Installment #18 in Monolisticle's Ongoing Campaign Against the "Internet of Endless Listicles."
When we think of Ernest Hemingway, we think of Nobel Prize-winning novelist. Avid adventurer. Deep-sea fisherman. Prodigious drinker.
But self-help guru? Not so much. Hemingway is as well known for his cantankerousness as he is for his epic prose. Nevertheless, everything you need to know to be a better, more interesting person can be found within the pages of this wonderful memoir.
A Moveable Feast is a series of chapters that each touch on Hemingway’s experiences with various people he encountered during his time living in Paris as a young writer in the 1920s, from Gertrude Stein to F. Scott Fitzgerald to Ezra Pound. Some of these people he was clearly very fond of, and others he could clearly do without.
Each chapter is a standalone story that collectively captures this magical time in Paris between the wars, perfectly evoking the allure of its charming cafés and restaurants, food and drink, walking neighborhoods, the hub of memorable train trips and road trips to the south of France, and all the other wonderful things that make Paris, well, Paris.
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Having just spent a weekend with two very good friends that my wife and I haven’t seen in way too long, I’m reminded once again of the rejuvenating and soul-lifting effect certain people can have on those around them. The kind of joy-radiating people who fill rooms with laughter, selfless curiosity, a genuine interest in others, and a sense of humor that makes one laugh uncontrollably and use facial muscles one hasn’t exercised in longer than one can remember.
Perhaps you know someone like this? If you do, you’re lucky. Because they are rare.
There are only a very few people like this in the entire world. People who possess that special combination of humor and infectious radiance, minus the hubris and self-centeredness that often comes with it. If you're lucky enough to find one of these spirit-lifting unicorns, hold on to that friendship with everything you have and do whatever it takes to spend as much time in their uplifting presence as possible. Let their example influence you to be a better person.
In this day and age, when the world is more than a little chaotic, stressful (and at times soul-shriveling), we need these special people. More than ever. They remind us to not be so serious all the time. They remind us to laugh. They remind us to be our best selves. More often. And they help us cope with the world around us no matter how challenging it may be.
Which brings me to my favorite quote from A Moveable Feast:
“When the spring came, even the false spring, there were no problems except where to be happiest. The only thing that could spoil a day was people and if you could keep from making engagements, each day had no limits. People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself.”
We all have a choice of the kind of presence we wish to be in the world. Especially during unusually difficult times. Do we choose to be a limiter of other people’s happiness, or are we, like the friends we just spent this past weekend with, "as good as spring itself?"
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