Letter from My Garden 17

I have the discerning eye of an octogenarian, a man with a memory brimming with experience, having reached the end of a long and arduous journey. This leads me to present myself with smooth hands, the hands of a bourgeois, refined just enough to project a certain culture, sometimes to the point of being irritating.

In fact, I have lived my life firsthand, learning to live in the Foreign Legion in a way quite different from that refined bourgeois I mentioned. I learned there that our society either shelters itself from men or accommodates itself to them. For me, adapting to life as a legionnaire became familiar, silent when necessary, capable of both nonchalance and gravity.

I possessed within me a sense of entitlement, fueled by the satisfaction of being right and the joy of self-esteem—powerful forces that allowed me to stand tall (Momo erectus), as some of my friends would say. All these things are commonplace, yet they cannot be ignored, preventing a man from becoming one of those foaming dogs, products of a society adrift. I remember that, to give myself a sense of grandeur, in my early childhood, I would climb to the highest dunes overlooking the sea, still bathed in light, above those human ants I contemplated from my lofty perch.

Each time, with the help of my imagination, I cast a message in a bottle into the sea, an ocean of archives, to disabuse future generations and explain to them in writing that, during the period when I was given the privilege of fully experiencing my youth, it was not merely a stage of existence, but a supreme value. In that post-World War II era, it was difficult to escape the need to celebrate. Everything was a celebration.

As a famous author wrote: “Nothing could be glorified, affirmed, or even appear except through the pomp of the festival: ‘Festive Homo Erectus’ reigned over day and night, over weekdays and Sundays, in short, everywhere, the sole purpose of a life devoid of interest.” The thrill of the forbidden ensured a comfortable prohibition against forbidding, the indelible marks of which a false revolution was bound to leave…

I only discovered the “May ’68” movement very late; during that time, I was in Madagascar and had no interest in horoscopes or the news. I lived my future in the present, to the fullest, and… there too, I thought only of celebrating…

My dear friend, I’m rambling, of course; it does me the greatest good to say whatever comes to mind. It's also true that your statement, where you unabashedly proclaim an indecent satisfaction with an exemplary life, inspires a thousand and one things in me...

Writing before the advent of texting was a courteous calligraphic activity, imbued with a certain delicacy born of heartfelt elegance. Today, bookstores and high school libraries display a list of readers' rights: "the right not to read, the right to skip pages, the right not to finish a book, the right to read anywhere, the right to read aloud"—they almost forget the right to remain silent...

I also remember that solitary, curious, and mysterious old man I knew in my childhood, who would shout about the way we were changing the word "Sir."

In his day, he said, being polite meant acknowledging one's obligation; today, it's not about asserting oneself but diminishing oneself, it's about bowing down. And he added, in conclusion—a conclusion that would also be the hallmark of these irreverent writings: "There's much more to all this than a simple human and social comedy, my good sir!" Even in the Legion, it's no longer enough to simply be a legionnaire; one must be a "Mr. Legionnaire"!

Above all, don't see any message in this short missive; there isn't one, and my only aim is to maintain a friendly connection with you, even if it means talking about anything and everything, about whatever, just to share a part of the journey with you on the path of friendship.

How could it be otherwise, given what is happening in the world and in Europe in particular, than to choose to talk about everything and nothing, without any guiding thread? Blessed is he who can find his way in this confusion where incoherence, intolerance, hatred, and incomprehension reign.

Unfortunately, this is not my case. Too many things are hidden to allow for serious and coherent discussion, so I refrain from any unnecessary comment since it is impossible for me to impose my values, which cannot be defended in a country that is taking a turn every day that resembles a civilizational shift, where hermit crabs will take the place of the natives who already demonstrated a deplorable collaboration in the not-so-distant past…

Best regards.