Morning: The desire to be together
One does not know if, for each person, others are a hell or a paradise. Sometimes one, sometimes the other, one might say – as with solitude, moreover, which is sometimes a haven, a wonderful garden where one cultivates oneself, or a curse, a prison where one torments oneself at not being accepted by others and being excluded from all circles of friendship. For Aristotle, as we know, man is a "political animal", animal by his instincts, political by the drive that pushes him to be in the city, in the midst of others and to participate in social conversation. Can the desire to be together ever go out, when one lives, precisely, "in society"? If this unfortunately were to happen, it is not the happiness of being in company that would die, but thought itself: every person must certainly have the courage to think in the first person, but their thought itself, and their entire being, are only forged through contact with that of others. As Leïla Slimani could say: "One never arrives at oneself except by the path of others".
Robert Maggiori
