Vivre
This song by Michel Berger and the Reality to which it speaks, through my personal perspectives.
Comme on s’endort
Calme et sans penser à rien
En fermant les yeux très fort
Vivre
Il fait beau, je sors
Je trouverai le bon chemin
Et je me sens mieux dehors
Vivre
Les fleurs et les animaux
Sont tous un peu ma famille
On est tous partis de rien
Vivre…
Soleil, terre, forêts des plaines
Entrez dans le sang de nos veines
Nous devons devenir forts
Nous devons vivre…
Petit caillou dedans ma main
Pleure ton pauvre destin
Tu pleures parce que tu voudrais bien
Vivre
Dieu, Dieu écoutez nous
Nous relevons votre défi
Et nous lançons notre cri
Vivre…
What is the last song you were obsessed by?
Do you remember?
Can you put into words what it means to you, and why you listen to it over and over, enthralled?
Live!
I’m not sure exactly when or how I stumbled across this Michel Berger song. It probably came up on YouTube sometime in the last year as a suggestion, because I enjoy francophone popular music and listen to it fairly often while relaxing.
It’s simple in its words and message, yet strangely compelling. The writer describes not just the human relationship to living, from sleep to experiencing the world in all its glories during a day, but celebrates all life, all matter in the universe, inanimate and inanimate.
There is a profound, intimate embodiment in every verse.
That exhilarating sense of well-being, walking around in Nature, feeling one is exactly where one needs to be.
The kinship with other living beings, all of us springing from nothing.
The feeling that all that is somehow running through one’s veins, within the blood, inspiring to become strong.
The poignancy of compassion for the little pebble in the hand that cannot like we who are animate live.
Taking up the challenge from God, crying out…
Lived Glory
Yesterday we were at the top of the hill, a popular place, besides the beach, where Tobagonians in this area get exercise. There is a large football field surrounded by a walking track, ideal for early morning exercises and well-lit for evening exercisers who are still seeking to get their movement in before the day ends. It has an adjacent basketball court, filled on a Saturday with children playing both basketball and football on a smaller scale with tiny nets.
The children played football barefoot, teasing each other and tussling, trying out their cool fake-out moves. Some were just fooling around in the spectator stands with a beat up football, which inevitably bounced down the steps to where I was sitting and waiting for my husband to complete his vigorous walking and Tai Chi cooldown routine.
It felt like everyone was there, from the smallest, most playful children to youthful runners to older adults walking quickly and determinedly around the track.
Field at sunset. A part of the track that surrounds it is visible. Feb 2026 by me.
At one point, sitting watching the children on the field with their beat-up football run and laugh, I listened to the song Vivre on my phone through my headphones.
I was overwhelmed with a joy and tenderness for the beauty of human living unfolding in front of me in the fresh-cut grass under the gradually darkening tropical sky, with the palm trees all around.
How good it felt to be alive!
Suffering
Earlier that day I had been sitting down with someone listening to what a difficult year they have had. Chronic illness is a harsh master, and after a couple of decades of it, they ended up spending half the year on bed rest.
I feel very grateful and humbled by many of my privileges, including of course being able to visit this island annually and to stay at our family home, but the good health I continue to enjoy is one of the aspects that looms large in the face of people like this who suffer so acutely that death can look like a desirable and merciful alternative to living any longer like this.
Billions of people in the world do not have enough nutritious food and/or do not have clean water to drink and/or do not have a safe, clean living space of comfortable temperature. And/or suffer from a chronic illness physically and perhaps also mentally.
To live does not feel like glory and light to everyone.
What can I do in the face of so much suffering all around, from the most personal interactions with friends and family, to that which is in my country of origin here as well as my new home city and province, to that which is in countries throughout the world struggling with wars and the climate emergency, among other stressors?
Responsibility
I know myself to be responsible as one who is privileged not merely to revel in my life but to do my best to ease the suffering of those I can. And at the very least, not to cause further suffering through careless actions or words.
Much easier said than done. I may be happy and my life full of much good, but underlying suffering in some of my parts surfaces unexpectedly at times in words and actions that cause pain to others, including some I love the most.
The challenge is to pay attention each time so the necessary lesson can be learned, and so that a more compassionate and loving practice become better integrated into the daily path.
Your Thoughts
When you listen to the song or think about its lyrics, what comes to mind?
Do you find it relatable? Bizarre? Inspiring? Painful?
Carl Jung concluded his autobiographical book “Memories, Dreams and Reflections” with these words :
The older I have become, the less I have understood or had insight into or known about myself. I am astonished, disappointed, pleased with myself. I am distressed, depressed, rapturous. I am all these things at once, and cannot add up the sum. I am incapable of determining ultimate worth or worthlessness; I have no judgment about myself and my life. There is nothing I am quite sure about. I have no definite convictions-not about anything, really. I know only that I was born and exist, and it seems to me that I have been carried along. I exist on the foundation of something I do not know. In spite of all uncertainties, I feel a solidity underlying all existence and a continuity in my mode of being. The world into which we are born is brutal and cruel, and at the same time of divine beauty. Which element we think outweighs the other, whether meaninglessness or meaning, is matter of temperament. If meaninglessness were absolutely preponderant, the meaningfulness of life would vanish to an increasing degree with each step in our development. But that is -or seems to me- not the case. Probably, as in all metaphysical questions, both are true : Life is -or has- meaning and meaninglessness. I cherish the anxious hope that meaning will preponderate and win the battle.
Je n'ai pas peur de la route
Faudrait voir, faut qu'on y goûte
Des méandres au creux des reins
Et tout ira bien
Le vent nous portera.
I'm not afraid of the road.
We'll have to see, we have to taste it.
Meanders in the hollow of the back.
And everything will be fine.
The wind will carry us.
“Le Vent Nous Portera” is about embracing life’s journey without being afraid.
“I was born and exist, and it seems to me that I have been carried along. I exist on the foundation of something I do not know. In spite of all uncertainties, I feel a solidity underlying all existence and a continuity in my mode of being.”
This makes me think of Paul Tillich’s concept of God as the Ground of Being. And “le vent” (the wind) makes me think of πνεῦμα (wind, spirit breath) the Holy Spirit who carries and sustains us.
“Et tout ira bien” - And everything will be fine.
“All manner of things shall be well.” Julian of Norwich.
The images in this video of a boy and his mother are really beautiful.
https://youtu.be/NrgcRvBJYBE?si=ja8U1B1kFL7OHolV
This song needs almost no explanation : showering the people you love with love, and showing them the way you feel.
I totally understood what this song meant when I heard it on the radio when I was a child. So many people play games and go through life hiding their feelings from the people they love and care about.
Shower the people you love with love. Show them the way you feel. Things are gonna be much better If you only will. You can run but you cannot hide. This is widely known. What you plan to do with your foolish pride when you're all by yourself alone?
https://youtu.be/vfWQS5fWxxU?si=mBIGJTPUKAVCa95-