BONUS – Midnight Is a Threshold: Persevering in the Present Tense

How Midnight in Paris teaches the courage to follow a dream when support is thin—through the lens of the MPGP

As we wrapped the last scenes of a recent Family Movie Night, we wondered what to watch next. We’d just come off Emerson’s Marvel Cinematic Universe marathon, then—at Chloë’s urging—Valerian. As I scrolled our library, Mina suggested Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris (2011), much to Emerson’s immediate chagrin—he was ready to retreat to their room to read considering the choice, in his words, “boring.” We reminded him the family had accommodated his multi-week selection, save for Ant-Man and the Wasp; he recognised the imbalance and, good-naturedly, took one for the team.

As the opening montage swept across Paris, Tennyson began spotting landmarks from our homeschool modules—the Eiffel Tower among them. The music was as sublime as ever: Sidney Bechet’s “Si tu vois ma mère.” Simply divine. Mina and I sat there, savouring both score and scenery, and I felt again how this film’s theme of perseverance never grows old.

Gil Pender (Owen Wilson) loves a city and a century that aren’t his. After bowing out of an evening he no longer wishes to endure—dancing with an insufferable pair of Inez’s friends—he wanders the Paris streets. A vintage Peugeot glides over the cobblestones, its passengers buoyed by Moët and midnight. The rupture behind Gil’s walk is clear: a pre-marital misalignment. His fiancée, Inez (played far too convincingly by Rachel McAdams), wants the screenwriting cheques to keep coming; her circle greets his novel with a withering blend of non-committal politeness and outright dismissal. At midnight, the bells toll and the Macaroon and Ox Blood coloured antique car ferries Gil into his “golden age,” where he meets the literary pantheon of the era—Hemingway, Stein, Fitzgerald—and receives what he lacked at home: serious attention to the work, and a mirror for his courage.

Beneath the whimsy is a sober contemplation of perseverance amidst thin support. That thread spoke more forcefully during this viewing, as I recently felt a notable absence of buy-in from some colleagues around launching What the World Needs Now: International Meditation Hour (IMH). By every practical measure the event succeeded, as of a few moments ago, the view count registered 1,500 via Facebook, and we are already preparing the next gathering for Thursday, 1 January 2026 at 1:00 PM ET—but the experience sharpened my sense of what it takes to keep faith with a vision when enthusiasm around you wavers.

The Bridge: Avoidance or Authorship

What Midnight in Paris finally asks is not whether another era was better, but whether we will unabashedly author our lives in this one. Nostalgia can become an alibi for not doing the work now; I believe the real choice is between avoidance and authorship. Read through the Model for Perpetual Growth and Progress (MPGP), Gil’s journey traces a repeatable path we can follow when support is thin: from the first inner summons to the public act of standing by the work, and then the quiet discipline that sustains it.

The MPGP in six tiers (with film moments+1)

1. Call—A quiet inner summons toward meaningful work.

2. Alignment—Naming values; choosing the company one keeps.

3. Practice—Daily craft; feedback; building the vessel.

4. Integration—Reconciling ideal and real; owning the present.

5. Contribution—Sharing the work; standing by it in public.

6. Stewardship—Guarding the conditions that sustain the work.

Bonus—Renewal—Beginning again, humbly, at a higher octave.

Midnight in Paris traces these tiers with fairy-tale economy.

1.) Call—the quiet ache that won’t leave

Gil’s call isn’t dramatic; it’s restlessness with the superficial—parties, status talk, scripts that pay the bills but starve the soul. He keeps a manuscript close and a century closer. Most meaningful work begins like this: a low hum of this isn’t it that comfort can’t silence.

Film moment: Leaving behind the group’s preferred dance floor for the street—choosing solitude over another evening of pretense—signals that the inner summons has outgrown its shell.

2.) Alignment—whose voice gets a vote?

Inez loves the idea of Paris, not the price of devotion to a book. Her circle (Paul et al.) offers the worst kind of feedback: confident, clever, and risk-free. Alignment isn’t about making villains; it’s the mature admission that some relationships are too expensive for a fragile dream.

Film moment: The contrast between polite dismissal of Gil’s novel and Gertrude Stein’s serious read teaches him to separate noise from nourishment.

IMH aside (Alignment): In launching IMH, I encountered polite silence and cool distance. Alignment meant finding the few who were ready—Dr. Matcheri Keshavan, my family, early subscribers—and letting that be enough to proceed.

3.) Practice—work, feedback, revision

Gertrude Stein reads pages. Hemingway offers the only counsel Hemingway can: be brave and tell the truth. Practice is not waiting for a golden age; it is writing inside the century you inhabit, revising with people who care more about the work than their own performance.

Film moment: Gil returns with rewrites; the romance with an era becomes a romance with craft.

4.) Integration—the present is the workshop

Adriana longs for the Belle Époque; its artists pine for the Renaissance. Every generation mythologises another. Integration is the turn where Gil realises the golden-age fallacy: elsewhere is a story we tell to avoid starting here. He chooses this Paris, this rain, this page.

Film moment: Declining the escape hatch, he accepts that now is where the work must be done—and where love must be chosen (or in the case of Inez, released).

5.) Contribution—standing by the work in public

Contribution begins with a clean no that makes a larger yes possible. Gil ends the engagement, commits to the novel, and takes small public steps that align with the life he wants.

Film moment: The simple, non-theatrical choices—staying in Paris, walking home in the rain—are contribution in action: ownership rather than apology.

IMH aside (Contribution): We hosted the first IMH with the support we had—not the approval we hoped for—published the replay, invited feedback, and set the next date. That is contribution: showing the work and letting it meet the world.

6.) Stewardship & Renewal—guard the conditions, begin again

To keep faith with the work, we protect the conditions that allow it: quiet walks, regular meditation sessions, better company, sane schedules, and deep rest. Renewal isn’t grand; it’s the morning after a brave decision when you begin again without fanfare.

Film moment: Gil chooses a simpler rhythm—fewer parties, more pages, a companionship that shares his tempo.

IMH parallel: Connecting the above to my experience with the International Meditation Hour, alongside our TM teaching related activities and other endeavours, my task now is to set the quarterly cadence, keep my meditative rest as a non-negotiable, and build a modest team ritual (post-event debrief, reflection prompt, next-event lock-in). That’s stewardship that naturally renews momentum.

Bonus—Renewal

In reflecting on the movie when juxtaposed with the Model for Perpetual Growth and Progress, I am reminded of the T.S. Eliot poem Little Gidding and the passage:

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

In launching IMH, as well as navigating all that crosses my path, the real lessons are to always be willing to embrace the journey over the pull of a destination. To ever be both the internal and external explorer of the phenomenal world and the ideas that sustain it in an effort to first make things better—better for myself, my family, my community, the world, and the cause which I have the privilege to serve—that of advancing a discussion of Pure Consciousness for the benefit of all,

Why support flags (and what to do)

• Mirror effect: Your dream confronts others with their postponed courage. Expect distance or gentle ridicule; respond with kind specificity, not argument.

• Incentive conflict: People invested in your current role will prefer you remain reliable in their story. Set boundaries early, warmly, and firmly.

• Category error: When the work is interior (writing, research, transformational practice), outsiders can misread it as idleness. Share process, not just outcomes.

MPGP micro-strategies when support thins

• Call & Alignment: Write a 3–5 line “why” you can read before work sessions. Choose two allies to hear progress weekly. Think of the as your Mastermind in the tradition of Napoleon Hill.

• Practice: 90-day cadence: daily word count; weekly review; one outside read per month.

• Integration: Name the nostalgia and keep the discipline—“Yes, I love X era. Today I type.”

• Contribution: Publish on a cadence you can sustain (newsletter, short essays, conference proposals).

• Stewardship: Protect sleep, movement, and meditation; these are not frivolous luxuries but necessary fuel.

• Renewal: After each milestone, schedule a day of silence before committing to the next arc.

Perseverance is elegant, not loud

Gil’s bravery is almost pedestrian: he leaves the party, takes a walk, and keeps his appointment with midnight. Perseverance is rarely a speech; it is the habit of small, faithful acts repeated in the right direction until they matter. Neuroscience gives a straightforward account: repetition tunes attention and strengthens the circuits that carry it—prefrontal intention linking with basal-ganglia habit loops—so what we practise becomes what we prefer. Let us, then, choose life-affirming routines. In the MPGP, perseverance is the connective tissue between tiers; without it, insight never becomes integration. My task is to be faithful, not flashy.

Closing

The film closes its argument with a gentle paradox: the present can be golden the moment you work in it. The car at midnight may or may not arrive, but the desk at either 8:00 AM or noon is always there. Sit. Breathe. Begin. Besides, the work you produce today may serve as a motivating factor for some future soul seeking to follow their unconventional path. Let you work be a packet of knowledge for them to discover and be thereby inspired. They will need it. And when support wobbles, remember—wanting a golden age isn’t a vice; refusing to work until the age is golden is. The threshold is always the present—step over it.

Oh! And by the time the movie concluded, Emerson was gleeful over Paris architecture, the various literary and artistic luminaries depicted, as well as the music. Needless to say, we jokingly reminded him that at the start, he was less than pleased with the selection. His response, “Why are you guys bringing up old stuff?” We said in unison, “Dude?!” This kid.

Wanting a golden age isn’t a vice; refusing to work until the age is golden is. The threshold is always the present—step over it.

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Suggested Practice Box

Present-Tense Courage (2–3 minutes)

Before you begin: Sit comfortably, close the eyes, and let the breath ease.

Reflection Prompts

1. Name the Call (20s): In one line, write what you’re called to make next.

2. Align (20s): List three people whose voices truly get a vote. (Everyone else is kind noise.)

3. Choose the Act (60–90s): Pick one small faithful act for today (e.g., write 150 words, outline one section, send one invite, 20-min meditation).

4. Commit (10s): Say aloud: “I author my life in the present.” Open the eyes and begin.

5. Weekly refresh (optional): 10-minute check-in on Sunday: Which tier am I in (Call, Alignment, Practice, Integration, Contribution, Stewardship/Renewal)? What’s the next small act?

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About the Author

Dr. Baruti KMT-Sisouvong is a consciousness scholar, executive coach, and Certified Teacher of Transcendental Meditation® based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His work—spanning the Model for Perpetual Growth and Progress and the Seven Layers of Manifestation—explores how Pure Consciousness, neuroscience, and social-systems transformation intersect in the evolution of both the individual and society. Alongside his wife, Mina, he co-directs the Cambridge and Metropolitan Boston TM Program. He is the Host/Founder of International Meditation Hour (IMH), a quarterly gathering dedicated to experiencing the unifying power of silence. He writes from the conviction that the most important race is not between nations or machines, but between the conditioned mind and the awakening soul. They are the proud parents of four children. To learn more about him, visit: https://www.barutikmtsisouvong.com/.