Nicolas Boulenger

That's what my character keeps saying in the film I just shot at Off Courts.

It's also what several friends told me after the screening. A triumph.

The secret? I gave it away in this video several days before the shoot. At that point, I had no idea what I was going to do. I was lost.

And I decided that was fine. That I was going to let go completely.

I wouldn't worry about the result, or about anything. I'd let it come.

It's a way of working I've already brought into several parts of my life, and into an earlier film in particular, but never this far.

I'm not aiming at anything anymore. I'm not controlling anything. I'll make the film events push me to make, and that will be fine.

Then, on the morning of the session I was due to shoot in, I met my guardian angels.

I didn't go looking for them. They sat down next to me and offered to help.

And they're the ones who made the film.

Without them, nothing would have happened.

If I had chosen to "take charge", to "put a team together" and to "find the right people" in order to "do what I had in mind", I wouldn't have pulled off a quarter of what we did together.

Of course, I "directed". The story comes in part from me.

But I could never have expressed myself like that without being surrounded by that efficiency and that kindness. And that, I didn't choose. I had nothing to do with it.

So yes, I made a film, sort of. But actually, no. It made itself.

My only job was to let it happen.

Watch the film here.

My technique works.

When people tell me "I subscribed to your newsletter and I'm not getting anything", instead of admitting the truth (I haven't sent any), I go on the offensive:

"Is your email set up correctly? Did you sign up for the right list? Does your annual income exceed a certain threshold? Do you really deserve to receive my newsletter?"

Because, you see, from watching the powerful of this world, I've figured something out:

Success is built on other people's guilt.

It's very hard to manipulate people who never question their right to exist on this planet.

So you have to start by planting a doubt.

Here are the steps I've identified in the champions of the field:

1. Start by inventing an obligation or a standard. It doesn't have to be justified, as long as it's almost impossible to meet.
2. Repeat it on a loop, by every means available, over a long period. If you have access to media outlets, all the better.
3. When you need to control someone, show them how they're in violation of this very important standard you made up.
4. Use the resulting guilt to make them do what you want.
5. Enjoy.

It works fast on the most fragile – the poor, the sad, the ones who don't fit in.

Once you have those on board, you can use peer pressure to bring in the rest.

That's why, to maximize my hold over you, dear reader, I invite you to answer this short survey, which will tell me about your main insecurities so I can manipulate you better.

(No need to reply by email, just speak your answers out loud: this message comes with an AI device that listens and interprets your answers automatically.)

Back-to-school survey

I often find it hard to speak freely because...

Have you noticed that your life is more or less organized like this:

1. You pass judgment on a situation, positive or negative,
2. You put a plan in place to fix that situation,
3. Did your plan fail or succeed? Back to step 1.

Where's the harm, you might ask?

After all, it's a self-correcting process: with each iteration, things get a little better. So why not organize ourselves this way?

Two things bother me.

First, step 2 is unconscious.

By that I mean that during the execution phase, we're not present.

Instead of being available to the world and to whatever comes up, our eyes are fixed on the objective.

But that objective is a concept. It's a view of the world built in the past. One that's still relevant – or not. Achievable – or not. In our best interest – who knows?

It's an intellectual decision, based on a judgment (step 1), that takes precedence over the present. Following the objective becomes more important than following the flow.

"But we can adjust," you'll say. "If we see we're heading in the wrong direction, we can always change objectives."

Can we, really? Either way, it's frowned upon.

Someone who changes objectives too often is seen as ineffective, inconsistent, unreliable. Weak. "They can't handle obstacles." "They give up too fast." "They can't see a mission through."

Our society values those who pursue the objective in spite of the present. Those who stay the course despite the warning signs. Despite the alarms, despite the crises, despite the deaths. ("A real leader.")

That's why, when we fail, we're often pushed to question step 2 – and that's the second thing that bothers me:

We blame ourselves for doing it badly, for poor execution, for not being strong enough, brave enough, persistent enough. It's our fault.

Whereas for me, the devil is in step 1:

In the judgment. In the intention. In the desire for control.

If my life has gotten better over the past 7 years, it's because I've worked on that step.

I still judge (of course), but less. And not the same things anymore. And as my judgment began to change, so did my actions.

By accepting more, we put an end to certain hollow crusades. We spend less time in our heads, straining toward an imaginary future, and more time here and now.

We agree to trust the present and whatever arises naturally.

"Succeeding" and "failing" lose a little of their authority over our lives.

And honestly, it's restful.

If you're not doing exactly what you want with your life, something is wrong.

Of course, emergencies happen.

Three days, three months or three years where you have to grind it out. Handling money, family, health. That's normal.

But too often, the emergency becomes the long term.

The fix you put in place to survive becomes the direction.

The odd job becomes the career.

The temporary support becomes the life partner.

The illness becomes the identity.

The temporary emergency becomes the permanent excuse.

Out of weakness? Out of conformity? Out of comfort?

No: because deep down, we don't know what we want.

We've gotten used to saying yes or no to whatever we're offered.

To being happy or unhappy about whatever comes our way.

To updating the routine and calling it change.

But building something new, from nothing, from the inside?

That's very rare.

And I'm not talking about entrepreneurship. Most entrepreneurs are following a template too.

This isn't about money or success either.

Not about making a living, not about finding love, not about changing the world.

What is it about, exactly?

That's the real question. The starting point.

If you could do whatever you wanted, what would your life be about?

Or, more honestly:

Since you haven't found that yet, what are you going to put in place to build it?

Spoiler alert: thinking won't be enough. This isn't an intellectual decision.

You'll have to find it in action.

So what's your plan?

You're not free two days a week or five weeks a year.

You're not free only when there's nothing in your calendar.

You're not free just at the beginning or the end of a life.

You don't wait to be free.

Either you're free all the time, at every moment, or you never are.

"I have to finish this, and then I'll be free."

No.

If circumstances are keeping you from being free, freedom isn't what you're looking for: it's permission.

Being free can't hinge on outside circumstances – by definition.

It's an inner decision. Recognizing a state you're already in.

It's choosing to drop the illusion that you're not free.

It's a decision you can make at any moment.

It takes no effort, no preparation.

It's instant, effective immediately.

It's performative: making it is enough.

It costs nothing, to anyone.

So go ahead. Now.

If you wait a second, you'll wait your whole life.

To keep it short: I no longer care about technical quality.

Like a lot of photographers and filmmakers, I used to worry a great deal about "preserving image quality".

You shoot in "log" or in "raw", at full resolution, to keep as much room as possible for post-production. That's where the real decisions get made.

Now I decide everything as I shoot, with no way to change it later.

Format, color, framing: all of it is locked in on the spot. I don't retouch a thing.

Then when I get home, I delete 98% of the photos straight away. Immediately, no agonizing.

Even the ones I used to keep because they were "not bad".

Either I feel a pull I can't explain, or it goes.

And yes, that means I've given up film. I think I was shooting it out of snobbery.

Let's be honest, I loved the results. The grain, the character. The nobility of film.

These days, the only thing I care about is the process.

Spontaneity. Deciding on the spot. The irreversible choice that captures the emotion of one exact moment.

So much of what I used to do was built on the fear of regret. Keeping everything "just in case". And in the end, it just piled up. For nothing.

I don't want to pile things up anymore.

After three days of this, I've already learned things about my own taste that decades of raw and film never showed me.

I'm not a fan of photos of people – even when I catch a beautiful moment. Nor much of landscapes.

What I like is material, texture. Corners crammed with detail, dense and rich, with a bit of light here and there.

That's the central question of what I'm exploring in photography right now, but also of everything else I'm building at the moment:

"What do I actually like?"

Image made with "Grigne".

First: AI.

My policy is this: I use AI to build tools, not content.

So for programming, now and then.

For example: I used Claude Code to write the scripts that feed this site. (I write my notes in Obsidian and they sync live.) More on that later.

But now that the site is running, I don't need AI anymore.

Another example: AI helps me code my generative art program (called "Grigne"). More on that later too – it's been a hobby of mine for a long time.

But once the program runs, no more AI.

So: heavy use while I build the tool – a few weeks – then hardly any the rest of the time.

(Yes, I'm still conflicted about this. Feel free to yell at me in the comments.)

But I never use AI to write text or make images.

Not that I haven't tried.

Several times I wanted to see whether Claude could help me write. The things that bore me, for example.

And I found that no, not at all. It doesn't even make sense.

Because this is how my life works now:

• Either I write something I enjoy, that only I can do and that I have no wish to hand off. The activity itself is the pleasure.
• Or I don't write.

Same for images.

The pleasure is in making the drawings, in taking the photos.

Little by little, I've removed from my life (personal and professional) any need to produce content I wouldn't want to make myself.

It's never necessary.

It's actually the main reason I stopped doing video production.

(In all honesty, I bent this rule for my web series Panic in Space! At first I made every background by hand in Blender. Then I caved at the end, when Midjourney got good enough to help.)

I'm not throwing stones at anyone who works differently, of course.

But personally, if you write to me or send me a drawing, I prefer it short, personal and imperfect. Otherwise, no promises.

I've also changed how I approach photography. That's for tomorrow.

I used to want "the best" whenever I bought equipment.

The best notebook, the best camera, the best instrument.

Technical quality looked like the foundation I would build my practice on. ("A good workman has good tools.")

With the idea that if I didn't go for the best, I'd regret it sooner or later.

"If I make a masterpiece on a poor technical medium, it might never get the career it deserves!"

And technique wasn't only about equipment: it was about mastery too.

No drawing until I'd learned the basics of perspective, anatomy, color theory...

In other words: I was creating for an imaginary audience that would judge the result. On purely technical grounds.

That audience exists, of course.

It's the audience of teachers, judges and critics.

All the people who suffered through technical training for too long to let anyone else off lightly.

But when you create for them, you end up dodging a far more important question:

"Do I like it?"

This line, this story, this image... do I like it?

Can I set technical correctness aside and simply notice whether... I feel something? A pull? A joy?

Once you start building your work around that question, everything changes.

Technique is no longer the foundation. It's a consequence.

Equipment and know-how are no longer painful prerequisites. They're extensions of the gesture.

I learn because I love it. I practice because I enjoy the doing.

Knowing full well that if I share this work, some people will criticize it.

But others will enjoy it.

And those others are my audience.

Strange light on the beach yesterday.

I think there are two kinds of suffering.

The first comes from "acts of God".

Everything outside our control: accidents, illness, loss, disasters large and small.

Some say we should call that "pain" instead, precisely because there's nothing to be done about it.

To set it apart from the "suffering" we create for ourselves:

The extra layer of misery, entirely optional, that we inflict on ourselves without noticing.

It builds slowly. It piles up.

And I believe its main cause is this:

Not expressing who we are.

Every time we act against ourselves. Every time we let the intellect take over and overrule what our "deeper self" wants.

Every time we don't follow joy.

Yes, yes: it isn't always easy.

Sometimes we mistake joy for pleasure, for desire, for wanting.

Sometimes we're sure joy has it wrong and that intelligence is "the voice of reason".

When that happens, the backlash usually doesn't come right away. For a while, we can tell ourselves "we did the right thing".

But over time, these departures from joy add up.

In the end, they build the identity we keep propping up and that weighs us down.

They're behind the morning anxiety. Behind our hesitation when the answer is obvious.

They paralyze pure action and trap us inside our heads.

The only long-term cure:

Act according to your nature.

Express who you are.

Follow joy.

I built this interactive timeline for two reasons:

1. To get a sense of our place on Earth. On the geological scale, humans arrived so recently that our presence is barely visible. And yet so much has happened over the last millennium, the last century... even within my own lifetime! I tried to reconcile these two scales with an exponential zoom that lets you move from one to the other with a swipe of the finger. The result floored me.
2. To answer the people who say "the climate has always changed, this is nothing new!" That was my original goal. To get a clearer picture of why we're in this mess by looking at how atmospheric CO2 has evolved. And unfortunately, it's very, very clear.

Click the little square in the top right to go fullscreen, then drag the slider to zoom out through time ⬇️

Interactive timeline: geological time scale and CO₂ concentration.

On the geological scale, did you notice:

1. Before us (the Cenozoic), and before the dinosaurs (the Mesozoic), came an even longer period (the Paleozoic) when life suddenly exploded (the "Cambrian explosion"), then 90% of species vanished.
2. The first eon, the Hadean, when the planet was molten, looks short. But it lasts as long as the Phanerozoic – the era of "visible life".
3. It's called that because fossils finally become visible in it; at first, geologists thought it marked the beginning of life itself. Then we realized the first life forms were much, much older.

On CO2, you can see:

1. The famous "hockey stick" graph: CO2 spiking in the industrial era, whether you go back 1,000 years or 10,000. That's what has everyone worried.
2. You have to go back around 10 million years to find a comparable CO2 level (where the red dotted line, marking today's level, crosses the graph).

Unlike my previous experiment, which I hand-coded, this exploration was vibe-coded with Claude Code: the code was generated step by step, across a dozen or so versions that are public and visible on github.com.

The data comes from the International Chronostratigraphic Chart (ICS, v2024/12) via the Macrostrat API.

I think that's the goal.

Society pushes us to be all kinds of things:

Family, work, friends, hobbies, vacations…

As if we switched personalities each time.

And each personality has its own rules and goals.

"When I'm with family, I always want…"
"In a professional setting, you must never…"
"On vacation, it's out of the question to…"

Nowhere can we be fully ourselves.

Everywhere, we have to hide something. Or pretend.

And I think this way of living is counterproductive.

It diminishes us everywhere. In our private life as much as in public. It keeps us from finding our mission and fulfilling ourselves.

The main gap, for me, was between my personal accounts, where I talk about alignment and presence, and my professional accounts, where I talk about narrative strategy.

The two are deeply connected, of course.

But for a long time I was afraid of coming across as a "charlatan" to my professional clients, and as a "salesman" to my personal followers.

I was stuck.

But over the past months, weeks – and especially the past few days – everything is merging.

Presence. Alignment. Freedom. Speech. Communication. Private life. Work. Mission.

I see how every aspect is necessary at the same time to help the people I work with. And to be myself.

Above all, I see that the clients and followers who only wanted one part of me, without the rest, no longer have a place in my life.

I can say it with certainty now that I've met so many people who accept me whole.

One thing, though: these people didn't appear on their own.

They came into my life when I started showing up as who I am.

That was the beginning of the work.

It's what I hear a lot of people say in the comments when I talk about presence, the future, or habits:

"You have to find a balance."

Sounds reasonable, doesn't it?

Taking the idea on board without going to extremes – who could argue with that?

Me! I think it's the wrong approach.

It's the cheap way out. The refuge of the lazy, of anyone unwilling to question themselves.

When a new idea comes along, and you realize it matters, the goal isn't to go 50/50 with the old one.

"I discovered that killing was wrong, so I found a balance: 50% genocide, 50% gardening." That doesn't work.

It's often an excuse to hold on to your most toxic old behaviors without changing what matters most.

If an idea changes everything, you have to let it change everything.

By that I mean: you have to do the work of following what it implies, in your life, in your behavior, in your daily routine.

You have to accept that it works its way into every corner and, in the end, transforms everything.

Yes, it can take time.

No, it doesn't happen overnight.

Yes, in the meantime, you'll pass through all sorts of intermediate balances between the person you were and the one you're becoming.

But these intermediate balances aren't the result.

Nor the goal.

When you're steering toward a light on the horizon, you don't stop at its reflection in the puddle at your feet.

You look into the distance. You set off without knowing the way.

And the adventure begins.

Click the words to reveal your day, then download your image. They mustn't overlap or touch the edge!

Yes, I coded this myself. No, not "vibe-coded".

I typed every line myself to learn JavaScript. Yes, with help from Claude when I had syntax questions, since it's a new language for me.

The goal isn't to make New Age mini-games – even if that's always fun.

For a while now, I've wanted to dig deeper into certain subjects: analyze the data myself, understand what the papers don't say.

Then build clear visual representations to share my point of view.

At first, I wanted to do this with the languages I already knew (C, Python, Lisp, etc.).

Then I realized the value of a language that was instantly shareable. One that lets you create animations and interactions right in a browser, with nothing for anyone to install or download.

That's the real power of JavaScript.

Publishing a chart is good.

But when the visitor can read the original data, interact with the chart, and make the experience their own immediately, that changes everything.

Oops, I did it again! A second "podcast", longer this time.

(French only again, sorry.)

The note-taking software I mention in the video is Obsidian.

It's free. All your notes are very light text files on your own computer (→ no need to be online, you can work on the train) but they can still be synced across your devices (I pay the €4/month subscription to support them because I love what they do).

The big advantage is that you can create links between notes, a bit like on Wikipedia. And there are plenty of plugins to handle your calendar, your tasks and make everything look nice.

Markdown is a way to add titles, subtitles, links, images (...) while keeping a text file that weighs nothing and can be opened by any software.

It changed my life, I recommend it.

Anyway, this is my second podcast episode.

I haven't listened to it but... I'm happy with it. I had a lot of fun making it.

And if you have a topic or a question you'd like me to answer...

Ask me.

I watch videos by Hank Green, an American YouTuber who talks about social issues.

I like him. He's at his desk. He talks naturally, with real involvement. The video is edited to cut the dead air.

It looks simple to do.

I think to myself, "I'd like to do the same thing."

I fire up OBS (software for filming yourself). A light.

I record to run a technical test.

I talk a bit to test the sound.

I end up talking for 18 minutes.

I post it on YouTube without editing:

I happen to be talking about improvisation (and old age, god knows why).

Honestly, I didn't even watch it to the end.

I watched the beginning. I thought it was pretty good. With one or two slightly laboured bits.

But never mind, it'll do.

I don't know if it's a one-off test or the start of something.

We'll see.

I recently wrote a note saying that, one way or another, all your obligations will sort themselves out by magic.

Do I really believe that? Yes. Really.

But it still takes work.

That's the part that can be hard to grasp.

We expect magic to work... like magic. You wave a wand and "poof", it happens.

But no. Work is required. That's what separates it from "magical thinking".

Magical thinking is hoping something will happen just because you want it badly enough. With no personal investment.

It's an approach I sometimes see in entrepreneurs who are stuck spinning their wheels:

The idea that their business will take off one day, just like that, without them changing anything. That the gears will unstick themselves. That one morning, what didn't work the day before will work for no reason.

Often, they're inspired by other entrepreneurs who supposedly took off that way, overnight. "By luck". So why not them?

Except it's never luck.

I've now worked with enough people to say this without a shred of doubt:

Luck, like magic, requires work.

It's prepared, learned, put in place.

Enough books have been written on "making your own luck": the entrepreneur who spends their time where opportunities live isn't "lucky" when they seize one. It's the reward for a long stretch of work that no one else saw.

Same goes for magic.

Saying "Abracadabra" at the last moment isn't enough.

You have to have let go of a certain kind of control beforehand.

You have to have made some room, inside and out.

You have to have accepted walking a path you can't see.

You have to have made yourself available to the dance, the play, the present moment.

And accepted that you're part of something bigger than yourself.

Otherwise, magic doesn't happen.

Or worse: it does.

But you don't see it.

I've known it exists for a long time, but yesterday I managed to put it into words clearly for the first time.

Let's say you often get angry. And you'd like to be less so. (But this also works with sadness, fear, jealousy, etc.)

Why not give meditation a try? It's supposed to be calming, right?

So you get started. With or without an app. Every day, you set aside some time to meditate.

Waiting for the moment when you'll no longer get angry.

But when, after several weeks or months of effort, you find yourself in exactly the same place, you go see the local guru who, if he's worth his salt, will reveal to you that...

It never stood a chance of working.

Really? But... aren't there plenty of people who've calmed down thanks to meditation? Why isn't it working for me?

Because of the paradox of spirituality.

Which could be put this way:

To meditate is to accept.

And indeed, when you fully accept an emotion, it tends to disappear. Or at least to show up differently.

Unless that was your goal from the start.

In other words:

If you fully accept your anger, it will tend to disappear... unless that was your aim!

Which actually makes perfect sense.

Because if your aim was to make it disappear, then the acceptance wasn't sincere. It was a tool, a façade.

You were pretending – sometimes without realizing it.

And yet it's the peace you make with the emotion that neutralizes it.

But you never wanted peace. Not really.

You wanted to get rid of it.

Instead of welcoming it.

And integrating it.

Being present means being fully immersed in the moment.

It means being curious about whatever arises right now.

It means being entirely absorbed in the task at hand.

But also: it means letting the present evolve.

What I'm doing now turns naturally into what I do next, without my having to decide anything at all.

Ah! There's the catch.

Because if I have an obligation in an hour, then I can't let the present unfold freely.

Some of the things I could set in motion aren't compatible with my upcoming appointments and tasks.

So I have to embrace the present... while filtering what it offers me. "This, yes. That, no. That one, no time."

These decisions bring thinking back into the moment.

We're no longer surfing. We're judging, planning ahead.

And there we are, back in our heads.

So how do you do it?

It's very simple. Here's the solution:

Every truly important obligation will get done in the future by magic.

And there you go! Problem solved!

You just had to think of it.

Not convinced?

It works, though.

And if you don't believe in magic, let's call it faith.

It starts like this:

I don't need to carry my future obligations on my back, like a perpetual weight.

I don't need to reverse-plan my day (and my life!) all the way back to the present moment.

I can simply do what I'm doing now. Dive fully into the action unfolding, without thinking about the rest.

By giving up all control, I set myself on a new path.

This path isn't visible. It reveals itself as I go.

But it passes through every important point of my day.

It ticks every box that matters.

The ones I planned for. And the ones I don't know about.

I'm not saying it's easy, mind you.

When you're used to controlling everything, planning everything, it's frightening.

Especially since there's no way to reassure yourself intellectually. It has nothing to do with intelligence.

It's a matter of faith. Of freedom. Of trust.

But as far as I can tell, it works.

So instead of letting your obligations overwhelm and control you, do this:

Stop everything. Sit with yourself for a moment.

Close your eyes.

Take a deep breath.

Let the present unfold.

Then, calmly, repeat after me:

Abracadabra.

This is the subject of my (short) talk this afternoon at the Ateliers d'Art de France general assembly.

Here's the outline:

1. Learning to manage anxiety without solving your problems

Problems will never stop. Never!

A bit like the "end of history" we were promised after the fall of the Soviet Union.

"Nothing stands in the way of peace anymore!"
"The economy will flourish!"
"The dictatorships will fall!"

Yeah, right.

Same in life: problems never disappear.

They transform, they renew themselves.

Not to mention the ultimate problem we're all heading toward.

So if you're waiting until everything's solved to feel better... you'll be waiting a long time.

The game, then, is to find peace despite the problems.

Without looking for the one action that will fix everything. It doesn't exist.

2. Emotions are manufactured inside. Then projected outside.

"He's annoying me!"
"She's wearing me out!"
"This situation is stressing me out."

We talk as if emotions were created by the people and events around us.

Yes: the outside world can act as a trigger.

But the emotion itself is always manufactured inside.

It comes from us, it's created within us.

But we don't want it, so we project.

"It's their fault! It's society! It's the system! It's my ex! It's the corner of this table!"

But by externalizing the emotion, by pinning it on someone else, we deprive ourselves of the main lever we have to manage it.

Because we can manage the inside. Not the outside.

3. The body is the notebook of thought

Thoughts are immaterial. They pass. They slip away.

It's the famous "train of thought" racing ahead through association.

Cheese. Milk. Cow. Normandy. The D-Day landings. Saving Private Ryan. Spielberg. E.T. Planet... Wait, what?

Emotions, on the other hand, are felt in the body.

The knot in your stomach. The throat tightening. The short breath.

They have a longer half-life than thoughts. An emotion isn't instantly replaced by the next one. It lasts.

That's why our brain, when it perceives an important, worrying, dangerous idea... attaches an emotion to it.

Thoughts scroll by at full speed when suddenly... you feel a knot in your stomach. That stays.

"Oh, right... I haven't solved that problem."

The emotion anchors the thought that was about to slip away.

But sometimes the opposite happens: the emotion creates the thought.

The knot in your stomach is already there – because you ate too much fat the night before – and the brain looks for the problematic thought.

When it can't find one: it takes the first one it finds. Or it simply invents one.

Anxiety is created out of nothing.

4. What matters is never intellectual. The trap of logic.

The first reflex might be to manage emotions through thought.

In my experience, that's rarely a good lead.

Because despite the credit we give it, reasoned thought is often a poor decision-making tool.

For plenty of reasons:

• Logic is common to everyone. It doesn't account for what makes you specific.
• It relies on the very narrow context you give it. If you forget a key element from your childhood, or an unspoken preference, the reasoning falls apart.
• It handles the exponential nature of certain factors poorly. In a pros-and-cons column, you don't realize the third line is 100,000 times more important than the others and counts as much as the whole table.

That's why we sometimes resist ideas that look good "on paper."

The logic is infallible, the answer is clear, and yet...

We pull back. We delay. We can't bring ourselves to it.

Because the body knows.

It remembers – even unconsciously – every significant element of our life. It knows the weight of each one.

It weighs all these factors at every decision.

Which doesn't always make it right, of course.

But its input must be taken into account.

5. The body, source of creation

That's why, recently, I changed my decision-making process.

I no longer think through problems intellectually.

I no longer weigh the pros and cons in two columns.

I no longer weight my options for the next action.

I expose myself to the facts. I feel the emotions. I absorb.

Then, when the moment comes, when it's time to choose...

I act.

The way you grab a glass off a table. The way you catch a ball.

No thinking. No anticipation. No regret.

The decision was made elsewhere, earlier.

In some corner I don't know about.

It's final.

And creates no anxiety.

The names of some big brands were built on brain farts.

They were thrown together from whatever objects were lying around the room, or from some dubious inside joke.

No outsider can make sense of them.

It has nothing to do with the brand.

From a distance, it isn't even funny.

And yet, it was a huge hit. For example:

• Adobe was the name of the creek behind the founder's house,
• Häagen-Dazs was invented from scratch to sound Danish (a language that doesn't even have an ä),
• Miramax is a blend of the Weinstein parents: Miriam and Max,
• Yahoo comes from the brutes in Gulliver's Travels, whom the founders identified with,
• Les 3 Suisses comes from the three daughters of Mr. Suis, the owner of the bistro next door.

You could call it unserious. A who-cares approach to naming.

I see it instead as the sign of a philosophy that, in some cases, can explain the success that followed.

Because to found a brand, you have to embody it.

It really is a birth.

You put a part of yourself into it that will then, you hope, bear fruit and grow out in the world.

Now, I've said this before: logic is common to everyone. Two and two make four, whoever you are.

So if you use logic to name your brand, you create a name others could have come up with.

Your own DNA, unique, inimitable, isn't in it.

Whereas by going with the brain fart, you do two things:

First, you pick a name no one else could find. Because it comes from a moment, a place, or a reference that exists only for you.

Second, it proves you've understood that everything counts.

That moment, that place, those people are worth no less than the rest.

That instant, that joke, that reference are worth no less because they don't rest on reasoning.

On the contrary. It happened. That day. That hour. Just as it was.

It came out of you. Without forcing. Without a filter.

It's a piece of your biography.

And that has value.

Period.

Now that confidence, that ability to step away from convention and own who you are in public, even when it's illogical, even when you know it will make sense to no one...

It's often the mark of people who go far.

I haven't found mine yet. But I'm moving forward.

I've always kept two social accounts:

• One where I'm exactly myself and talk about whatever I want, whenever I want,
• One where I'm selling something.

The progress of these past few years: what I sell is closely aligned with who I am.

I believe in it, I'm not forcing anything, and I meet people who fit me.

No part of me regrets doing it this way.

Quite the opposite: this is how I got closer to my truth, by digging both sides of the mountain at once, through both sides of the mountain.

I remain, however, very aware of what is not aligned.

On a scorching day like today, I see how my professional work stays powerless in the face of what truly matters.

Because I'm convinced another way of organizing things is possible.

One not built on the pursuit of profit, on unbridled ambition, on a headlong rush forward.

A way of organizing that doesn't back us into a corner.

And even if my professional work doesn't disserve my deepest beliefs, I have to admit:

It doesn't serve them, not yet.

I say not yet because it's in motion. I'm searching. I'm testing. I'm hopeful I'll get there.

Deep down, my core belief is this:

I'm not an economist. Not a politician. Not a researcher.

I tell stories.

That's no small thing: our world is made of stories.

It's our raw material, us humans.

And I'm convinced that the story we tell ourselves about who we are, about our nature, about our reason for being, is the main source of the obstacles we run into.

I'd like to take part in creating a better story.

That's what I do personally, in my own videos.

And what I do professionally, with my clients.

I'd like to bring the two together.

I'm working on it.

No change originates from the outside.

If an obstacle blocks your path and you step over it...

then you were capable of it.

The solution to the problem was already inside you. The inner resources were already available.

Is an obstacle you know how to overcome really an obstacle?

Or is it simply a step?

Difficult, annoying, a delay... but one you handle.

When you don't know how to get past the obstacle, though, that's another matter.

In that case, you have no choice:

You have to transform.

Set the metamorphosis in motion, to go from someone who can't solve the problem to someone who can.

So it really is inner work that's at play.

Even if it draws on the outside, on observation, on interaction, the ultimate goal is to change yourself.

Not the world. Not other people. Not the obstacle.

Yourself.

Tinkering with your inner engine to overcome the problem.

So, to answer the question: "How can we change things?".

Answer: we can't. Not directly.

We can only change ourselves.

Then let it happen.

I notice strong patterns among the people I coach:

• The work we choose is often deeply tied to our parents (I've talked about this before → linked note).
• We often try to reconcile personal impulses with professional constraints, which crystallize into "I wouldn't want a certain (very serious) person to stumble onto a certain (very personal) piece of content".
• And yet, underneath it all, a strong desire to come together. Under a single banner, a single story. To stop being different people for different people.

And among the solutions I suggest for creating this unity, there's one that keeps coming up:

Dig both sides of the mountain.

Part of you wants to be accepted.

By your friends, your colleagues, society.

That part is constantly searching for a balance between who you are and what's expected of you – or what you think is expected of you.

Of course, that's necessary. No one exists in isolation. ("No man is an island".)

But in doing so, you only dig one side of the mountain.

And God knows where that will take you.

To find inner coherence, you also have to dig the other side.

That means creating a space somewhere where you can be 100% yourself.

No filter. No calculation. No image to keep up.

A place where you can pour out whatever moves you, with no shaping, no mincing words, no coherence.

Public, if you can – I sometimes suggest creating an anonymous account at first.

Then, by digging on both sides, you'll eventually find yourself at the center.

A tunnel linking what is absolutely you to what society accepts – or what it needs.

A direct line between your heart and the world.

Between your roots and the sky.

One that will become the inexhaustible source of your action.

3-day workshop in October I'm launching my "Story, Presence and Content" workshop, with the first cohort at the end of October.

For experts and entrepreneurs:

I'm launching my "Story, Presence and Content" workshop, with the first cohort at the end of October.

It starts from a realization I've shared before:

Helping people build the right story isn't enough.

It sparks something, they get why it matters, but...

Often, they get stuck afterward.

When it's time to speak, to present, to make a video.

So for a while now, I've been building a very concrete part into my coaching where "we make things together".

We work the story into the way they speak and into their content.

That's when the real barriers show up: the old habits and old fears that come rushing back.

It's often the most important moment.

The story is no longer theoretical. We see how it gets told, how it plays out.

But above all: we produce the first piece of content together.

That's when it all makes sense, for them and for me.

For them: it speeds up a process that would probably have taken them months – assuming they don't give up along the way.

For me: it helps me see where the real resistance was. So I can help work around it.

This new way of working works so well that I'm turning it into a three-day workshop:

Day one: story. Day two: speaking. Day three: we make things.

I'm really excited to do this work as a group.

It's going to create a momentum effect, the kind that worked really well in last year's creative improv workshops.

And the others become your first audience.

The first cohort runs from October 29 to 31 in Trouville.

A relaxed, no-frills first edition.

If it works, I'll run a second one in January.

Find out more here.

My morning note I share and unpack the note I often read when I wake up. Very beatnik. But it speaks to me.

This is the note I often read when I wake up.

I rework it regularly.

I cut what no longer works or now feels obvious. I add what I've understood lately.

Fair warning: the current version is... "very beatnik".

Read quickly, it sounds like the kind of vaguely empty New Age lines you'd see over a sunset photo...

And yet I arrived at these phrasings after many iterations.

They speak to me.

So here's the whole note, then I'll go back through the passages to explain why it makes sense to me.

Today



In every moment, I follow my joy, my excitement and my instinct.



I never act out of fear, obligation or guilt.



I turn fear into joy, obligation into choice, guilt into compassion.



The past is a dream. The future a concept. I could be anyone in this moment.



I am always doing exactly what I should be doing.
I don't think about the next action. It comes.
I know that everything matters.



I watch my thoughts like a shepherd.
When I feel an attachment, I observe how it plays out in the body.



I am always immersed in a creative activity that is my point of contact with the world.



I don't justify myself. I explain nothing. I ask without reason.



I am surrounded by love, laughter and connection.



The world dances for me and through me.

I did warn you.

But let's go through it:

In every moment, I follow my joy, my excitement and my instinct.

This one I talk about all the time, here and in my videos. It's clear.

I never act out of fear, obligation or guilt.
I turn fear into joy, obligation into choice, guilt into compassion.

At first I only had the first line, but I realised it was too... generic. And a bit false.

So I added the recipe that goes with it:

Turning fear into joy: fear often comes from a misaligned belief. It's a signal, if you like. But if, instead of giving in to panic, you look for the belief causing the problem, examine it, even change it... the emotion transforms instantly. Fear and excitement are really two readings of the same thing.

Turning obligation into choice: because, honestly, we don't always have a choice! Work, family, health... But actually, we do. Far more than we think. At some point, if I act, it's because I chose to. So I always try to take a moment in presence to find the part of me that genuinely chooses. To see if I really agree with it.

Turning guilt into compassion: the most beatnik and the hardest! Often we blame ourselves. Or we blame others. Which is roughly the same thing: we think the world should be different. Finding love again means remembering that everyone in this world is doing the best they can – myself included. In other words: this reaction that strikes us as absurd is the best one they've found. Because we're imperfect, fallible and anxious. And that shared weakness should call for compassion rather than guilt.

The past is a dream. The future a concept. I could be anyone in this moment.

This is a foundation of meditation.

Only the present exists. The past exists only in memory. The future only in imagination.

So if I close my eyes and focus on the sensations, the sounds, what the body is doing... I can set aside who I am.

If I rely only on the birdsong I hear, I could be someone else. Somewhere else.

My identity only resurfaces the moment I choose to sustain it through my thoughts and my actions.

I am always doing exactly what I should be doing.
I don't think about the next action. It comes.
I know that everything matters.

Same here: I talk about this a lot right now.

See the related notes.

I watch my thoughts like a shepherd.
When I feel an attachment, I observe how it plays out in the body.

The shepherd image comes from the Buddha, I think.

Another foundation of meditation:

The goal isn't to suppress thoughts. They'll always be there. And we'll never control them.

But we can watch them, calmly.

Most of the time they wander. They pass.

But if a thought becomes too insistent, you handle it. Calmly too.

Not by setting another thought against it – that's where the chaos starts – but by looking for how it shows up in the body.

That was the subject of yesterday's note.

I am always immersed in a creative activity that is my point of contact with the world.

In other words: my activity comes from within.

I find what excites me, what I'm passionate about, I do it, and people join me in that activity.

Rather than letting the outside world choose.

I don't justify myself. I explain nothing. I ask without reason.

"Asking without reason" means not feeling the need to "convince" people.

You ask. If the person wants to, they do it. If not, they don't. No case to argue. Ever.

I am surrounded by love, laughter and connection.

That one seems clear enough.

Though I'll add: I don't want to be surrounded by "people". Or "friends". It's really love, laughter and connection that I'm after.

Which can happen with anyone.

The world dances for me and through me.

This one is both obvious and not so obvious.

"The world dances for me" is something you notice during meditation or in presence.

For example: you watch a leaf swaying in the wind.

Normally you don't think much of it. It's the wind, physics. No mystery there.

But when you step out of thought, out of the physical explanation, out of the usual interpretations...

You can feel a real connection with the leaf. With the movement. With the moment.

You get the feeling – completely unjustifiable from a rational standpoint – that this movement really is meant for you.

That it exists for you. Like a gift.

Then you realise you're not separate from that movement.

That you're part of it.

You are the leaf. The leaf is you.

A little matter and consciousness, in motion since forever.

That's the dance.

What often grates about personal development is the idea that you're supposed to become perfect.

Cut out your flaws, your idle moments, your little pleasures.

And if you can't manage it, you feel judged.

You picture the "enlightened" as having "dissolved their ego" and looking down on everyone.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The wise people I've met usually know their flaws better than anyone.

They're very, very aware of being imperfect.

So much so that they no longer hide, no longer lie to themselves.

Quite the opposite: their flaws opened the way. Imperfection isn't an obstacle, it's the path.

It's by diving into their slip-ups, their addictions, their failures that they find the material to move forward.

I notice it too, at my own modest level.

The day before yesterday, I completely let myself go.

I broke every one of my rules.

I wallowed in comfort and self-indulgence, to the extreme.

It's not the first time, mind you.

But here's what's different from before:

I didn't blame myself for a second.

I didn't try to correct my behavior even once.

I watched myself, as if from the outside, repeating my mantra:

"I'm doing exactly what I should be doing."

The key being: it's the same mantra as when everything's going well!

In other words: I'm no prouder of my good days than I am ashamed of my bad ones.

The Nicolas who does well isn't the real one.

The Nicolas who falters isn't a mistake to be fixed.

It's a continuum.

I need my strength and my compassion as much as my laziness and my anger.

If I ignore the bad, if I dress up failure, if I pretend, I stop moving forward.

So if one day I point to your anger, your greed, your slip-ups, it's not to make you feel guilty.

I have the same ones!

It's just that, with practice, I may have found a few techniques to put them to better use.

To turn them into fuel to move forward.

Which I try to share with you.

No doubt clumsily.

So don't take it the wrong way.

Probably the best way to detach from the future.

But I'm always stumped when someone asks me about it.

How do you meditate? I have no idea. It depends.

My own practice has changed a lot.

But if I had to pin down a few constants, whether stated outright or in the negative, here's what I'd say:

1. Meditation isn't prescriptive

There's no obligation, no goal to reach.

"I have to do this."
"I shouldn't feel that."
"I have to reach a certain state."

No: the whole point is to step out of goals and outside obligations.

There's nothing to do. Some will say you just have to "be".

But that's a bit too vague to be useful.

Here's how it can break down:

2. At the core: acceptance

Probably the most important part.

Taking in and accepting what's here, now.

In particular: the state you're in.

The goal isn't to be calmer, more detached.

The goal isn't to change your state.

But to become fully aware of it.

Not pushing away emotions or thoughts. Accepting them. Living them.

But I can see where you're going:

"Doesn't accepting then become... a goal? Haven't we just swapped one goal for another?"

For me, it's not a goal but a mechanic: something you do without expecting any result.

It happens in two steps:

3. Spotting and releasing attachments

Either I'm in the flow of the present:

Sensations, thoughts and emotions follow one another.

None of them stays long.

This short cycle keeps me available for whatever comes up now: the sound, the next thought, the ray of sunlight.

That's presence. Nothing more. A flow.

Or the same mental content gets stuck and keeps coming back.

A thought, an anxiety, an obligation.

Coming again and again between me and the present.

That's an attachment.

Normally, we try to get rid of it through action.

Solving the problem at its source, by acting.

In meditation, you notice it and accept it.

Knowing that, for me, accepting means:

4. Resting your attention on the body

You're sitting at a café table.

Have you noticed that, without moving, you could direct your attention to whichever part of the body you chose?

You can suddenly become aware of the tip of your foot. Your elbow. The top of your head. Your whole body.

(Which is rather magical when you think about it.)

For me, accepting a piece of mental content means directing my attention to how it shows up in the body.

Because attachments always have a physical manifestation.

A thought that isn't tied to a bodily sensation... passes.

So I never try to chase away the thought or the emotion.

I just rest my attention on the tension, the weight, the discomfort (...) in the body that goes with it.

I quietly watch it transform.

Without expecting any result.

5. Repeat

So my goal is never to feel better.

I simply become aware of the flow.

When the flow stops, I rest my attention on what's blocking it.

Not to solve the problem or unblock the situation.

But because, for me, that's what meditation is.

A mechanic. One that isn't aimed at a result.

And yet, in the end, it helps.

Because the thoughts that torment you day to day are probably reactive.

Without realizing it, you set them up yourself to avoid emotions that scare you.

By learning to accept, you stop avoiding.

And the anxiety engine eventually runs out of fuel.

Productive without pressure What does a day look like once you've "freed yourself from future obligations"?

What does a day look like once you've "freed yourself from future obligations"?

I'm not saying I've nailed it 100% – far from it.

And yet my days now are very different from my days a few years ago.

First: I'm very active. From morning to night.

Provided you're willing to file "meditation" under "active".

But that's one of the main features of my days: there's no more "real" or "fake" action.

No more work on one side and rest on the other.

There's only "doing". "Acting".

And meditating is doing too.

Each activity blends into the next.

Each morning usually starts in the same order: meditation, exercise, journaling.

Exercise is meditation continued through the body.

Journaling, meditation continued through the mind.

And from there, it never stops:

Writing, emails, editing, research, accounting, walking, rest.

No activity is forbidden, none is judged.

I do what I do, that's all.

Don't feel like it? Then I don't.

Feel like it? I do.

Had enough? I stop.

Tired? I sleep.

And yet: everything that needs doing gets done. The books are up to date. Deadlines are met.

And I'm much more productive than before.

Yes: the things I don't enjoy doing get done too.

How? A bit like magic.

When I don't feel like it, I don't. Then at some point, I do. Easily.

It all gets carried along in the flow.

And to set up this flow, here's the advice I'd give:

1. Don't judge the present action. I do what I do, and that's perfectly fine.
2. Don't plan the next action. It'll be decided naturally when the time comes.
3. Nothing comes? Do nothing. Stay calm. Accept the idleness. The right action will come on its own.
4. An activity keeps stalling? There's probably an alignment problem to look into.
5. And obligations? Appointments? Keep them, of course. But they get less bothersome over time.

In the end, I'm just giving the body (which includes the brain, mind you) more freedom to run life.

I'm not forcing it into some authoritarian, reductive logic.

I let it adapt to the real circumstances. Inner and outer.

And it's far better than me at handling everything.

UPDATE: Episode 7 of "Panic in Space" is out! Can the Bretons save the future?

That's what plenty of people replied to my video Freedom from the future.

"I'm going to empty my bank account!"
"I'm going to buy myself the latest PlayStation!"
"Does the taxman know about this theory?"

Some called me irresponsible.

That's because they didn't see the next video, where I tell everyone to "change nothing right away".

And didn't read my note Don't stop (the path to joy).

Or Your questions about action, goals and karma.

So let me sum up:

If your life is built on the stress of the future, chances are your pleasures are too.

Shopping, consumption, addictions...

None of it usually has anything to do with the joy I talk about so often and tell you to follow.

They're escapes.

When life isn't built on alignment, you have to make an effort all the time.

We justify that effort intellectually by the result:

"You've got to eat."
"You've got to earn a living."
"You can't live without money."

That justification is the keystone.

We don't much like it being questioned, since it's the main reason for all the effort we put in.

But to make up for that effort, you have to let go somewhere.

So we chase those pleasures. To relieve the pressure.

A drink. A cigarette. Buying clothes, games. Holidays.

And it's deeply unpleasant to be told you "should stop", that it's "not necessary", that it's "too expensive".

Precisely because we suffered to get it.

It's the only release valve allowed.

The only distraction in a life where everything is complicated.

So yes: if that's your situation, change nothing.

Don't take away the small pleasures that keep you going.

Don't dismantle the emergency measures you've put in place to survive.

Carry on. All of it.

But alongside that, five minutes a day, explore.

What if there really were a "joy" tied to nothing?

That requires buying nothing, going nowhere?

That you could bring up right here, right now, with no effort?

What would it look like for you?

An answer to that question, even a partial one, will transform you.

And once you're transformed, the changes will come on their own.

You can't pretend to be free.

If you have an appointment at 11 a.m. that you can't miss...

then there's no point meditating, relaxing, putting it all in perspective.

Well, there is: it can help you ease up a little.

But whatever the work, you'll still be facing that inner obligation, and it will create anxiety.

To free yourself from the anxiety, you have to free yourself from the obligation.

That's the only way.

Freeing yourself from the obligation doesn't mean not going.

It means acknowledging that you can't be certain of the future.

It means accepting that things might change between now and then, and that you'll take that into account.

It means realizing this appointment isn't that important.

Its importance rests on a story you've been telling yourself for weeks, for months. Maybe years. Maybe about yourself.

But it's still a story.

Because the material truth of things is this:

You can't predict the future.

You don't know what will be good for you later.

You're not bound to obey the demands of the past.

You can choose to. But it's still a choice.

You'll make that choice when the time comes, when you're there.

But in the meantime, I'm here and now.

I can make a statement of intent.

But I can't guarantee the future.

So we'll see.