian. How much more personally affected would they feel if you learned something about them and acted as though you shared their beliefs? I daresay you'd help make people into the best versions of themselves. There is a time for standing up for your own beliefs, but being sensitive to the needs of others isn't always one of them. This is true of just about all interactions with other people. If you can shift your thinking to theirs when you need to, it will help the two of you immensely in getting along. I have had to practice that a lot this trip. Ask me later if you want details.
I've also been thinking a lot about generosity these last couple weeks, and my thoughts dance on three stages: first, generosity between strangers; second, between acquaintances; third, friends and loved ones.
I've had practice with strangers recently. Baguettes are super cheap here. I like to give them out when I can. For the longest time I had a hard time giving money to the homeless people. As a kid, I thought things like, "oh, they'll probably just spend it on cigarettes, which is about the worst thing a person could do". Jokes aside, my thoughts hadn't really changed leading up to the last year or so of my life, and I wasn't happy about it. Eventually I realized that I was in no position to judge. So what if they spend it on something I don't approve of? I'll let them make that choice. That is a dumb excuse: not to give because I assumed their choice would be unworthy of my money. I'm still not perfect, but I'm working on it, and the bread does wonders. I've never once seen someone upset at my offering. Pure gratitude is all I've ever seen in the eyes of a dusty face. It also makes me feel a little more grateful for the fact that I can afford to buy the bread that I give away and have money leftover for myself. Parenting tip: let your kids see you do that stuff. My mom did.
Second: generosity with acquaintances. This one is more an exercise in humility than anything else. One must be humble and let other people win. I can think of no other way to make other people think you're an insufferable prick than to never let anyone else have a good idea, or be the expert on something, or be cool in their own way. I know it's 2025, but you don't have to have a take on everything. You really can keep it to yourself. This one also has to do with patience. Even when people are driving you crazy, you still have some requirement that you respect them. I did not say agree with. I definitely did not say like. You do have to respect them, and not in a passive way either. I hate when people say, "oh, I respect your opinion," whilst they try to prove you wrong. That phrase should mean that you are moving on and are finding something else to talk about, because you realize that you disagree and aren't going to get anywhere if you just keep fighting.
Third: friends and loved ones. I hate to say it, but I have you right where I want you, strange email reader. I've been building up a plan the whole time. See, the thing is, all of these levels are actually the same skills, they just depend on which caliber of intensity is required. You must be kind and forgiving with your friends, or they won't be your friends for very long. You must be patient and slow to react with those you care about in order to foster a beneficial relationship for the both of you. Ideally, you've selected people with which those behaviors feel natural and unintentional.
Ugh, love. Screw it. I'm gonna talk about it anyway.
Love is much harder than all of the others. It requires immense patience, incredible listening, even more careful speaking, and sensitivity that isn't like any other type of relationship (disclaimer: I am not love specialist, these just feel like accurate things to say, so I will say them. Throw up as you wish.). There must be a certain threshold of equality between people. It is often said that "they are my better half", which I think is taken incorrectly most of the time. It doesn't mean that you complete each other and can do things for each other that the other can't. It means that when you combine the both of you, there is some marked difference that no matter how much work, time, or effort was put in, the result would always result in less that if you'd been separated. Whether that is meaning in life, doing chores, having fun, or being sad, the combination of people should make the things better in someway. If it is hard to work together, then it may not be quite right. It can be really hard to know if you can or not. I think it is good for people to see stressful situations together to get a sense for how they react, although I don't condone needless suffering.
One final thought on that: an allegory. I don't know when I came up with this, but it's been bouncing around in my head for a while so it's time to put it down.
When building a house, there are two parts: the foundation and the building. The building is what gives the building beauty and grandeur. It is the part everyone comes to see and the part everyone lives in. Most people spend almost all of their time in the building. It can be repaired, even in times of extreme damage, and it is the first line of defense against potential hazards.
The foundation is set before the house is built, and it is critical to the success of the building. A house with a good foundation can be in any condition and still be reclaimable. The windows can shatter and the timbers can break, but if the foundation stays strong, things can be fixed with time and effort. It is far easier to fix up a squalid flat with a strong base than a gorgeous manor built for brief enjoyment. Fixing the foundation is really hard, so just build it right the first time so that you don't have to worry about it. You can work up to Victorian mansion status, but don't rush to that look with taking the necessary first steps, or you may find that you can't support the towers you thought you wanted.
Interpretation pending. Be my guest.
I guess that's probably good for this week. I have spoken enough today. I couldn't send this on time because, well, Switzerland.
-William
