My sister and I got our hair cut yesterday but because her cut was followed by a four-hour treatment, I went to the bookstore to pick up something to read quickly while waiting. Candide was not an easy afternoon story.
The horror stories of rape, pillage and plunder were difficult to plow through and I couldn't help but feel the bite of Voltaire's attack against the optimist. I thought I had long abandoned the thought that everything happens for a reason, but the jabs from Candide still found an easy target in me.
I don't know if Voltaire meant to get this message across, but I took from the book that even if all evidence point to the contrary that evil exists for no good reason at all, we as reasoning human beings can create meaning and purpose out of the life that we are left with once the sufferings have past. Is this not what Candide does for his garden?
And thus, reading this only strengthened my conviction, that gardening is a highly noble cause indeed.