In the Parc Montsouris, in Paris, on a sunny Sunday of March 2025 (Gregorian Calendar).
“Creating beauty through courage, hope, and connection” … That is inspiring. And intimidating. I shall begin by exploring what my personal human experience can reveal about that.
There have been many beautiful moments in my life, and many of them required hope and courage. And connection is inherent to human life. The most beautiful human-made thing I have ever seen is the Taj Mahal. I could describe it, a fairy tale palace made real, so exquisite and perfectly proportioned that I felt as if I were directly brought to heaven. The feeling was new at the time. I will not describe it further. You have to see it by yourself and make up your own mind. Because beauty is very subjective. Maybe you will not like the Taj Mahal. Some people rave about the Pyramids or the Colosseum. I was disappointed by these monuments.
Other beautiful memories: Dawn on the East River, feeling strangely quiet after a sleepless night. Dawn alone contemplating a remote temple near Angkor Wat – feeling Indiana Jonesy. Dawn at the top of the Kilimanjaro, after 8 hours of hiking in the freezing night at the slowest pace for the lack of oxygen, alive and happy.
Dawn holds a vibrancy – the world’s reawakening, a new hope, a celebration of life. There is magic and power at this time of day. Be mindful of your thoughts at dawn.
And then there are Muriel’s eyes. Thirty-five years later, I remember them. Green. Moss green, celadon, hints of Chartreuse and amber. Clearer and brighter when she was angry or happy. A beautiful raw fire in her.
Dawn holds a vibrancy – the world’s reawakening, a new hope, a celebration of life. There is magic and power at this time of day. Be mindful of your thoughts at dawn.
And also Marine, with her back to me in her bathroom, the perfect shape of her naked body silhouetted by the lamp above the sink. I miss her.
And the Alps, heart-breakingly magnificent and kind, the voluptuous yellow dunes of the Sahara in Tenere; the red sandstone jebels of the Wadi Rum, snow sprinkled over the Himalayas at the Thorong La in Nepal, Grand Teton, Gili Trawangan, Madera, Corsica… New York, Roma, Kyoto… the rolling golden fields in Gers… This Earth is generous, and humanity managed to fashion it with grace in spite of our many flaws.
Every time, the day before leaving the comfort of my apartment in order to visit one of these far away places, I felt deeply afraid. I was courageous and packed my bag though, motivated by the hope of giving a deeper substance to my life.
I would advise starting with the Taj Mahal.
Of course I experienced beauty through the arts too. Operas, concerts, contemporary dancing, museums, etc… But experiencing that did not require much hope or courage. Even though I felt kind of shy the first time I set foot in the Opera Garnier.
And finally, there are a few beautiful things I did. Nothing as magnificent as the Taj Mahal or Orphée and Euridice by Pina Bausch but … Can acts of beauty be measured? Can human gestures?
For a few years, I worked as a psychotherapist. Franck came to me for help leaving his wife, the mother of his children. There had been no love between them for several years, and although he had tried to leave, he found himself unable to do so. Recently, he had met a young woman, Lucie, and they had fallen deeply in love. But since he was not available for a relationship, she had left him. Now, he just wanted to be free. We worked intensely over three sessions.
Four months later, he left his home to live on his own. He was 54, single, and alone in a small apartment for the first time in many many years. Hope and courage.
Eighteen months later, I received an announcement in the mail: Lucie and Franck had had a child, a son. I was deeply moved, and I felt that I had done something good and beautiful.
I would say that Franck cares less about the Taj Mahal than my being instrumental in his reunion with Lucie.
What fills my life with beauty may seem insignificant to someone else. Conversely, what I consider insignificant—especially something I do—may brighten another person’s life.
I wonder if there is an absolute beauty that everyone shares and would agree upon. Let’s see.
On the train between Valences and Gap (in the French Alps), about 15 billion solar years after the coming of this universe.
“Creating beauty through courage, hope, and connection” … That is inspiring. And intimidating. Since personal experience yields subjective results, I should now seek the universal.
I contend that there is beauty, hope, courage and connection in the act of being human.
Simply being human is a profound thing. Consider: you are breathing oxygen thanks to the same chemical reactions as a single-celled being 1.5 billion years ago. In fact, since that single-celled being, from parent to offspring to… you, the chain of breathing has never once been interrupted.
Simply being human is a profound thing.
Your body is made of atoms belonging to the Earth, and said atoms have been bricks for many other beings before. These atoms were made in distant stars billions of years ago, and traveled through huge expanses of interstellar space before coalescing in what we call the Solar system.
Your DNA holds millions of years of evolution—carrying the wisdom of entire species. You belong to the same species as some guy living 100,000 years ago in a small tribe of 20 people, who lived with fire, sticks and stones hunting and gathering, barely speaking. Humans just like us.
Your body is a vessel, its elements forged in long-extinct stars, temporarily lent by planet Earth. Your language, your thoughts and beliefs originate in the first words of this guy 100,000 years ago and every human ever since, passing their culture to their children. Can you imagine how many lives, both human and non-human, separate you from that first beathing cell? And how much hope and courage these beings had to gather throughout history and prehistory in order to live these lives, in order to survive 5 mass extinctions, glaciations, droughts, famines, diseases, predators, dictators, injuries, epidemics? How deeply connected they were to each other at all times, as that is the only way our species thrives and survives? Can you imagine what they went through, can you imagine the nuclear reactions in these stars where your atoms were made, in order for you to be at long last born?
Isn’t that beautiful?
That is the story of life and of the universe – a story of beauty, courage, hope and connection that we can scarcely imagine and comprehend. And at the tip of this cosmic arrow shot through space and time 15 billion years ago, there is you.
Isn’t that beautiful?
Here and now.
“Creating beauty through courage, hope, and connection” … That is inspiring. And intimidating. Human experience, life, the universe… it’s a bit complicated and relative. Let’s seek simplicity and self-evidence.
I contend that there is beauty, hope, courage and connection in the simple act of being.
Can you simply be, just for a moment? Try it! Be in your ephemeral, instantaneous and ever-present state of being.
It is the seat of all your experiences—of your thoughts, emotions, ideas—the seat of everything that you see, hear, taste, feel, know, do, create, observe, like, dislike, remember, and forget… The place where the world unfolds, where the drama and the comedy of life, love and history play out.
Consider being. The simplest thing of all. Always here. That without which absolutely nothing exists. Permanent. So obvious that most never notice it.
Glorious. Ineffable. Transparent. So generous that it embraces the world and all manifestations without ever judging or refusing anything. The doorway to all possibilities.
Being… The ultimate gift. The most precious gift.
Being… The ultimate gift. The most precious gift.
Isn’t that beautiful?
“I Am”. There is courage in this affirmation. For with being comes total vulnerability to whatever the world will throw at you in the next second. And yet, here you are. That’s courageous.
And there is hope. Make no mistake though. It is not the common hope for money, fame, love, health, chocolate, or even Thai food and enlightenment. It is the kind of hope that dawn carries. Hope for a new day. Hope for whatever comes next. Every breath is a new dawn.
And there is connection. I find that difficult to explain. As Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism, might have said, it is as hard as chewing rocks. With identity comes the sense of separation. Yet, it is precisely this separation that creates the possibility of connection. But what I mean is stronger and deeper than that. For my saying “I Am”, there must be another for hearing me. I cannot be without you.
Being – the most beautiful thing – comes with inter-dependance and connection.
Where there is one, there are two, and they are connected.
Because I Am, You Are.
From Arnaud – Technically, I’m a French engineer, but I mostly worked in alternative asset management. I’ve also been a Kundalini Yoga teacher. Some people might call me a mystic or a channel — more grounded adults would probably say I’m a lazy weirdo who should just get a job. Considering I’ve spent the first few months of 2025 watching anime, playing video games (and skiing!), they might have a point.
Chris’ note – I met Arnaud in the Spring of ’24, and like so many other contributors to this project, we met in Guanajuato, Mexico. We shared only a few weeks together, but in that time became friends over hikes, lunches, and time in the city. A few months later I saw Arnaud again, when he bailed me out by renting his apartment in Paris to me on short notice while I was there for the Olympics. He took me out to one of his favorite couscous restaurants before he left the city.