Nicolas Boulenger

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 come thick and fast, the process is well-oiled, my brain has internalized the deadline. Everything clicks.

Today, for instance, I'm almost five videos ahead. And it was a breeze.

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 a tiny task, no, I mean writing a report or revising an edit, 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 of a big deal.

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 getting hijacked.

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

It's this back-and-forth that builds presence, like a muscle you train.

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 had 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 started up at full power.

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

Who are you trying to reassure with all that text?

Simplify!

You too can check that global warming isn't one big hoax by looking at the data near you:

Global warming in Trouville-Deauville

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

You can clearly see the quarter-degree-per-century rise climatologists talk about.

I had already posted it on social media, but now that I can publish longer notes, I'm sharing the code below. If you want to check in your area too, here's how:

The steps are as follows:

1. If you don't have Python, install it.
2. Use Pip to download the Pandas (data), Matplotlib (charts), Seaborn (even prettier charts) and Scipy libraries.
3. Go download the ten-day data from Météo-France.
4. The Python code:

    # Importing necessary libraries
    import pandas as pd
    import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
    import seaborn as sns
    from scipy.stats import linregress

    # Reading the CSV file of ten-day data
    csv_file = "DECADQ_14_previous-1950-2023.csv.gz"
    df = pd.read_csv(csv_file, sep=";")

    # Converting the date column to datetime format
    df['AAAAMM'] = pd.to_datetime(df['AAAAMM'], format='%Y%m')

    # Filtering data for Saint-Gatien-des-Bois station
    df_sg = df.loc[df['NOM_USUEL'] == 'ST GATIEN DES B', ['AAAAMM', 'TM']]

    # Calculating monthly average temperatures
    df_sg_mensuel = df_sg.groupby(df_sg['AAAAMM']).mean()
    df_sg_mensuel.head()

    # Calculating 12-month rolling average (annual average)
    df_sg_mensuel['TM_MEAN'] = df_sg_mensuel['TM'].rolling(window=12).mean()
    # Preparing data for linear regression
    x_numeric = (df_sg_mensuel.index - df_sg_mensuel.index[0]).days / 365.25
    y_values = df_sg_mensuel['TM']

    # Calculating linear regression to identify the trend
    slope, intercept, r_value, p_value, std_err = linregress(x_numeric, y_values)
    df_sg_mensuel['TM_TENDANCE'] = (slope * x_numeric) + intercept

    # Creating the chart
    plt.figure(figsize=(10, 8))

    # Plotting monthly temperature (in light gray)
    sns.lineplot(x=df_sg_mensuel.index, y=df_sg_mensuel['TM'], 
    label='Monthly Temperature', color="grey", alpha=0.4)

    # Plotting annual average (blue curve)
    sns.lineplot(x=df_sg_mensuel.index, y=df_sg_mensuel['TM_MEAN'], 
    label='Annual Average', color='dodgerblue', linewidth=2.5)

    # Plotting warming trend (red dashed line)
    sns.lineplot(x=df_sg_mensuel.index, y=df_sg_mensuel['TM_TENDANCE'], 
    label=f'Linear Regression (+{slope*10:.2f}°C/decade)', 
    color='red', linestyle='--', linewidth=2.5)

    # Customizing the chart
    plt.title('Temperature at St Gatien des Bois (ten-day data)', fontsize=16)
    plt.xlabel('Years', fontsize=12)
    plt.ylabel('Temperature (°C)', fontsize=12)
    plt.grid(False)
    plt.show()

After the nasty feedback from my climate video, it doesn't hurt to double down.

As promised, I'm looking at my video stats less.

But a good way to tell when a video is doing well is when I get insulting comments.

My latest little joke about heatwaves and climate has already earned me three insults. Which means the video has spread beyond my tight circle of thoughtful, well-behaved viewers and spilled over to the people who watch Pascal Praud and Cyril Hanouna.

On social media, insults are a sign of success.

The mind seeks, finds, and solves problems.

That's its nature. It's all it knows how to do.

Say one day you find yourself on top of the mountain you've always wanted to climb. The view, the light, the temperature are perfect. It's the achievement of a lifetime. Your mind will whisper "Great... now what?"

It will find the flaw in your success. Make you long for the next peak that will be better. Already, you feel the anxiety of lack, dissatisfaction, desire.

You can't blame it: that's just its nature, I'm telling you! Analyze the situation, find the flaws, devise a plan... That's its job! That's why it exists!

Which makes it a terrible foundation for finding peace.

Don't get me wrong: thinking is a wonderful tool – one I'm using right now to write these lines. We put it to work to create, communicate, survive.

But if your goal is to be present and at peace: it's not the right tool at all.

Do you know how to set it down when you no longer need it?

When I have a problem, I have two ways to solve it:

1. Intellectually: I look for a solution. I weigh the pros and cons, I make lists, I put together a plan of action for the future to calm the anxiety in the present.
2. In presence: I look for the physical manifestation of this anxiety in my body. The knot in the stomach, the obsessive image, the vague obligation. Without chasing it away or holding onto it, I watch it change until it disappears.

Problems are a function of who we are.

By changing our inner dispositions, we transform our relationship to external circumstances. The problem that seemed insurmountable the second before vanishes.

The intellectual solution, on the other hand, often only shifts the difficulty. Once the first situation is resolved, a second one arises, just as problematic, because it comes out of the same crucible.

That's the trap of thinking: it solves problems, sometimes. But nine times out of ten, it creates them.

Which often makes it the wrong tool for growth.

If you catch yourself listing anything at all, you're probably on a slippery slope.

I see it in every field:

• In improv theater, we pile on jokes when we can't find the one that really lands.
• In sales, we pile on benefits when we haven't found the killer argument that convinces everyone.
• In interior design, we pile on trinkets when we haven't found the centerpiece that holds the room together.

I could go on and on.

What breaks the cycle? Stopping. Refocusing. Starting over from taste, from instinct.

All it takes is one strong idea, one genuine direction, one carefully chosen piece to stop the mediocrity machine and find your way back.

Just one. Take the time to find it.

Not a fan of cocktail parties / social events / meetups? Bad at networking? Good news.

Whether it's finding love, friends, or a collaborator, I now always use the same technique, and it has transformed how I deal with groups:

Start by talking to the first person next to you.

Right away. Whoever it is. About anything.

Don't scan the room for the ideal conversation partner. Don't filter by attraction or compatibility. Don't wait for a particular topic or common interests.

Dive into the conversation, then naturally continue with the "next first person" – if they haven't already joined the conversation. And so on.

Before you know it, the person you were looking for (sometimes unconsciously) will be right beside you. And you won't have to figure out what to say because, when you realize it's them, you'll already be in the middle of a conversation.

You're welcome.

We often feel that to get ahead, especially professionally, we have to pretend. Say the right words. Put on the right smiles. Hide our true thoughts.

But actually, no.

Your personal and professional success depends entirely on your ability to integrate who you really are into every aspect of your life.

It's the source of your inner peace. But also the source of your productivity, your value, and therefore your usefulness to others. No one will pay you very much for being just like everyone else.

The good news is that this can be learned. All the people you admire have at some point gone through these stages in one form or another:

1. Discovering who you are on your own. Seeing which outside gazes constantly weigh on you. Exploring and embracing your vision, your taste, your ambitions.
2. Learning to maintain this identity in public and under pressure. Developing strategies and safeguards so you don't conform and you keep your intrinsic value.

"Being yourself in a freakish environment, that's the real skill." – Conan O'Brien

This year, I led a weekly improv workshop that just had its first public performance.

People often tell me "I could never do that."

• I'm afraid to go on stage
• I'm not spontaneous enough
• I'm not funny enough

But this year I understood that improv actually has NOTHING to do with any of that.

You don't need to "be funny" or have a quick wit.

To build an unscripted story that captivates an audience, you just need to follow three simple rules:

1. Accept what your partner offers. Even if it's crazy or unexpected. If it's said, it's real. You start from there.
2. Build on that offer. You can't ignore it or go in another direction. You add YOUR brick on top of the one that was just laid down. (That's the famous "YES, AND...")

I added a third rule, the most important one for me:

1. Throw away the idea in your head. Before going on stage – or asking for a raise, or confronting a loved one – we often already know what we're going to say. We have a plan.

Next time, try this experiment: plan as much as you want, but at the last second, throw it all away. Enter the arena with an empty mind.

Three things will happen:

• You'll no longer be "in your head," so you'll actually be listening.
• You'll be surprised by your own reactions.
• You'll feel more alive than usual.

This year, I was lucky enough to experience this spontaneity and presence in a "safe space", within a group built on trust and laughter. I recommend it.

Lynch is dead.
Trump is going to be president.
The world is changing.
My father died when I was five.
One day, in front of a shop window, he asked me to choose a stuffed animal.
I wanted the big gray dog.
"Wouldn't you rather have the monkey?" – he'd had a monkey when he was young.
I said no, the dog.
So, the dog.
It's always stayed with me, almost by accident.
I never took special care of it.
It was never the first thing I packed when I moved.
I'd almost have forgotten it.
But somehow, it followed me.
Like a dog.
And recently, as it happens, I rearranged my room, and it's still there, sitting on a bench.
My room is almost empty, you see:
The bed, a few books, a wardrobe with not much in it.
And the dog.
And when my son sleeps over, often in the morning, he comes into my room and shouts "Big Dog!". He picks him up in his arms. He takes him to his room to play with his other stuffed animals. After a while, I tell him "Big Dog is tired, he has to go back to bed". He says okay and puts him back on his bench. He puts a bandage on him "because his paw hurts". He turns him the right way "so he can see".
It makes me smile every time.
But tonight, thinking about it all, I'm in tears.

Becoming a TikTok influencer was nowhere in my New Year's resolutions.

To give you an idea, three months ago I lumped TikTok in with Pokémon, Minecraft and manga: something young people do, probably great for them, but not for me.

Except now, I've become a (mini) TikTok star.

A short video I posted three days ago got ~~nearly~~ over 200,000 views; my follower count shot through the roof (UPDATE: 1,000!) and all my other videos are taking off. Things are picking up on Instagram too. Here's the video (YouTube version), and honestly, nothing about it said it would be a hit:

Link to the video #pastrain

If you remember, I said in my previous post that I was going back to posting short videos (what YouTube calls "shorts" and Instagram "reels"), originally to share "philosophical notes" on YouTube. The philosophy went out the window and got replaced by questionable humor. For good measure, and to make the effort pay off, I made myself post on Instagram and TikTok as well. Of course, that's where it went viral.

It's another world. If I put my phone down for five minutes, I always come back to 99+ notifications: likes, comments, shares, new followers. It never stops, not even at night. And to my great surprise, all the comments so far are... extremely funny. People who get my humor and play along. Except on Instagram, where... it's more complicated.

I talk about it here.

It started as a way to quickly give shape to the ideas I have every day and don't plan to do anything in particular with. Not everything is meant to become a "film" in the full sense, with a script, production, post-production... So I shoot in under twenty minutes, usually while I'm out walking, edit on my phone and bam, I post. There's also the wish to find an audience that shares my quirks, my sense of humor, and will be happy to come to screenings when I put out more ambitious films. Get around the gatekeepers.

So I'm going to keep posting videos. We'll see where it goes. For now, when I take a break, I'm enjoying trading little jokes with the people it made laugh, and I ignore the insults.

You can follow the videos I post on TikTok, Instagram or YouTube.

UPDATE: Several of my videos have gone viral by now, and I've noticed something worrying:

I get roughly three kinds of comments on my videos: 1) people who find it funny and play along, 2) people who don't get that it's a joke and are more or less insulting, and 3)... bots.

When a video passes a certain threshold (around 50k views), I see coordinated waves of extremely alarmist, negative messages posted by very suspicious accounts (no posts, no profile picture, or AI-generated videos). For example, when I joke that fog is "proof we're in a video game that hasn't finished rendering the scenery", I'm hit by an army of near-identical stories (same phrases, same words) that reply to each other and hint at conspiracies, always extremely dark, involving poisonings, diseases and fear of anything foreign.

In these comments, I feel like I'm reading the seeds of the stupid remarks I hear at some dinner parties from people who then say "do your research". But it's true that if you take them for real, these comments piling up leave a bitter taste in your mouth.

In 2022, I shot a 10-minute improv video every day and posted it on YouTube. In 2025, I'm doing it again!

Why color grading is pointless.

Maybe not every day, and not 10 minutes: I'll make 1 to 3 minute shorts, edit them quickly on my phone and upload them... everywhere! YouTube, Instagram and TikTok, take your pick!

Alongside the videos, I'm starting a Notes section on this site, where I'll add the ideas, quotes and sources behind each video I post. I've been doing this in Obsidian for years, and I have over 2,000 notes. What makes them useful is that they're connected to each other, so you can dig deeper into a single subject.

Here's an example of a note / video pair, on My Dinner with Andre by Louis Malle:

My life in one film with Louis Malle

But the note that went with it has disappeared.

Episode 5 of our web series Panic in Space won second prize in the Audience Award at the Scientific Short Film Festival of Riom!

Since the start of fall, I've been trying something new:

Every Monday evening, along with some improv friends, we invite anyone interested to join us in the basement of Barlone for an improv workshop. Then, once a month – one Monday out of four – we record sketches with a live audience in front of a green screen. Entry is free as long as you order a drink.

So far, we mostly have professionals (actors, filmmakers), but everyone is welcome. We haven't fully nailed down the rules yet.

Improv session with Nino, Noémie, Stéphane, Constance and, in the back, Nicolas and Antoine.

What we're aiming for is a new way to create fiction, where acting – not writing – is at the heart of the process. We invent, build, and rehearse on the spot, without going through the script stage.

First shoot tonight. Theme: "The Catastrophe." Nothing is ready. I'll let you know how it goes.

Thanks to Barlone for hosting us with genuine warmth, as they do with all their events. And thanks to Cynthia Pedrosa for the illustration.

If you're interested in the adventure or want to join in, there's more info on our Facebook and Instagram pages.

The methods we're taught in school are bogus.

While you're busy researching and working on the fundamentals to avoid mistakes or rash actions (and not getting a bad grade because "you didn't work hard enough"), some smart alecks have already jumped in to grab everything there was to grab.

They've understood that the jury doesn't deliberate after the closing arguments: the decisions have already been made in the hallways, in the antechambers, between two doors, driven by those who didn't stay home to calmly ponder the problem.

Besides, what's the point of thinking? When the world boils down to "me against the others," there's no subtlety left to weigh. Acting is easy.

Thomas Piketty explains this well in a paragraph from Capital in the Twenty-First Century:

To be sure, there is a simple economic principle to balance the process: the law of supply and demand. If a good is in short supply and its price is too high, then demand for that good should fall, which will calm things down. In other words, if real estate and oil prices rise, just move to the countryside or ride a bike (or both). But aside from the fact that this can be unpleasant or complicated, such an adjustment can take several decades, during which the owners of the buildings and the oil can accumulate so many claims against the rest of the population that they will end up permanently owning everything worth owning, including the countryside and the bikes.

I think you can clearly see the consequences of this idea in the testimony of Jean-Baptiste Rivoire, former deputy director of Special Investigation, who recounts how Vincent Bolloré worked to strip Canal+ of real journalism (French only):

Jean-Baptiste Rivoire before the investigative commission regarding Vincent Bolloré's editorial influence over Canal+

It's a note I remember writing in my notebook a long time ago: "It's not the best who rise to the top." Or, as Keynes said:

"Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work together for the benefit of all."

John Maynard Keynes

UPDATE: Another example from the New York Times. The lead Google has amassed by abusing its monopoly is one its competitors won't be able to close, despite the recent ruling against it.

A.I. didn't invent anything.

If you have 7 minutes, I recommend watching this Armenian animated short film from 1983. Starting at 1:30, you'll see that the psychedelic transformations of the demon Ekh closely resemble the nightmarish deep dreams of today's A.I.:

Moral of the story: always be kind to talking animals.

What a pleasure it was to attend the premiere of the documentary Les Sirènes de Dieppe at the Max Linder yesterday morning! An hour in the company of the drag performers of the Sirène à Barbe cabaret: the backstage, the camaraderie, the financial struggles, the fight against intolerance, and a bit of musical comedy. A film as accomplished as its subject is unexpected.

From left to right: Claire Babany (producer), Raphaël Bancou (composer), Fabienne Thibeault (godmother), Diva Beluga (performer and owner), Lily (performer), Nicolas Birkenstock and Nicolas Engel (filmmakers), and I can't remember the rest.

My composer friend Raphaël Bancou – whom I'd reconnected with after 10 years on that occasion – wrote the music. More on him soon.

If you're interested, the film by the two Nicolas (Birkenstock and Engel) will be available on replay starting September 19th on France TV, don't miss it. And if you're ever in Dieppe, go see the show!

I'm belatedly exploring the output of Giorgio Moroder, aka Giorgio, who seems to have influenced every electronic artist on the planet. Recently, I've been listening to this 1972 track on repeat:

The simplicity, the repetition, the crescendo. That's all it takes.

I registered after the deadline, so I couldn't schedule my meetings as well as I would have liked. Despite that, I caught up with friends, met some very nice people, went to some truly enlightening talks, and had a few drinks – it had been a while.

This festival is very well organized for meeting people – with meetings set up in advance and an app to get in touch. And Valence, I forget every time, but it's really pretty.

If you had asked me the day before yesterday, I would have told you I'm not really into concerts.

The music is too loud. There's too much commotion. It's too long.

But that was before my buddy Jackie Berroyer (who, let's not forget, was a music columnist for Hara-Kiri, and whom I'll be writing about here soon) invited me to see Fat White Family last night at La Cigale. Never heard of them. I wasn't expecting anything. "You'll see, they're pretty good, you might like them."

OK, now I get why people love concerts.

Incredible experience. Yes, the music was wild, hard-hitting rock, but with real craft, a progression, and some unexpected instruments (flute, baritone sax). Then there's the lead singer, Lias Saoudi. He's in shorts. By the second song, he's down in the pit singing in the middle of the crowd. That sets the tone. For the rest of the concert, he sings (sometimes screams, but without ever losing the music) balanced on amps, in a fetal position on the edge of the stage, or crowd-surfing.

From above, the pit pulses. It's a collective experience. But you can tell it's all masterfully controlled by a seasoned band: here and there, you catch the small, extremely precise signals the band gives the crew; behind the wild personas are professionals who have crafted a structured and generous show. And La Cigale, where you can move around freely, gives you both freedom and intimacy to enjoy it.

I can see how people who've experienced this once can keep going back to concerts, chasing that first "high". And why some old-timers endlessly reminisce about a show they saw in their youth: "Oh, you know, when I saw that band back in '76..."

"A concert like that, you remember it for the rest of your life," Jackie told me as we walked out. Looks like it.

If Sting repeats it three times in his song, it must be important.

It seems crucial to me, but also extremely difficult. All the authors (and all the humans) I admire found, at some point in their lives, "their" voice, their way of being, their view of the world, where many others keep "doing it like" their idols, imitating them (badly). Mind you: imitation is probably an essential first step. To admire is to be moved. Wanting to "be like" someone means recognizing something sublime in them that you wish you had. It shows a sensitivity that marks the beginning of everything. But to reach the next level, the second step isn't optional: you have to find those qualities in yourself. Develop your own tools. Shape your character out of what's inside you.

The main obstacles are always the same, it seems to me: fear and ignorance.

Fear of not being interesting enough. Fear of not being as cool, strong or tormented as those we envy. Fear of not having the right past, the right look, the right mind. Fear that it's too early or too late.

Spread over all of it, a layer of ignorance. Ignorance that these fears are natural, shared, collective. That they are often the driving force behind the talent and careers of those we admire. That, regardless of success, they will never leave us and so, when we put them to use, they are an intimate and inexhaustible source of creation.

"What they criticize you for, cultivate it: it's you." – Jean Cocteau

My English feature film screenplay, "The Stagemaster", has just advanced to the semi-finals of the Emerging Screenwriters Drama competition!

This fourth U.S. accolade puts me in the top 6% of screenplays on Coverfly.

Another Surprise Culture Night!

I've mentioned before that I sometimes go listen to poetry in a cellar. Well, completely by chance, I stumbled upon the host of those evenings in another cellar, in the middle of a show.

I was blown away by her energy, confidence, and humor. It's funny, touching, unhinged, but always kind. You can watch her latest video here. And here's another one with a bit of French in it (Sophia Lucia is American but lives in France):

You should spend more time in cellars too. It's (literally) where the underground scene is at. And it starts on her Insta account --> @freakshowcabaret

I've reached the end of the novel I've been writing for... oh wow... fifteen years?

"When the Gondolier Dies", 105 pages, a little over forty thousand words. There's one chapter to revise in the middle, a few corrections to make here and there, but all in all, it should be finished soon.

This is the first novel I've ever finished. Before that, I'd started plenty that never survived the test of dispassionate rereading after a few months. But this one did. No matter how much time had gone by, months, sometimes years, I was always surprised to find it good. And to want to keep going.

There are advantages and disadvantages to taking so much time to tell a story.

On the advantage side, there's a "Boyhood" vibe (the Richard Linklater film shot over 12 years): the person who starts the book isn't the same one who finishes it. You can feel a genuine transformation in perspective as the story progresses. And I'm not making it up: it's mine.

On the downside, there's the evolution of style: I write better now than I did fifteen years ago. Still, I didn't want to rework the beginning too much, to keep the original energy. I trimmed it a little, aired it out a little, but I respected the progression and the turns of phrase as if they'd been written by someone else.

Next step? Get people to read it. Find a publisher. Write the next one a little faster.

The first sentence:

If you ever run into one of my friends, tell them I'm doing fine.

A premiere is always nerve-wracking for a filmmaker – especially at the Opéra Bastille – but this evening organized by the École des Ponts went extremely well. A full house, with the people in the film and a large part of the crew in attendance... very moving.

A few words of introduction after the opening by Anthony Briant (left), Director of the École des Ponts.

I loved producing and directing this film. I met and collaborated with extraordinary people.

I'll put a trailer online soon. For a year, the film will only be shown in theaters (festivals, events), while we look for a broadcaster. Then it will be released more widely. Screening dates here or on the École des Ponts LinkedIn page.

A culture night less surprising than usual, since I'd booked.

When I go see my friends' shows – especially in small venues where you can't hide – I always prepare a line to say afterwards in case I hated it. ("You made me dream," Françoise Sagan is said to have told Jeanne Moreau after a play she slept through.)

I'm happy to say I didn't need it.

(I'm going through a time when my friends are doing amazing things. Here and there, for example.)

The play is simple, intimate, yet uncompromising. It builds. The staging is delicate, made of small objects and small gestures that come back here and there and tell a story. It was also a chance for me to see the path and the talents of someone I know come into their own in a personal, powerful play. Very moving. But don't worry: you don't need to know her to enjoy it.

Oh, and also: you'll learn things (about Chile, about Louise Michel...) and you'll come out a little less stupid. Which isn't true of most shows, or, let's be honest, of most of my films.

Tant que nos Coeurs Flamboient with Lorena Felei, written and directed by Laurent Contamin. At the Théâtre Essaïon until April 30th.

There's something for scientists and for beatniks. The common thread: reality isn't what you think. Here we go.

Science first: I discovered Don Hoffman on this Lex Fridman podcast. He's a researcher in the Department of Cognitive Sciences at the University of California. The thesis of his book The Case Against Reality is simple: evolution doesn't care about truth. Working from models grounded in evolutionary game theory, he concludes that our perception of the world is biased toward survival. In other words, our brain has no qualms about ignoring or distorting the truth as long as it gives us an adaptive edge. It's not its fault: millions of years of evolution programmed it that way.

So a species that perceived every subtle variation in a signal could be at a disadvantage against one that saw things in a much more black-and-white way (red = danger!), but much easier to process in an emergency. In this race – as in many others – neither aesthetes nor poets survive.

On the beatnik side, I've been working my way through Seeing That Frees by the late Rob Burbea for over a year.

I'd describe it as an advanced meditation book centered on the notion of "emptiness", which I've talked about here before. The core idea is that reality is much less real than we imagine. We're convinced there's a "solid" material world that lasts over time and goes on existing when we stop looking at it. Through a series of meditations on impermanence, non-attachment and dependent arising, Rob Burbea shows that reality is partly an inner fabrication, built and unbuilt as consciousness moves. He teaches us to use different ways of seeing the world as tools we can pick up and put down, to gain freedom.

To my friends, I sum these ideas up in one sentence: "reality is made of the thoughts you can't get rid of." The day I understood that, a lot of things changed.

Finally, somewhere between science, philosophy and New Age, there's Why Materialism Is Baloney by Bernardo Kastrup.

Kastrup started out as a Brazilian computer engineering researcher who worked at CERN, among other places. When he set out to build a "conscious" computer program, he got interested in the problem of consciousness from a philosophical angle, and came out of it with a metaphysical theory that brings idealism back into fashion. His idea goes like this: today, it's impossible to understand how matter creates consciousness – David Chalmers's famous "hard problem". So he flips it around: consciousness creates matter. The laws of physics would no longer follow from the standard model, but would be regularities in a shared consciousness that each of us perceives only part of. According to him, we "think" matter. It sounds a bit crazy, but his whole point is to show, through an Occam's razor kind of argument, why it's "less crazy" than the materialist hypothesis.

Of course, we're deep in metaphysics here, so none of this will change how you pick your socks in the morning anytime soon. But eventually, it should.

UPDATE: All these thoughts led me to imagine the film "Permis de Conscience" (Consciousness License) – which I'll probably never make.