Tabloid newspapers wouldn't exist if nobody bought them.

Fanatical TV hosts wouldn't stay on the air if they didn't represent anyone.

Corrupt politicians wouldn't rise to power if their rhetoric didn't resonate with a large portion of the population.

Getting angry at the figurehead means forgetting about the entire ship floating behind it – which didn't build itself by magic overnight.

Yes: it feels good to get angry, sometimes. And it's convenient to be able to focus your rage on the visible, obvious part of the problem. But by overlooking the underlying system, we only have a very partial understanding of the situation.

And we indirectly become part of the problem.

I now type relatively fast, around 70-80 words per minute, with good accuracy.

For someone who spends their time writing, it's quite handy: I can almost "dump my thoughts" onto the screen without looking at my fingers or falling behind.

The best site I've found for practice: keybr.com. It introduces letters one by one and allows you to practice with punctuation, capitals, etc.

My advice:

• Set it to French with capitals and punctuation.
• Don't try to go fast. The goal is accuracy. Stay above 95% accuracy with the right fingers.
• Don't look at your fingers. When in doubt, slow down.
• Ten to fifteen minutes a day.
• For variety, you also have 10fastfingers and Monkeytype.

It's quite a zen activity that clears the mind when you need to step back (from a text, from work...). I recommend it.

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Related:

• Why Go Fast (archive)

That's the million-dollar question.

For most of us, I can answer: we stress.

We think about what we should be doing. We accept a few hours or a few days of inactivity (what we call "rest"), but very quickly, if the inaction persists, guilt takes over.

We then trigger "reactive" action: the kind whose sole motivation is to silence the guilt.

We act "for the sake of acting," to avoid being seen as a slacker, to dissolve anxiety through movement.

People often joke that "if they could, they would do nothing, always on vacation!" But that's not true. Most would be unable to face the anxiety created by this void and would be back at work within the week.  Not out of financial need: out of internal and social pressure.

Thus, we always skip the most important step: idleness. The real kind. The kind that allows for introspection.

Keep doing nothing. Embrace the anxiety and guilt that rise up. Look them in the eye. Then watch them disappear quietly. Followed by a gentle sensation of emptiness. Then, when you least expect it...

Action. The real kind. The kind that builds something.

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Related:

• The 3 thoughts in your head (French video)
• What is reactivity and why it might not be good for you (archive)
• Under his Eye (archive)

Strangely enough, it's easier for me to make one video per day than one video per week.

In the first case, I get into a flow that makes the process easier and easier. Ideas flow freely, my workflow is well-oiled, my brain has internalized the deadline. Everything clicks.

Today, for instance, I'm almost five videos ahead. And I did it effortlessly.

Whereas with weekly videos... I forget. It becomes just another constraint on top of everything else. I never find the time.

I'd already noticed this counterintuitive link between time and productivity: sometimes, a more intense task is easier.

For example, when I'm procrastinating on work that bores me, I ask myself "could I get this done in fifteen minutes?" I'm not talking about some tiny task—no, I mean writing a report or editing a video, something that would normally take several days.

But my brain says "yes, let's do it in fifteen minutes!" and this unrealistic idea changes my relationship with the task. It suddenly seems more manageable, less daunting.

And easier to start. That's all that matters.

We picture a Buddhist monk sitting in lotus position in a quiet room with candles and running water.

In reality, you can meditate while walking through a construction site.

Meditation is simply bringing your attention to the present moment rather than to your thoughts.

Now, there's always something happening in the present. The sound of a car. The light from the sky. A breeze on your face. The sensation in your foot, in your torso, in your neck.

Like many people, I started meditating by focusing on my breathing.

We tell ourselves "easy"! But quickly, we realize we're bombarded with thoughts, ideas, anxieties. The game is to acknowledge their existence and greet them without letting ourselves be carried away.

And when a thought wins and we "wake up" after five minutes lost in our head, calmly return to breathing. This isn't a failure, quite the opposite.

It's this back-and-forth that builds presence, like a muscle we're working.

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Related links:

• Thinking Is Not The Solution
• What meditation changed for me
• Presence and Action (archive)

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I think I'm going to quit film photography.

Or rather: I notice that I'm not doing film photography anymore.

It's always been in waves but I think I'm tired of having to send (or bring) my rolls to Négatifs+ and having to pay for each development.

I still love the look and I find "film effects" a bit silly in digital. But anyway. We'll see.

--

Related in the archives:

• Colorized Film
• Analogue is Back!

This is the second time this week that I've been playing God.

But if we listen to Alan Watts, we're all God.

So this week, I keep mistaking myself for you.

You can expose yourself to everyone and still keep hiding:

• Behind technique: look at this beautiful lighting, this lovely set! They're the stars, not me!
   
• Behind a character: it's not me, it's the role! Look at this pretty mask (that has nothing to do with me).
   
• Behind humor: I'm here to make people laugh, my opinions don't matter! (Ha ha ha!)
   
• Behind usefulness: I'm only here to bring you something, pretend I don't exist!
   
• Behind work: I was told to speak here, it wasn't my choice!

Which one do you use the most?

Since nothing truly important is intellectual, criticism (or advice) based on logic should all be ignored.

Yet this person seems to mean well, what they're saying makes sense, and from that angle, their words appear to be in your best interest.

Except that your problem, at its source, isn't rational.

Problems are the outward manifestation of inner blocks to which only you hold the key. The path to solving them reveals itself when you take full responsibility.

This doesn't mean you shouldn't listen to anyone. Simply : don't listen to criticism "because it's constructive."

Listen to criticism because it resonates.

--

Related links:

• Thinking Isn't the Solution
• Two Ways to Solve Problems
• Efficiency Doesn't Make You Happy (French Instagram)

If you're going to spend time on social media, you might as well try to learn something.

I know: there's a good chance that these contributions from various strangers and influencers might be misguided.

Despite that, my process remains the same: for years, whenever I come across an idea that resonates, interests me, or challenges me, I jot it down (in Obsidian). Then I compile the ideas by broad topics, which I categorize into sub-categories.

Finally, I try to summarize all of this into one or two sentences that capture the essence of the topic.

For those interested, I'm sharing the "Sales & Marketing" note below, complete with summary and sources.

I haven't discovered anything fundamentally new, but the fact that I've reassembled it myself from different sources makes me feel like I've understood it better.

Hope this helps:

That's the title of my next book. For now, I only have the cover but I think it's badass:

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Now I just need to write the book.

We work in one direction. We fail. We give up.

We tell ourselves "this wasn't meant for me, I'd be better off focusing on what I know how to do."

But some machines aren't resilient. A single missing part, wire, or gear, and nothing works. It won't even start, like a device with a blown fuse.

So it's possible to build 80, 90, or even 99% of a machine and, because of one oversight, get 0% of the result. Dead in the water, as if we'd done nothing (or done everything wrong).

It's true: the last few percent are often the hardest to achieve. And many systems aren't linear: they either work or they don't, regardless of how close you are to the result.

That's why there are far fewer "overnight" successes than we imagine. In reality, the creator has been working on it for a long time. They were about to give up. But at the last moment, they thought "what if I replaced this fuse?"

And the machine roared to life.

Three well-chosen words pack more punch than a page of fluff.

Who are you trying to reassure with all that text?

Simplify.

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Related:

• The accumulation trap
• Build in Public (TikTok)

"A bug hotel is a device that aims to facilitate the survival of insects and arachnids, particularly in ecosystems where pollination and biodiversity are sought..."
– Wikipedia

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Guest reviews:

• "My room was full of bugs!" - 1/5
• "Terrible drafts everywhere." - 2/5
• "Couldn't find the bathroom." - 1/5
• "Very pleasant garden" - 4/5

You too can verify that climate warming isn't some big joke by looking near your home:

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A chart I produced as an exercise to learn how to use the Pandas library (for data processing) in Python (a programming language) from Météo-France's ten-day temperature data at Saint-Arnoult.

You can clearly see the quarter-degree per century increase that climatologists tell us about.

I had already posted it on social media, but I'm taking advantage of being able to publish longer notes to share the code below. If you want to check in your area too, here's how: