What if the Solution is Simple?

“Do I have too much of this?”

I wrote this while listening to this.

Paris, 2022

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On Saturday morning, I went on a run through Paris. I began in the 18th arrondissement, cobblestone roads, pedestrian streets, the late morning light painting triangles across the upper floors of the Haussmannian buildings around me. It’s chilly but the piercing cold of winter isn’t in the air anymore.

I turn left, spill over into the much larger, much wider boulevard where the energy shifts from quaint neighborhood to bustling city. I’m a little dot on a map slowly gliding through the 17th now, and I’m making a beeline for the Parc Monceau in the 8th when I run into a densely populated organic open air Saturday market. Oh this is too good, I have to see what’s in here. I duck in. My eyes scan left and right. I’m just trying to take it all in. A tall man to my left is proudly cutting open a mussel and showing it to two enthralled onlookers. Another to my right only speaks from the left side of his mouth as he explains to an elderly lady the benefits of his different herbal concentrates. A little further down, the smell of brioche is wafting through the air. I keep moving.

The night before, after a single dry martini I drank in Hemingway’s honor for a project that I am working on, I unwittingly did the same thing, wandering the streets, except by city light as the sky above me was black. I drink so little nowadays that I was really feeling the alcohol. I felt like the protagonist of Another Round in the early stages of film. Loose, open, marveling at everything happening around me.

Within minutes of walking, I had crossed paths with hundreds if not thousands of people all in the midst of their stories, their own ever-unfolding narratives, some rushing to get somewhere, others standing on the side of the road, engrossed in conversation. People really know how to talk in this city. Without meaning to, I walked into a large crowd in front of l’Olympia near Place Vendome and asked an elderly woman what was going on.

“It’s the Cesars (the French equivalent of the Oscars), and all of the stars and invited guests are about to enter.”

I asked her if she was a journalist. She said no, with a twinkle in her eye and I realized I was speaking to one of the invited guests. Maybe she was one of the actors’ mother.

The thrumming energy of Paris is astounding to me. It’s smaller than New York or London, but it’s more tightly packed in. It’s the combination of modernity and old world feel that I just adore. There’s so much going on, all the time. The humanity is so vibrant, so right there in your face.

I could spend hours just talking about all of the things that I love and hate about this place, about how I am drawn to this place and yet can feel so worn down by it. About how this place feels like a giant mirror to me, it shows me what I’m feeling inside. It’s a very harsh and aggressive place when internally I’m not doing so well. It is a feast for the senses when I crave the stimulation.

When I step out onto the street, I always look people in their eyes. I can’t help myself. I just like looking at their faces. I’m too curious about what those faces have to say. I like to imagine what they might be thinking,

And then sometimes that energy, the neighbors that wake you up at night or early in the morning, the thrum of traffic, the neon lights and drunken laughter, it becomes too much. I lose my appetite for stimulation because how can you be hungry when you just ate? How can you ever be hungry if you never stop eating?

I’m writing about my relationship with a city but this applies to so many different facets of life. It applies to our relationships with all kinds of things — work, people, places. I feel the same way about internet usage/consumption.

When something isn’t working for you in your life anymore, it’s easy to think that it is the thing itself that is the problem. When I get sick of Paris, or city life rather, it can feel like Paris is the problem. But Paris isn’t the problem. The problem is too much Paris.

In other words, so often the problem isn’t the thing, it’s the dosage. We have access to entertainment, to information and to each other so easily, so immediately nowadays, that we don’t think to ourselves “do I have too much of this?”

Why should you? For almost all of human history, the question has been far more often “how can I get more of this?” or “how can I get it at all?”

Modernity has brought us abundance and if you aren’t careful, you can gorge yourself. You can get lost in the ocean.

But I have found that paying close attention to quantity helps a lot. Sometimes the amount you’re consuming needs to go to zero (total removal) but often the solution is less radical than that.

When I decided to leave Paris about a year ago, I had massively overdosed on the what the city offers and was feeling desperate for space and quiet so that I could hear my own thoughts. It partially got to that point because I had had trouble even identifying the overstimulation in the city as being an issue. It crept up on me. Like not realizing you haven’t had anything to eat until you’re starving.

When I left, I wasn’t sure if I was ever going to have a relationship with the city again and if so, what that would look like. But as is so often the case in life, the answer is turning out to be more nuanced, it’s a new relationship, with a new dosage.

A year ago, I was sick of the French capital. It’s like I couldn’t see the beauty of the richness and vibrancy anymore. But it’s coming back now, and I wonder if it’s because I don’t have to be there.

My secret to maintaining a love for and curiosity about humanity is by doing the counterintuitive thing, and stepping away sometimes. You don’t manufacture wonder, it’s the default when you’re a kid. You lose it by no longer listening to your heart and body.

And for the record I’m not good at doing “balance.” I learn about balance by experiencing imbalance in various ways and learning how much I dislike it. I don’t do it on purpose, it’s just an inevitable part of the process. You cannot learn where your lines are without crossing them. And those lines will shift in time in ways you cannot predict.

Instead of attempting to find the perfect amount of Paris that needs to be in my life, I’m just gonna let this relationship continue to evolve.

All I wish for is to have more grace with myself. I wish for everyone to have more grace with themselves. To remember that we are all multifaceted people, so there are going to be times where desires conflict, and that is ok. To remember that it’s so often some kind of imbalance that’s taking place when I feel off, and that I can feel a lot better just by tinkering a little bit with the recipe.

To live well is to tinker with the recipe. To pay close attention, to be ok with misjudging doses. To take it away and see if you miss it. There is no shortcut.

That’s all I want, really. To live well. To maintain my sense of wonder.

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