Race car drivers want to drive race cars at 300 km/h on tracks. To win.

To achieve this, they need to know how to do other things: prepare physically, be mechanically savvy, build a network of partners, etc.

But a driver who only prepared physically, day after day, wouldn't become a driver: they'd become an athlete.

Another who was interested solely in mechanics would become a designer or mechanic.

As for the one who invests all their time in networking, they'll end up an agent or manager.

You must never lose sight of the goal.

What you do now is what you'll do later. Preparation can become your entire life.

The whole game is finding a way to do it now, even when conditions don't seem right.

I couldn't find the original source (even though I searched for at least 30 seconds), so I'm telling you from memory.

It was a music critic who was talking about a new track:

"Anyone eating alphabet soup would shit better lyrics to a better tune."

Which begs the question: how many people eat alphabet soup and shit out works of art without ever knowing it?

In the "everyone knew except me" series, subsection "pretty song about birds but actually not," I give you Barbara's L'Aigle Noir, which is actually about the incest she experienced as a child.

A friend mentioned it in passing, so I went to check.

The lyrics take on a whole different meaning.

My god.

A music video I absolutely love shot by Camille Tardieu in a single take during this year's Off Courts festival:

The musician is Édouard Pons (who composed the music for my film Migrul, also shot at Off Courts this year). And the video is directed and animated by Camille Tardieu, who makes amazing stuff.

When I wake up in the morning, I don't know.

I have things to do ("what"), like everyone else, but I have no idea how I'm going to go about it.

And I think that's the secret.

Obligations are like contracts made with the outside world: we commit to a result.

But we're entirely free on the manner and form.

So every morning, I take stock. What emotions are present? What desires? What's the weather like outside? What is this day telling us? What occurrences spontaneously manifest?

We identify these disparate ingredients and then invent a recipe that didn't exist the day before.

Ignorance is key to the process.

Without a pre-established plan, we have no choice but to open our eyes, improvise, dance with what arises.

Otherwise, why get up? Isn't that what life is all about?

"If you know exactly what you're going to do, what's the point of doing it?" – Pablo Picasso

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Related:

• It (re)starts today
• Controlling Is Resisting
• Some days I'll struggle

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Three or four of my daily videos did really well on Instagram and BOOM: my followers more than doubled in just a few days.

I was happy to reach 2500 followers but I was at 4000 two days later.

It feels like when several videos went viral on TikTok earlier this year: I couldn't put my phone down without coming back to 99+ notifications. Right now, I'm gaining followers every minute.

What's nice: it's my most sincere videos that perform best, the ones where I expressed something I truly believe. I must be starting to find "my people."

Obviously, it's on Instagram. So it's bad. I'm starting to think about alternatives.

UPDATE : 5200 the following morning 😯

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Related:

• One video per day (again)

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I enjoyed the first podcast with Cory Doctorow so much that I listened to a second one : "Capitalism ruins everything".

It covers much of the same ground as the previous podcast, with a particular focus on mergers and acquisitions that give rise to giants, effectively becoming de facto monopolies.

Here are a few new ideas that stood out to me:

• The "chickenization," which describes the horizontal and vertical integration of certain industries, based on the model of chicken farmers : the large agribusiness corporation tells them what breed to raise, how to feed them, how to organize their space, what time to turn the lights on and off... The farmers have no power. Without knowing it, they can be part of an "experiment" : overnight, the chickens die. For the farmer, it's a tragedy; for the corporation, it's a data point to gain even more control.
• When buyers consolidate to form large corporations, sellers have no choice but to do the same to compete, creating even less choice for the end consumer.
• Amazon lost $100 million in one month by giving away free baby diapers... to sink a competitor that had launched a diaper delivery service. A cautionary tale for all entrepreneurs.
• Individual artist copyrights are not enough to protect them from large corporations where the negotiating power is too unbalanced. Collective rights seem to be a better path.
• Even though Microsoft won its 2001 antitrust trial, Bill Gates's deposition was devastating for him and his company. The punishment is the process, not the outcome. For this reason, most large corporations prefer to settle. Despite this, it's necessary to find more immediate solutions than lawsuits that can sometimes take decades.
• Just because there is no map doesn't mean there is no path. Sometimes you have to navigate by sight to find the openings: that is the foundation of hope.

This guy, Cory Doctorow, a former science fiction author turned activist, is fascinating. I'm going to follow his work more closely.

Tired, a bit rushed, so I'm looking to throw something together quickly for this blog.

Maybe an old video? Something from the archives?

Then I remember:

If I cut corners here, I'll cut corners afterward. Then again after that. And soon enough, the entire day will be done half-heartedly.

Do, or don't do. But if you do, do it right.

Take the time to ask yourself: what do I really want to say? What comes naturally?

It doesn't need to be long, or clever. Only true.

It's my experience that one thing done right, sincerely, all the way through, pulls everything else along and can change the course of a day.

The dishes. A drawing. A blog post.

And there we are, reconnected.

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Related:

• The Accumulation Trap
• You Write Too Much

I'm restarting my "Today" document.

It's a short note on my phone that I read every morning.

It contains:

• What I do each day if possible (meditation, mini-workout, daily video, post for ChezFilms) with advice or an idea if needed.
• Long-term directions: ideas to implement regularly regarding presence, social life, creativity.
• A few short-term ideas and reminders, for work or ongoing projects for example.

There's no point accumulating notes if they're not being used. In this sense, the "Today" note is a way of communicating with myself. I keep everything in it that seems important and that I don't want to let myself forget.

It's a very short, living note that I update regularly: what remains has been polished through multiple readings and rewrites, and is therefore generally very strong and very clear. New ideas are added from time to time—which either stand the test of time or don't.

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Related:

• Taking notes to move forward

It happened to me for the first time the day before lockdown.

I'd been meditating for two years and that morning, almost by accident, I stopped the voice in my head.

No more inner chatter, no more constant judgment, no more anxious rumination. Silence.

I was stunned.

It had surely happened to me before but this was the first time I noticed it—and that it lasted. I could maintain this silence.

I spent the day wandering the streets, exploring this new way of experiencing things.

So it's possible to interact with the world without a little voice judging everything? It's possible to look at an object without hearing "I like it or I don't"? To choose the next direction without verbal deliberation? To make a decision without the verdict of an inner judgment?

Exploring further, I understood that verbal thought wasn't the source of action. It's not what "thinks out loud (in your head) to make a decision." Decisions are made elsewhere. It only comments.

And it's perfectly possible (desirable?) to live without this commentary.