I live in Arad, a provincial town in Romania and for a long time this caused me a great frustration. Big, important things are not happening here. In fact, here nothing ever happens. Everything seems frozen in a long wait for the final dissolution.
I recently visited Paris. In the first moments I was shocked from the bustle of the big city. I could not even hear my own thoughts. That's how a place where great things happens should look like. But then I realized that between Paris and Arad, my little town, there's no difference. Loneliness, suffering, death, hope, love are the same everywhere human souls live. The essence of life can be grasped as well in a small provincial town. Maybe all this reasoning of mine is but an artificial construction to alleviate my provincial frustration. I do not know.
Philosopher Emil Cioran, towards the end of his life, in his Parisian attic, put this question: "A quoi bon avoir quitté Coasta Boacii?" ( “What good to have left Coasta Boacii?” Coasta Boacii is a hill in the village where he grew up in Romania).