The Fallen Leaves: A Must Read

When my heart becomes implacable, callous, and unbending by immersing in the harsh world of laws, regulations, money, banking, and finance, I try to placate it by reading Will and Ariel Durnat's works. This time I came across one of Will's greatest works, Fallen Leaves: Last Words on Life, Love, War, and God, which is the distilled wisdom of an almost centenarian who spent his life studying human behavior and civilizations. 

The style of this work reminded me of the Essays of Francis Bacon, which I read almost a decade ago, and still I feel its long lasting impact in my mind. Both of these works have at least two features in common, i.e., they are among the authors' latest works, and are meant to be a very condensed synopsis of their views about a very broad range of issues which has preoccupied the minds of self-conscious human beings since the dawn of human civilization.

The moment the entire edifice of French intellectualism shattered before my eyes

Yesterday I had a chance to visit the Café de Flore and Les Deux Magots in Paris. Prior to my visit, I was enthusiastic about seeing these two Cafés, mostly because of their fame for being a rendezvous for many French intellectuals. But having seen them from outside, I came to disdain them and even did not bother having a coffee inside. Passing by the Café de Flore, I had my eyes on its well-off clients sitting on its small chairs and mingling with their friends in their branded à la mode clothes and luxury accessories while a beggar who could hardly walk was passing by. It took quite a while for the handicapped beggar to pass by the Café. The guys sitting in the sidewalk café were looking quite apathetically at him while sipping their coffee and smoking their cigarettes. At that moment, I started soliloquizing that perhaps they are now debating about equality and fraternity as their forefathers passionately did while closing their indifferent eyes to the miserable beggars and passersby of the nineteenth and twentieth century Paris.