The Invisible Choice

Watching the Notre Dame de Paris on fire on 15-April-2019, triggered an avalanche of emotions within myself. It was, after all, “Our Lady of Paris”. THE ONE and ONLY NOTRE DAME. It was just too devastating to look at, too hard to believe, and definitely too agonizing to accept. I first heard of Notre Dame de Paris when I was around 6 years old, watching the Disney movie “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” with my family in cinema. I did not understand most of the dialogue and all I remembered was watching a guy with strange figure hopping around an huge church. People were holding torches and burning everything. It was nevertheless a memorable experience, as going to cinema was kind of a big deal at that time. We needed to plan at least a week ahead for the tickets, logistic, snacks etc. Now, people just taking planes for holidays without any plan or luggage. Going cinema became as mundane as taking a walk nowadays. When I first saw it in person many years later in Paris, I w

  One of my favorite scenes while getting out of a metro station during peak hour is at the exit with escalator. Most of the time we can easily notice that all passengers will converge to the tiny passage leading to the escalator, leaving a deserted staircase residing beside it. Occasionally there will be someone who defies the temptation and takes the staircase, leaving those on escalator looking at him in amusement. I was always one of those looking in amusement from the escalator previously. Taking stairs instead of escalators seemed counter productive and a waste of energy for me. Putting the health condition or limitation aside for those who are not physically fit to take the staircase, staircase vs escalator is, among others, one of the daily choices that we are making every day, right under our nose but without us even noticing. Escalator represents comfort, convenience, requiring limited effort; staircase represents hard work, struggle, requiring substantial effort. Man