Part I: Milo and the Lion
I never cared much for the Palace of Versailles — all that suffocating excess topped with swarms of tourists. It’s like hot chocolate drowned in whipped cream — so sweet it hurts your teeth. But the gardens of Versailles? Yes, please. I could spend hours wandering through that sumptuous green labyrinth, half-convinced that some of the sculptures are watching me the moment I stop watching them.
One caught my eye this time: Milo of Croton by Pierre Puget (well, a copy — the original lives at the Louvre). It depicts the legendary Greek wrestler Milo in his twilight years, trying to split a tree trunk. According to legend, his hands got trapped in the wood, leaving him helpless and vulnerable — in this version, to a lion, who is literally biting his behind.
It’s dramatic, emotional — classic Baroque. But also? So darkly humorous. It’s as if Puget is saying, “One day you’re taming lions, the next they’re chewing your ass.”
I felt that. One day I was sprinting up the 222 stairs to Sacré-Coeur, no sweat. The next? I was doubled over in pain on a random Parisian sidewalk, disoriented and barely able to walk. And of course — it had to be a Saturday.
I managed to find a clinic (open till six, I was told). I made it by five, explaining to a cheery gentleman behind the counter my agony in agonizing French, and he made an earnest effort to speak English. The part I understood — “All doctors gone.” Translation: I was out of luck.
Wandering the streets again, my pain escalating, I stumbled toward a pack of cabs outside some swanky hotel, but they were all reserved. None would take me.
A Soviet-era phrase from The Twelve Chairs echoed in my head: “Saving those who are drowning is the responsibility of those who are drowning.”
I walked into the hotel like I was staying there, and went Baroque—screaming that I was dying and needed a hospital. It worked.
The hospital saga? I’ll spare you. After a CAT scan confirming a kidney stone, a subsequent brief doctor’s visit, and eight hours of idling, I got some pain meds, a hefty bill, a bonne chance, and was back at my Airbnb in the Latin Quarter. At 3 a.m., I was woken by a stabbing pain — and the drunken yells of some life-is-good crowd outside. I whispered to myself, “The show must go on.”
You see, as a psychotherapist (if you were wondering what else I do besides writing), I have a handful of quotes for moments like this.
But I’ll tell you something — we can philosophize our way through just about anything, but pain? Pain doesn’t negotiate. That’s why all regimes — including seemingly democratic ones — have always used it to crush the human spirit. Years ago, I worked at the Marjorie Kovler Center for survivors of torture. If I learned anything there, it’s this: our capacity for cruelty is vast, but so is our capacity for compassion.
Anyway, my pain wasn’t inflicted. It came from within. And honestly, I was more afraid of spending the rest of my trip in bed than of passing the damn stone. So, I pleaded with my body — something that had worked for me in the past — and by morning, with some cursing (always helps), it passed.
By the next day, I felt like Milo in his prime again — sipping latte, quoting Woody Allen: “Life’s like Vegas. You’re up, you’re down, but in the end, the house always wins. Doesn’t mean you didn’t have fun.”
And for a few days, I lived like nothing happened. Until I saw that sculpture again in Versailles, and remembered — boy, that lion is just waiting.
The museum was closing. It was time to go. I gave the gardens one last look. Power is fleeting. Wonder isn’t.
From page to thread — a story you can wear
Taming Lions $35.99
Part II: The Music of Chaos
On the train back to Paris, I listened to Les Élémens (The Elements) by Jean-Féry Rebel, composed in 1737. The piece opens with Le Chaos — a radical movement that begins with every note of the D minor scale played at once: D, E, F, G, A, B♭, C♯.
Discordant. Jarring. Magnificent. The four elements — earth, air, fire, water — colliding in primordial confusion.
Versailles, with its gilded symmetry and manicured order — beauty masking oppression — stood as a temple to Louis XIV’s obsession with control and harmony. Rebel had served there, head of the elite 24 Violons du Roy. He knew the rules — he wrote by the rules. But at 71, he broke them.
Not to start a musical revolution, but perhaps because, at last, he understood the primal role — and quiet power — of dissonance.
The Tyranny of Constant Harmony
We tolerate chaos in music now — Stravinsky is my guy — but in life? Not so much. We’re conditioned to expect harmony. We crave constant positivity. When things fall apart, when relationships go sideways, when our bodies betray us, we panic. We label it bad.
But let’s be real — harmony as a constant is stifling. Without dissonance, there’s no tension. No depth. No movement. No growth.
Physicist Ilya Prigogine, in Order Out of Chaos, explains how systems evolve through instability — not in spite of it. Chaos isn’t the end. It’s the compost from which higher order grows.
Rebelling Against Our Own Habits
Here’s the thing — chaos is expensive. It drains your emotional and physical energy. And energy is precious. That’s why our brains cling to habits — they save ATP, the fuel of life. So even if our habits suck, they’re efficient. Comfortable.
But dissonance? Dissonance cracks things open.
Sometimes it’s a kidney stone. Sometimes it’s a lion.
Either way, it’s the unexpected that jolts us awake, reconnects us with art, with meaning, with others. Pain sharpens our senses and empathy. It makes us more human.
So dissonance is underrated. Maybe it’s the invitation:
- To break old patterns.
- To tune into what’s real.
- To feel more deeply, love more bravely, create more authentically.
Jean-Féry Rebel wasn’t a young rebel in a leather jacket. He was a white-wigged court composer, pushing the boundaries of sound when most of his peers were polishing their court manners.
Play Rebel. Be one.
🖤
— Vibe & Verse
From page to thread — a story you can wear
Play Rebel - Be One $35.99