Candide and Contentment

Context: toe-socks, my friends’ cozy dorm room, muffled voices behind my earphones ringing with violin and piano.

Observations about Candide’s adventures that have implications in my life:

Candide was never happy. Through times of adversity and prosperity, Candide is never able to achieve a sense of satisfaction.  He optimistically searches for contentment in the world around him and instead finds that the wide array of people he encounters is also living in misery.  He truly has the cliché “grass is greener on the other side” mentality, believing that his life will be complete once he is reunited with his beloved Cumegonde, and is then ultimately disappointed when he achieves this lifelong goal.  His consistent discontentment brought me to consider my own life.  What am I focused on?  What things do I continually search for?  How am I hurrying through the here and now in order to get to whatever’s next, the next goal, the next phase in life?  I don’t want to miss out on the magnificence of the present because my emphasis is excessively centered on the future, just as Candide departed from Eldorado because of his perception of better times ahead.  So today, after finishing the novel, I have decided to choose to be satisfied with whatever context I may find myself in.  The Apostle Paul wrote about his ability to choose contentment, writing, “I have learned to be content in whatever circumstance I am.” (Philippians 4:11)  If Paul was able to choose contentment while on house arrest, surrounded by guards, then I without a doubt be joyful while doing homework, even Accounting. 

After studying European History for over a year, I also noticed the satirical tone in Voltaire’s writing.  Voltaire, an 18^th century French philosopher, surreptitiously criticized fundamental inequities that he observed in pre-revolutionary France through Candide’s interactions with the world and its assortment of inhabitants.  These encounters and Candide’s innocent, purely observational point of view paint a vivid picture of hypocrisy and bureaucracy in Candide’s society.  This made me realize that, despite the many revolutions and wars that have attempted to excise these negative aspects from society, they are largely still present and widespread in today’s civilization.  Corrupt politicians, immoral religious leaders, and greedy individuals, it seems, have always and will always be present in this world.  But this isn’t disheartening to me; I know of a light that shines brighter than all the world’s darkness.  “When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world.  Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”” (John 8:12)