Big Boredom

This week I read (I underlined) :

A UK wide survey reveals the extent to which the younger generation feel disillusioned, with the MAJORITY (89 percent) of 16-29 year olds, claiming their life lacks purpose or meaning.

Then I learned about three French guys this summer :

• A Franco-Canadian man, a 44-year-old musician, died after being attacked by a grizzly bear in a remote area of Canada last week. He was surprised by the animal in his sleep. He was travelling along the Mackenzie River to record sounds of nature for a musical project.
• The adventure of an “eco-adventurer” originating from northern France and living in Toronto, which was supposed to last more than two months, ended tragically during the second stage of his crossing of Canada by bike and kayak.
• The body of a French hiker, 27, who disappeared in Italy after making an emergency call 10 days ago has been found in a ravine near Naples. He made a plea for help on 9 August, saying he had fallen down a cliff and broken both legs while walking in south-west Italy.

 

Then this :

Antidepressant usage has increase almost 400% over the past few years. 23% of women in their 40s and 50s take antidepressants. Women are 2 1/2 times more likely to take an antidepressant than men. Antidepressant usage does not vary by income level.

In other words, it’s safe to say there’s a health, happiness, and antidepressant prescription epidemic going on in USA. Why are people so miserable? Or why are antidepressant medications on the rise?

 

 

Then, I found this chart :

 

Today :

Jessi Combs, famed racer, skilled fabricator, lover of all things automotive, and the “fastest woman on four wheels,” as reportedly died while attempting to set a new land speed record in Oregon. She was just 36 years old. 

 

So this is slowly becoming : what’s happening?

I asked friends, who all agree. In the old ages, we human beings struggled to survive, then (and also), we were constantly working. But today is the days of… more free time. Then how do you live? I wondered once :

https://afrenchtoolbox.wordpress.com/2016/12/29/hey-how-do-you-keep-yourself-together/

Cuddling, reading, sex, alcohol, drugs, sports, art, work, friends, thinking, religion.

You can google “how to live” or “live to the fullest”, you’ll find things possible (“know yourself”, “be moderate”) and hard to find cursors (“be curious”, “set goals”, “laugh”) when you feel this lack of “purpose & meaning”.

 

Voilà. I worry too much for my human sisters & brothers. Too much empathy, I bet.

What did you choose, between the big families?

1. Evasion, with pills, alcohol or drugs?
2. Engagement, with politics or religion, rules?
3. Moderation, with culture, knowledge, watching the world?
4. Pushing limits, with speed, danger, exploration?

 

 

JP

 

#change #motivation

 

 

2 Lists about Motivation

Motivation? Cool!

WHY do we do things? HOW do we motivate people (at school, at work)?

There are books about that, don’t worry. Today I give you two lists around the concept, extracted from a new French book.

ONE

In human sciences, psychology or even pedagogy, the concept of motivation is often ignored or despised. Because :

1. Denial : Motivation is a useless artificial concept invented to describe states one can’t explain.
2. Indifference : The idea of “something makes us act” is an evidence, but what could we do with that?
3. Resignation : Pessimistically – “you’re motivated or you’re not, that’s all”.
4. Incantation : Optimistically, but the same thing – we’re motivated by a mysterious “energy” which automatically push people into action.

I find so funny and great to list reasons why people are NOT motivated to study a concept like motivation!

And I wonder where we could use this list of “We don’t, because…”.

TWO

In another part of this Preface, I found a list of Old Big Systems (like Structuralism, Marxism, etc…) which, in the XXth Century, studied our concept.

Our citizen, our subject was studied these ways :

1. The Subject-Habitus, poor one, is alienated by his existence, his social class, his position in culture and economy, he is the propensity guy.
2. The Subject-Pulsion, the happy idiot, is the puppet of his complex unconscious subconscious.
3. The Subject-Response, a behaviorist, just reacts to stimulations from his environment, he is conditioned.
4. The Subject-Demiurge, a humanist tending to fulfill himself in his all-empowered freedoooommm.
5. The Subject-Arbitrator, the haecceitist, aware that all his life is a combination of changes and possibilities, whose plays with intentions, proposition, emotions, thinking, obligations and goals. He is the co-author of his own story.

We didn’t even talk about the Theory of Motivation in itself. Maybe later?

Thanks for reading!

“Untriggered by assessments” : What does the photographer want?

I just had a good conversation with F. L. Larkins, an English photographer, after an article I wrote about her work.

Fiona Louise Larkins, English photographer

I subsequently updated my article, and I realized it was a good way to introduce another text about the photographer’s motivations.

It made me think, watched more pictures. There’s something I know : if I see a silhouette walking in the misty woods, or someone watching absently through a window (when it rains -> droplets on the glass), I don’t fall for it. I never fall for it. I just smile and I click away.

I see “the author wants me to notice it is a melancholic moment“. Like Nathalie Sarraute in literature, I disbelieve, I’m in assessment mode, I’m bored.

If I see lovers under an umbrella I smile “it’s cute, they’re in love and luck, right?”. But… No.

(though I love to be with my lover under an umbrella, listening to the subtle sounds of the rain on it)

So what does the photographer want? To testify of something? To fake happiness (like often on Instagram)? To gently mock the craziness of the world (Martin Parr)? To resolve a picture (Stephen Shore)? To have an audience, interest? To “express” oneself? To denounce?

You can make this exercize : watch your own Instagram, then watch the Instagrammers you follow.

Who do I love?

• triciaetlea : humanism and sense of the frame.
• jazzy_jeff57 : modestly shows the world.
• mariakdolores : adorably sarcastic.
• mariadelsur : shows Paris.
• studioriquois : haunting landscapes of the North.
• ninas982 : splendid atmospheres with no people.
• natela_grigalashvili : people from Georgia.
• johngiannatos : sparky human lover.

 

And many others. Diversity of motivations! But none of them give me instructions on how I must feel. Openness, subtleties.

I want to raise an eyebrow, to smile, or to have the desire to know the woman or the man behind the cam. Not to be “guided”. The audience triggers what he wants or needs or dream to see. Every single artist/viewer is a free thinker and a great soul. When sparks sparkle : Thank you!!

 

Thanks for reading!

(sorry for my English)

 

 

 

What is Happiness really? – The Flow & Autotelic persons – #Csikszentmihalyi

This little article is just made of things I found on the web. It’s made for people who never heard about the “Flow”. I added a little complement with Autotelism…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)

 

Mister Csikszentmihalyi is an Hungarian psychologist. He was interested in happiness, and found out a very curious thing : one is happy when one is… busy.

The components of this happiness are :

1. challenge-skill balance
2. merging of action and awareness
3. clarity of goals
4. immediate and unambiguous feedback
5. concentration on the task at hand
6. paradox of control
7. transformation of time
8. loss of self-consciousness
9. autotelic experience

 

For this last word, I copy paste wiki :

The autotelic personality is one in which a person performs acts because they are intrinsically rewarding, rather than to achieve external goals. Csikszentmihalyi describes the autotelic personality as a trait possessed by individuals who can learn to enjoy situations that most other people would find miserable. Research has shown that aspects associated with the autotelic personality include curiosity, persistence, and humility.

 

People who have experienced flow, describe the following feelings:

1. Completely involved in what we are doing – focused, concentrated.
2. A sense of ecstasy – of being outside everyday reality.
3. Great inner clarity – knowing what needs to be done, and how well we are doing.
4. Knowing that the activity is doable – that our skills are adequate to the task.
5. A sense of serenity – no worries about oneself, and a feeling of growing beyond the boundaries of the ego.
6. Timelessness – thoroughly focused on the present, hours seem to pass by the minute.
7. Intrinsic motivation – whatever produces flow becomes it own reward.

 

You can find this when you flirt, when you blog, when you videogame, when you… work. Sometimes you have to think back about it when you ask yourself about happiness. It’s a way to show that it can be reached with(in) yourself…

 

Have a nice day!

 

Backwards Propaganda

I have a good example : advertising of radio. It’s so bad, so wrong, so ridiculous that you facepalm and promise yourself to never buy it. EVER.

You’re in a big store and there’s a “commercial announcement” in the loudspeakers. But the voice hesitates and makes mistakes : a disaster. And it goes on, for days, weeks and months. Flee!

It’s almost all the same for propaganda. When the audience is aware (and that’s not too difficult with this mess : big statements, systematic criticism of the “enemy”, exaggeration of successes), all you reap is inner sarcasms, facepalms and rolling eyes.

So yes, the audience is this “You can’t be THAT stupid, right?” state.

There are entire books of jokes “under communism”, and they are hilarious.

Where else are we confronted today to this overboring crap? Companies slogan? Ads?

Propaganda SAYS something about the propagandist. What is it? What do you do about that? Run away? Indifference? As if enthusiasm if you have to? Inner LOLs?

 

Thanks for reading!

 

 

 

 

#Management : Why the HECK would you want to have an homogeneous team??

Management is funny to study. You’ll find shelves of books to read about that in every good bookstore. So it stays a mystery why we note so many stupid ideas in all hierarchies…

One of the great GREATEST Stupid Idea EVER is the will, from a manager, to have an homogeneous team.

All teachers in the world know that kids have different kinds of intelligence. Some are visual, others need words, etc. It’s the SAME for adults, silly!

You are a manager. You have a team. NOBODY is like the other one. Some are fast, but muddled, others are slow and precise. Some like to talk, others to think, some are one-task, others are multi. Some guys know how to sell, others are great organizers. Some are clumsy but clever, other are dexterous but dumb as dead maggots.

Let people be who they are! USE who they are. Encourage them! They’re good! The LAST thing you should ask people is to follow the same dumb goal. We’re all different, and if you ask people to be the same and get the same objective, you’re just a fool.

Nevertheless, it’s something you’ll see for more centuries. Managers’ stupidity is bottomless. C’est la life, dear. Just facepalm, there’s nothing much more to do here.

Thanks for reading!

 

 

Demotivating Motivational Quotes

Motivation quotes are so great, fresh, energetic and so simple that you wonder “why you didn’t do it before”…

“Who you surround yourself with is who you will become”. Awwweee! That makes sense, using people like chess pawns, and considering the others like dusty useless boring people – who slow your path towards your “goals”. Problem is of course you have to know… before you surround. You need magic, then. Surround with a wizard first. I wonder what I should think of lonely people, too.

You need discipline, because “Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment”. This is beautiful and I’m almost crying. Problem is you don’t have this discipline (are you able to not eat this chocolate slab?), life is complex, your goals are moving, your uncertainty quotient has ups and downs, and you need a glass of wine.

“Love the sound of your feet walking away from things not meant for you” (and people, I suppose). Well, if you’re a X-Men, that’s great, because you know in advance what is meant for you, right? This way, you avoid “what is not meant”, but also “what could mean” for you one day, but do you care, really? Nope, but think of “NOT walking away from things not meant for you”. What could you discover?

“Stop seeking approval” is really fantastic, thank you I’m cured! But of course everybody’s seeking approval, even those lying liars who dared to write this. They craaaave likes, and followers, they want, like everyone of us, to be loved. Or maybe your a Hygge robot, you live with a chair, a flower and a fork, and you’d NEVER blog about that, because approval seekers are weak persons, losing their goal. Which I’ll never reach because I seek approval a LOT, and I’m not Hygge, but more in Hug needing. Have some?

“Your only limit is you”, but nahh, not true. Limits are veryeverywhere (I just invented this word, my only limit is me, see?). Laws, society, approval seeking, budget, world, incompetence, betrayals, weather too. Weather is important, oui? I like this one too : “I can and I will”. No you won’t. Okey, maybeeee…

“Don’t stop when you are tired, stop when you’re done”. Just hope you won’t have a car accident in between (yaaaawn). Come on! Get a nap, you deserve it, John.

Well, you can have fun with these for days. Just Google “motivation quotes”. Endless.

Last but no least, “Old ways won’t open new doors”. Errr. Eff… That’s pretty true, right?

Merci !

JP

…or “demotivation quotes”, make you think and are funnier :

Stalking Curses & Sisyphus’s like Loneliness : Chronicle 5

I already wrote a little article about this question : Why do people blog? Why do people post on Instagram? It was a long list of hypothesis, but at the end, I bet that people post to be loved. I read this week that the worse thing for depression is Instagram (because, as I guessed well, people often want to show to the world that they are “very happy, blessed by life and in love”, which makes the viewers jealous or at least a bit depressed because themselves are obviously NOT that happy, right?).

You click a hashtag, randomly, and you see billions of pictures. Why do people post on Instagram? The key word is “motivation”. Some take pictures and post them to :

• Get followers
• Share their work
• Meet people with same interests
• Indicate to others how happy and blessed they are
• Show how interesting they are
• Make people laugh
• Show their “beauty”
• Reveal beautiful places they visit
• Indicate they are in couple, in love
• Indicate they are sad, alone, or tired
• Put a stalker in pain
• Show their artistic talent
• Show their project

Etc! One good question is :

When you post something somewhere, are you aware of your audience, or do you work only for yourself, your happiness?

…

I watched Paterson and I immediatly thought about another movie : Dead Zone : Christopher Walken is in coma for many years after a car accident. His wife remarry. Then he wakes up. His loneliness is then unbelievable (and the actor fantastic at it). It’s a world of ice. And he has a power to see the future…

Paterson (Adam Driver) is terrible alone too, but it’s VERY different. He has a beautiful young wife, a job (he’s a bus driver), some friends in a bar, and he writes poems. He’s quiet, modest in a modest life – he doesn’t talk much about his poems (though he continuously meets other people – a rapper, a little girl, a japanese man – interested in poetry). He writes in his bus, while he has lunch, in his basement. Nobody reads his poems. He sees struggling people around him (two young men lost with flirting, a colleague and his numerous family problems, a broken-hearted black man in the bar) and stays impassive and calm, benevolent. Idem with his girlfriend (who is a sweet dreamer, a dabbler artist). We all see he is not really connected, to anybody. He just goes on with his life, quietly putting words in his little booklet…

Walken and Driver are standing up. They are the loneliest characters I’ve seen ever (well, apart from Tennessee Williams’ plays). Both find something to do, though. They find their “mission”. The first one leads to drama (it’s from a Stephen King novel, after all). The second one is revealing a “way of being in the world” : being there without being very concerned (cf Inside Sidestepping) or affected. It talks about Sisyphus and about the Waldgänger, too…

It broke me heart, yesterday night, like a Chekhov or a Carver short story can do…

Slide, mortals, don’t bear down

 

Thanks for reading! Have a great week-end!

PATERSON_D29_0219.ARW

 

(I love this little dances of words too : Walken and Driver/Driver plays a bus driver/Paterson lives in Paterson, New Jersey/etc)

 

 

 

 

Fecundity of Limits

If you’re a creative person, you encountered the “Fecundity of Limits” concept, obviously. Fruition. I’d distinguish :

1. the limits you choose yourself
2. the limits given to you by someone in charge
3. the limits you encounter while you’re building your stuff.

Choosing your own limits is such… a pleasure. It’s about preparing your work. Paint something with 3 colors only. Write a book in a month. Travel, but no more than 5 miles a day.

Limits coming as instructions can be a relief. Many actors talk about the freedom you have while you have to obey strict orders. It’s about unfolding inside a frame : perfect for certain personalities.

The limits you encounter are parts of the building process. Your technical shortfalls is a good example. You then move forward “within” your capacities – trying maybe to push them back. The budget can be a limit. You’ll discover the others while you work : It’s a stream, a current!

Tool : Choose, change them, ask someone for limits (as seeds), think about them while your create, and then… forget your feedback : you’re in the flow, a good one!

Thanks for reading! Work well! Travaillez bien !

Working with what you have… today

When I was 25 I complained to a friend of mine who was 40, a painter. I was composing music slowly and in a bitter way because I was missing instruments, equipment, etc. I had a Macintosh, a mic, a synth, a reverb and a flute.

In art or life, sometimes we feel stuck, therefore we don’t do anything, because we “miss something”, we don’t have enough of this or that : we just wait, bored like a lonely koala in the taiga.

So we just “watch a goal”, a state or a line where, at last, we will be able to begin.

THEN we will have enough time, enough money, enough energy to do it!

I will… paint, compose, be happy, invent, write, blog, learn, the day I will have this or that, blah blah blah…

This is procrastination, laziness & threnody. Sometimes it’s useful to wait, though…

My friend told me I was silly, and, as a painter, that if she only had a pen and paper she would work. “Do something with your flute and your keyboard, instead of complaining, silly!”.

Okey. Watch around. Pick up a tool. Begin. To begin : begin, as they say. Now. That’s true!

…unless you don’t work for another reason, using this syndrome to do nothing. Rhoooo this is baaaad!

Bonne journée!

Instagram : taranewton1

Wishes, Willpower, Drive : the “I want to eat the world” state

The “I want to eat the world” state is a strange disease. I think we all cross this state at different parts of our life :

• When you’re a teen.
• When you’re about 20 years old.
• When you really fall in love for the first time.
• When you ineffectively want to express something through art or writing.
• In midlife crisis after you watched your life and said “Now what?”.
• Under intense boredom.

You feel FILLED of energy, wishes, willpower, drive, but there’s also a huge frustration.

This frustration comes from a powerlessness, an incapacity to find a way to unfoldblossom this strength. You want to eat the world, but how?

Because :

• You have the drive but not the purpose or the goal.
• You have the drive but not strength enough (or any more).
• You have the drive but you’re stuck in the cages of your own life.
• You don’t have enough time, or money, or anything : you lack.
• You never find where to apply this energy.
• Everything you try fails.
• Your heart is burnt to the ground and your tired.
• You feel you’d need some help, but you get zero.
• I boils inside without any apparent way out for this steam.

So what now what? Well, nothing! Either you find, or not. Try ways to explore, to steampipework something. Begin things and watch. Ask around you. Invent goals for this energy.

If it fails, well, just watch and feel it boiling inside. That’s the acceptorian oriental way…

Thanks for reading!

Instagram : bodylanguage

 

 

 

 

Seeking Approval as a source of energy?

Just google “seeking approval” to discover what you already know : this is baaad, and shame on you!

To be a normal adult shouldn’t be about doing things “just to get approved”, right? Nevertheless, some of us… do what they can.

Many Internet activities use this seek of approval motivation we all have in us, from the Facebook “likes” to the number-of-followers you are happy to have on Instagram, or on your blog.

OK, this is bad and childish and narcissistic, but it’s also incurable, deal with it! Therefore what can you do? Use it, and try to keep a little dignity. Keep your seekness invisible, or you’ll look like a duck-face “love my selfie” chick…

Seeking approval can be a source of motivation. If you work well partly because of this need, good for you! Be guilty, but not too much. Voilà!

But…

What’s the best : a bunch of thoughtless empty “likes” from unknown people, or one smartcunning criticism from an intelligent person you love? 

Thanks for reading! Follow my blog 🙂

Instagram : noamfrost

 

 

 

What doesn’t kill you makes you str… No it kills you! #Nietzsche

Nietzsche wrote “That which does not kill us, makes us stronger”, ain’t it… satisfying?

In action movies, it’s a strong frowned eyebrows phrase, and then let’s go fight the evil evilness!

In a self-help book, it’s more like a hidden injunction. “You suffer? OK! But not too long, please! Now stand up and move forward”, you’ll heal, blah blah and triple blah.

In reality, what doesn’t kill you… leaves deep scars, lets you feel miserable for a long time, puts your game all puzzled down on the ground. You’re done, bawl a bit and all.

But, aaaaall right. Stand up. It did not kill you, right? One more scar, it’s charming. Weaker maybe, you’ll hide it. You’ll find a way, and will do your best. I hope so!

Amor Fati, because you have too.

Thanks for reading!

The Sylvia Plath syndrome is about #writing

When I read the Sylvia Plath diary, I was constantly irritated and I wondered why. Then I clicked :

Because she always and absolutely wanted to write a book… instead of writing.

So I invented the “Sylvia Plath syndrome”, it’s when a person absolutely wants to publish a book and barely never writes.

One possibility is that one day the book is there, the axis disappeared immediately : it leaves this person completely indifferent, and sick. We could call this the “So what” disillusion. This needs another article, right?

Tool :

Shut up, et cessez donc de vous plaindre ! Don’t complain about you can’t write, or it’s not the place, or it’s not the moment : write! Now! You go girl (and boy)!

Have a nice day!

Instagram : g.inevra_void

“What are amulets?” – Don’t expect salvation from an external principle

What are talimans, amulets? Don’t expect salvation from an external principle

This intriguing assertion comes from Friedrich Georg Jünger, Ernst Jünger’s brother. It’s like a warning against a useless tool.

And apart from medical issues maybe, I like to keep it in mind. If you want to stop smoking for example, you can use patches or pills or therapy or whatever, but the solution comes from you : discipline. The rest is nothing. You’re in charge. Take care.

Thanks for reading!

Instagram : tombeeducamion

“Biases to Pieces” – when life goes wrong, do something unusual – #change

When something goes wrong in our lives, we try to find solutions, we meet people or therapists, we try to entertain, we read, we think, we cry, et cetera.

There’s also this oblique tool : do something unusual. Change something, hair, paths, house, habits, anything. Dare, and be a little more casual. Breathe a new air, open unusual windows. This is a beginning. It can work, or not. So what?

If you know how to wait, your “charge” will inflate up until you’ll explode into a solution. This is where you will be able to say afterwards : “I can’t even recognize my own soul”, which is another way to say “What did I do?”. So what??

Whatever! : change was urgent, and needed.

Tools :

Stay on you horse, let go the reins, and go faster. Let the horse choose.

Your need to be disturbed is there, and it’s HUGE. Try disturbing paths. Push unknown doors. Walk forward in unknown places and ways.

Do the contrary. Love the guy you don’t love. Choose the opposite. Say no to your yesses and yes to your nos. Try random. Be crazy. Quit. Don’t explain. Shut up and move. Search for your fears and attack them. Slam the door to reason’s face and listen to your guts. Find your wolf inside (or your dark parrot). Take your biases to pieces. Burn your bridges. Or not. Or for a moment. Step inside, step back, breathe back home. Push nugget-risks inside the grey. Find your explosives. Use them where you never did. Bam.

Merci ! Thanks for reading!

 

Instagram : thejohnnysmith

Why do you blog? The mess of #motivation theories – #blogging

Ah that good question it is, “Why do you blog?”. You can pick another one if you want : Why to you run? Why do you paint? Why do you shop? Why do you have sex?

I use it as a pretext to write about Motivation Theories, which are a whole messy basket of attempts to explain why I do something.

Why do you blog? Well, it depends…

• You want to grow, to accomplish something
• You want new competences
• You want to meet people, affiliation
• You need to express yourself
• You believe in it
• You need more self-esteem
• You want money, or a job
• You want power, you want to influence people
• You want to be rewarded, posititive feedbacks, recognition
• You want to impress someone, or a group
• You want to be heard, you want readers, followers
• You think it’s a way to gain something else, to enter something
• It’s interesting
• You fear something, like punishment
• You need a goal, a discipline, a frame, to push yourself
• You are pulled, or triggered by something, orders for example
• You need schedules, to be driven by something
• You need to be busy, tasks
• You need to forget something else
• You want to reduce something 
• Expectancy
• You want to meet your future husband or your wife
• Motivation needs to become words and expression
• You want or need to explain yourself
• You search something and you find it little by little
• You need to be productive, to produce something, to have results
• You like numbers, statistics, you count visitors, likes, followers
• You’re drunk

If you want to find more, Google “Motivation“, that’s really funny to dig. At the end, I found one day a single way to express this mess (your reason you blog is a melting cheese of reasons, right?) that could be the ultimate height of social motivation :

You blog, because you want to be loved

Thanks for reading!

The Importance of rumunchewminating #Drafts in #WordPress #Blogging

 

Bonjour !

Someone one day explained me WordPress and its tools (thanks, dear). I needed time to notice, though, that instead of writing my blog ideas on a notebook, I could use the DRAFTS. As I’m writing this, I have… 86 drafts. Sometimes it’s just a Title, sometimes it’s a whole article… without the last sparkle or the binder that would allow me to publish it.

For “Draft”, we say “Brouillon” in French (and oh I already guess this word will be a total mess to pronunce for you), which implies a sheaf of meanings.

A draft is a draft. If a person is muddled, we also say “he is draft” (il est brouillon), which makes sense. You could say this person is drafty, but I just discovered it means “uncomfortably breezy”, how sad. I love your “drafted” or “draftee” words, though. OK.

Drafts are like external little brains or memories. I suggest you read over a few of them, from time to time, putting back some of their seeds in your mind, in a useful Le Corbusier Effect. Your brain will rumunchewminate them like a little cow it is.

Sometimes a draft will stay sleepy for months. One good morning though, you’ll open it, add a paragraph and bingo, idea deedee, une idée ! The whole package disembarks and you can click on “Publish”. How come?

Another day of brain-silence, try this : go down to your last and 110th draft, open it, add something, a word, two lines. If it doesn’t unfold, close it back, that’s all. Next! Make them climb back up!

Have a nice day. Thanks for reading!

 

Fighting Quotes part 1 : Game for your Mind

It’s a game, an exercise. It’s a tool to think, to invent, to move your mind.

Go on Google Images and type a word, then “quote”. Chose inspiring subjects, like Desire, Love, Inspiration, Flowers, Choice or Change. Voilà. You’ll find plenty of easy quotes. These are the seeds.

I already did this exercise with Nietzsche about music. “Without the music life would be a mistake”, hahaha. This is so… OK, whatever. See my point.

I pick “Desire”. Desire Quote. Or better : “Motivational Quotes”. These are good!

“Desire, the starting point of all achievement”. Well said, buddy! Could be the contrary, the starting point of all failure, no? What to they want us to think?

“There are two ways to get enough. One is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less”. Hmmmm? What does the author want, again?

OK, let’s go on.

“Believe in yourself”, which is typical stupid “positive” psychology, right? Who will suddenly believe in oneself after reading this?

“A comfort zone : nothing ever grows here”, ah yeah? Why not?

Appreciate these three quotes together :

Tools :

Try to find what does the author want. Try to write the quote-contrary, the opposite view. Try to find the stupidity, and the truth too, in each quote. Try too separate the “idea” in many more concepts (life is always more complicated, blablabla), like an exploding sheaf of ideas. What else?

 

Tools of the mind become burdens when the environment which made them necessary does not exist anymore

 

 

 

What about the “Ahh screw it!” moment?

In French, we say “Merde !” in three ways (probably more, but, well…).

• Like you, when a sudden bad thing happen : “Sh*t!”.
• But also, when we say “Oh et puis merde !”, “Oh and then sh*t!”, it means “F*ck it!” or “Screw it!”.
• “Break a leg!”.

This is high level linguistics and translation skills, right?

“Screw it!”, in English, seems to contain a negative quality : “I don’t care, do whatever you want, I don’t give it a worry”. In French it’s the same, we would say “Oh et puis merde” after someone refuses our help for too long. “Naaaah forget it!”.

But ALSO it’s a way to smile and stand up. Acceptance. Stopping resistance (which was perhaps idiot). “Oh et puis merde” is a good thing, a way to let something pass, to let go, to accept an evidence, to stop being so cautious, too, it’s an opening, maybe risky, but right. It contains : “I stand up and I go for it. After all, it’s probably the choice to make”. And in English? Tell me…

There’s a pack of questions here. What happened? What triggered the button? What was the “waiting” made of? What kind of movement is initiated by the moment? Etc.

This moment is great. THIS second when you give up to your own rules and decisions and you jump into life, instead. This only moment could be the subject of a whole pack of short stories, right?

Oh et puis merde ! Let’s do it !

Thanks for reading!