The more I’ve read around the subject and listened to lectures, the more I understand there’s a Myth of the Resistance. Sure, millions did resist the Nazis, and there are many reasons French people can stand tall and celebrate this history of Resistance. But there’s something about the June 18th anniversary which doesn’t quite work when you read Charles de Gaulle was seen as rather an oddball himself.
The words, the single units, are overpowering scents of cheese. To my ear, the sentences are most troubling. They’re occupied provincial markets. Other times, they consist of warring articles and prepositions, hooting at one another as if they’re busily competing to reach the coast.
To some degree we’re conflicted. These conflicts are awful for some, and for others, the conflict will appear indirectly but touch them nevertheless. Much as we look at strangers and observe their lives in comparison to ours’, and imagine how seemingly straightforward are their lives, the reality is that no one has it easy in life.
This last week, I regulated use of social media just a little bit. I felt I had time to catch my breath. I also sat with my emotions even when they were that bit harder to confront. No topless men to waste minutes ogling on Instagram; no tweets to foam and fulminate at.
Every now and again, my beasts will return – depressive intrusions, self-doubt, guilt and all that crap. Until then, I’m going to lose myself in Matisse’s landscapes.
Anger for anger’s sake is ridiculous but anger that seeks to tear down age-old institutions which oppress, or which gives legitimate expression to oppressed people’s wants and needs, is no bad thing.