Oh Candide!....

"I have got to make everything that has happened to me good for me.” --Oscar Wilde

The eternal optimist Candide returns from lifelong strife to marry Cunégonde, and quite simply, to plant a garden. There's nothing left for him to do.

There was a point about five years ago here when I thought I should volunteer on a farm, but since I can't stomach the scent of manure, this would have been a bad idea.

This photo actually is of the Pantheon in Paris, where Voltaire is buried. You can just barely see the sphinx, and Foucault's Pendulum.

I was reminded of Voltaire while looking at photos of our trip to the Pantheon in Paris this summer. It was originally built as a church to honor the patron saint Genevieve, but was later rededicated as the temple of France, and as a resting place for its great "men," (Marie Curie is interned there), foremost among them, Voltaire.

The Bernstein opera Candide is one of my favorite pieces of music. What a witty libretto written by Lillian Hellman, and the music Bernstein wrote to accompany it is just as witty to match. It's a real brain tickler. I've felt on many occasions, since singing it in choir at Hunter College, that it's my theme music.

With every mishap, disappointment, bad turn, I try to find some hidden jewel of wisdom. I try to think, like Candide, that if this or that unforunate thing hadn't happened to me, I wouldn't have been led to do such and such a thing, which is really what I wanted, after all. On the other hand, I am also quite pessimistic. Voltaire originally intended Candide as a parody of optimism. Every disappointment leads us to a new and surprising place. In the end, it leads us to the right place, even if we hadn't intended on going there.

I'm not sure if there's any point in this. Just passing it along to anyone who might be passing by here...