A Monologue by Jean-Pierre Martinez
You can stay seated! I am… your new philosophy teacher. I know, up until now, you mostly knew me as the physical education instructor… But, as you may be aware, Mrs. Weird, I mean Mrs. Weir, tragically took her own life last night by setting herself on fire in her bathtub filled with unleaded petrol… Oh, you weren’t aware? I apologize. Regardless, due to a current shortage of philosophy teachers in the National Education system… for some reason, philosophers are going through a crisis of vocation, much like priests… The Director requested that I fill in for Mrs. Weird. Mrs. Weir. You know, in our profession these days, you have to be versatile… You need to adapt. When you have a job, if you manage to find one, they’ll expect you to adapt. They call it employability. Well, that’s what the Director told me. I understand, you’ll be getting your high school diploma at the end of the year, but… it was either me or nothing… So, you might as well learn to adapt right away. Well, if you don’t have any questions, let’s get started. So, in the end, what is philosophy? It’s not that complicated, is it? It’s about asking the fundamental questions. I mean, the pointless questions. Like… I don’t know… What’s this mess around us? How did this chaos start? Will this craziness ever end? Wherever Mrs. Weird is now, she might finally hold the answers to these questions. Unfortunately, she can’t return to share whether there’s life after death, as she’s now completely charred. So, for your exams, it seems we’ll have to figure things out on our own, right? Anyway, philosophers have been asking these kinds of absurd questions for millennia, without managing to find an explanation that makes any sense. Well, believe it or not, even though I’ve never studied philosophy, I think I’ve found the answer. Well… a beginning of an answer… The key is to go back to basics. If you look carefully, you’ll realize the answer lies within yourself. No need to wade through the unreadable books Mrs. Weird distributed in the bibliography at the start of the year. I can’t say for certain whether she had read all those books herself, but look where it got her… Well, trust me, it’s better for each of you to draw from your own experiences and tap into your own memories. I’m confident that at some point in your life, you’ve encountered the truth without even realising it. For me, it happened during a pilgrimage to Mont Saint-Michel, where I experienced what you might call a revelation… Initially, I wasn’t overly excited about the prospect of visiting Mont Saint-Michel. I mean, my wife was more enthusiastic about it. But let’s be honest, Mont Saint-Michel is one of those places you should experience at least once in your life, right? Plus, the bus trip was sponsored by the town hall. Anyway, my wife and I arrived at the parking lot around noon after a three-hour drive in dense fog, not even able to make a pit stop at a gas station. There was no time to waste because we had to return to Paris that evening, so it was kind of a commando operation, you know? So everyone swiftly disembarked from the bus and started making their way briskly toward the basilica. Even though we don’t really believe in God, here’s a meditative atmosphere that envelops the place. We were approximately halfway there when my wife remarked, “Isn’t it unbelievable? Mont Saint-Michel is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and if we don’t take action, it might not even be an island in a few years.” At that moment, I must confess I didn’t quite grasp where she was leading the conversation. With the low tide, Mont Saint-Michel, shrouded in fog, appeared more like a massive mound on the beach. Nevertheless, it triggered some contemplation within me, and I found myself pondering. Why Mont Saint-Michel instead of nothing? Why my wife instead of someone else? Why the prospect of an island during high tide, but not during low tide? Meanwhile, we were nearing the basilica. The cold was biting! It was December, just a few days before Christmas. Maybe that had something to do with it too. As I ascended the hill, an unusual sensation stirred within me. I held a firm belief that in this sacred place, I would uncover answers to questions I had never even considered before. However, being a bit out of breath, chilled to the bone, and having promised my mother-in-law a souvenir from Mont Saint-Michel, I decided to step into a nearby souvenir shop. Well, souvenirs were certainly not in short supply there. Anyway, I scanned the shop, hoping to find something budget-friendly for my mother-in-law. Then, almost miraculously, I came across one of those small glass domes filled with water and featuring Mont Saint-Michel inside. You know the ones, right? They do a similar thing in Paris with the Eiffel Tower. Absentmindedly, I picked up the item and, as if guided by a force other than my own, started shaking it.
You won’t believe what happened next – snow began to fall! I mean, initially, in the crystal ball, of course. But then, I casually glanced towards the door, and what do you know? It had started snowing outside too! That’s when it dawned on me in an epiphany of cosmic proportions. This crystal ball wasn’t just a trinket; it was a miniature universe! The world was literally in the palm of my hands. I stood there, basking in the glow of this newfound revelation. I stared at the ball, then looked outside. The more I shook the ball, the more it snowed on Mont Saint-Michel. I was all-powerful. I was the Almighty! Well, after a while, since the shopkeeper was starting to shoot me odd glances, I reluctantly had to set the ball down. Slowly but surely, all the snow gracefully settled back down, and I snapped back to reality. Yet, since that whimsical moment, I’ve been enlightened: the world is basically a snow globe where you can decipher both the past and the future. You give it a shake, and it’s akin to the Big Bang. The snowflakes never land in the same place, in the same sequence, or at the same pace, but eventually, every flake finds its way to the ground. Then, with another shake, it all starts anew. It’s perpetually different, yet fundamentally the same. No two snowflakes are identical; they each chart their unique course, but in the grand scheme, there’s always the same volume of snow, and, inevitably, everything descends downward, you catch my drift? Well, I haven’t figured out yet who’s shaking the thing, and why, but… I have my little theory. Why do you think all the fools who enter a souvenir shop at Mont Saint-Michel feel an irresistible urge to shake the thing I’m talking about? It’s all for the sheer joy of watching the snow fall! So, if God exists, why wouldn’t He want to do the same? And hold on tight because it’s not over… And brace yourselves because it’s not over… What if, in the end, God was me? I mean, all of you too, if you want. Well, the sum of all the idiots of our species, right? Admit it, it’s mind-boggling, isn’t it? That’s precisely why when the Director asked me if I had some knowledge of philosophy to replace Mrs. Weird, I said yes right away. I believe it was a sign from destiny, you know? An opportunity for me to generously share the knowledge I have modestly acquired about the mysteries of the world that surrounds us with as many people as possible…
Well, I think that’ll do for today. Let’s not set the bar too high for our first session, after all. Alright, now everyone get down on your stomachs! We’re going to do some push-ups together to wrap it up. A sound mind in a sound body, as Madam Director likes to say.
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A sketch from the collection Like a fish in the air
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