Christmas Present

Marcel Proust. Can one recall a more practiced conjuror of dots connecting themselves through time’s infinite portals? When asked what he would do if the Apocalypse was, indeed, about to commence, the revered layabout replied, as only he could, wisely, because, somehow, knowingly. As once a certain ghost from Christmas Past did present a gift to the reviled M. Scrooge a gift that changed his world, M. Proust’s gift to us, also, consists of clear and genuine reflections that can change ours.

“I think that life would suddenly seem wonderful to us if we were threatened to die as you say. Just think of how many projects, travels, love affairs, studies, it—our life—hides from us, made invisible by our laziness which, certain of a future, delays them incessantly.

"But let all this threaten to become impossible for ever, how beautiful it would become again! Ah! If only the cataclysm doesn’t happen this time, we won’t miss visiting the new galleries of the Louvre, throwing ourselves at the feet of Miss X, making a trip to India.

"The cataclysm doesn’t happen, we don’t do any of it, because we find ourselves back in the heart of normal life, where negligence deadens desire. And yet we shouldn’t have needed the cataclysm to love life today. It would have been enough to think that we are humans, and that death may come this evening.”