Since my time in Paris was indefinitely short, I began to explore. First the Louvre. Luckily, the Denfert-Rochereau Metro station was only a block down the Rue Froidevaux to the Lion of Belfort and then a right turn immediately past Les Catacombes de Paris. Took the blue line across the Seine and transferred to the yellow line where I exited at the Pre-Pei-Pyramid Palais Royal Musée du Louvre. The Mona Lisa was glass encased up high on a wall at the end of a hallway that denied close inspection. It has since been moved so that more cameras can photograph the flash glares off the glass. It's always better and cheaper to buy the postcard. That's why I brought no camera with me on this trip. Unlike today, cameras then were too much weight to lug around. And why do we bother so much about preserving a memory? The effort reduces our being where we are now. I had enough stress just figuring out where I was then.
Is that why we visit museums and worship the art and artists? We are like medieval monks on a pilgrimage to awe over the bones of a saint. Perhaps, out of those bones, we hope to come alive, to connect to a past our minds cannot fathom, to take away a little bite of eternity. We may each individually be small, but we are part of a potential infinity that continues to grow. Note: the preceding may not be a mathematically sensible statement. Inifinities cannot grow. They are already as big as they can get. However, the power set of an infinite set IS bigger! 2ℵ > ℵ. There is a metaphor in here somewhere...
