Photographie de Terri Weifenbach en collaboration avec Diptyque

Etan & me de Viviane Sassen

L’Art de la Joie, Essai sur la Sagesse de Nicolas Go.

This last Sunday, while walking past a “I am Charlie” poster. My daughter said: “ So I understand everything that went down, the historical importance and all, but… I would like us to get back to a world in color” (naaaaahhhhhh….. Yeessssss).

I attempted to answer her about the mourning time, personal to each, the necessity for some to continue to claim for us all so that we won’t forget.  There is for my part, this emotional ebb and flow that won’t really leave me and at the same time, I understand this need for rebirth, to not loose sight, to not forget life “in colors.”  I get it … I even aspire to it.

Furthermore, notice to parents, I have learned since then that we have to keep kids out of this dialogue, because they tend to fully relive the current pain, while for us it’s a little bit different, isnt’ it?

Since the terrorist attacks, I think greatly about this magnificent book on The Art of Joy.  I have meant to talk to you about it for a while.  Because I have read and reread it for a long time, stick post-it notes all over it, then forget it and reread it… I wouldn’t pretend to redevelop for you the entire thought process of Nicolas Go, the author, but they always stay with me like a watermark, and more presently for a few weeks now, because his theory is that joy is a sort of resistance when facing horror:  it’s violent already, It’s tough already, so if I loose joy I loose twice.

Moreover, he distinguishes in a very interesting manner the joy of happiness.  Happiness to him is a suspension, a parenthesis that obliges us to forget violence:  how can we be happy while knowing about all the violence that surrounds us?  Impossible. Our time of happiness is always counted and finds itself tightly connected to our ability to detach, necessarily ephemeral, while facing the world brutality.  Joy is always within us.  Always there for those who want to believe, sometimes, it’s just necessary to find the way again (like memory).  And when facing a sometimes hopeless world, we only have joy or laughter to fight back.  But if we have that, we have that at least.

Ok Tâm, we aren’t going to slip into a black and white world.  We are aware of what is going on, but we will continue to offer a color version.  I find this is a great program, don’t you?

Kisses… in colors then!

L’Art de la Joie, Essai sur la Sagesse de Nicolas Go.