Nicolas Boulenger

Yes, it's a cliché, but one I've recently become aware of in a very personal way.

I've noticed lately that I'm quicker to get annoyed after long stretches of work on the computer. Because of bugs? Not at all. Because after a long interaction with a digital slave that responds to the slightest click, carries out my orders without arguing, without judging, without getting tired, and which also shines with its speed, its visual harmony, and its constant availability, I'm much less inclined, when I return to the land of the living, to put up with the slowness, incompetence, and bad faith of the world.

Think about it: back when our ancestors cared only about the land and the seasons, nothing in their daily lives – nothing! – jumped at their command. Everything depended on human, animal, or natural force. Nothing was instant.

So here's my theory: the day we invented the light switch, humanity lost a little of its calm.

NB: I realize computers also get on my mother's nerves, but for exactly the opposite reason: the total lack of control over what's happening on the screen. Every time I see her using a computer, it reminds me of this meme:

Using Microsoft Word.

Moves an image 1 mm to the left.

All the text and images shift.

Four new pages appear.

In the distance, sirens.

Since I stopped halfway through the first episode of Wednesday (I tried to get to the end, I promise, I even stopped and started again), I'll take the opportunity to tell you what I really loved about Barry Sonnenfeld's The Addams Family.

First, yes: it's a hard kind of story to handle. It's a trap for a screenwriter. When you follow a family where everything is upside down, where evil is good, where up is down, and where every value is reversed, the audience can have trouble identifying with the characters. If they love sadness and failure so much, what drives them to overcome the obstacles the film puts in their way?

Sonnenfeld's version had found a good balance. And more than that: it had managed to turn the whole thing around.

Without losing any of the spirit of the series, the film had brilliantly portrayed what many psychologists, sociologists, and Zen masters would describe as the perfect family.

Yes, really, I promise. If you don't believe me, I encourage you to rewatch the film from that angle. I couldn't list all their virtues, but here are a few, in no particular order:

They're a close family, with several generations living under one roof; the parents are in love and constantly declare their devotion in public; they're cultured, live surrounded by books, and speak several languages; they follow their passions without judging others and without caring what anyone thinks of them; they talk openly about death and cultivate a bond with their ancestors, from whom they draw part of their identity; they love to laugh and party, and they dance extremely well; the children's upbringing is built around play, dialogue, and trust; for all their wealth, their culture is never about money or possessions; and for all that sets them apart from others, they're never afraid of strangers and are extremely inclusive, even with those who are nothing like them and judge them harshly.

And when the sky falls on their heads, they stick together with dignity.

That was the strength and the irony of the film: the real role model was the Addams family. Not the Perfect Family judging the rest of the world on its way to church. (Though some of its members find redemption thanks to the Addamses, as it happens.)

I didn't expect the same from the Netflix version, of course. But I felt they tripped over their own feet. They took what was incidental in the film and made it the heart of the series. And they didn't know how to handle the reversal of polarities.

Of course, everyone will tell me the good stuff is at the end of the first episode, which I didn't see. Or in the following episodes, which I won't watch. But don't worry: I saw Wednesday's dance online. So I didn't miss everything.

Our habits are both a blessing and a curse.

A blessing because they spare us from reinventing the wheel all the time. We let the daily routine carry us: the same actions, in the same order, produce the same results. You can't question everything every morning.

A curse because they lock us in. Once they're set – for years, for decades – they're extremely hard to change. We do what we do because we don't know any other way.

A habit takes no mental energy. By following the same path, the same automatic moves, we put part of our daily life on autopilot so we're free for the rest. But when we want to change – quit smoking, start exercising, stop biting our nails – the effort burns energy we can no longer use elsewhere. Everything else gets that much harder.

We are the sum of our habits.

Many traits we think of as part of who we are are actually habits we could change. What psychologists call "the declarative" ("that's just how I am, I love this, I hate that, I always do such and such, etc.") is often an excuse for a way of doing things we don't have the energy to fix.

And there's comfort in fatalism. It's easier to say "that's how I am" than to try doing things differently.

James Clear describes this link between identity and habit in Atomic Habits. How cultured we are today, he says, is the result of our reading habits over the past ten years. Our health, the result of our eating and exercise habits over the past ten years. Our finances, of our work and saving habits over the past ten years.

And the person we'll be in ten years, the result of the habits we build today.

But what I find fascinating – and what has really helped me grow these past few years – is recognizing that we know almost nothing about where our habits come from.

Most of the time, we have no idea how our habits started. The older they are, the less we know. And since they control a large part of our lives, that amounts to saying that, by and large, we don't know why we do what we do. Worse: when someone asks, we make things up, we invent excuses that mix "that's how I am" with hazy stories about the past, beliefs, society... Anything but admit we don't know.

Think about it: why do you eat three times a day? Where does your relationship with work, success and failure come from? How did your addictions start? Your passions? Why do you listen to this music, watch these shows, trust this group over that one?

Where does it all come from? Your parents? School? Television? Work?

And above all: if you don't know how or why these habits took hold, how can you tell whether they're actually good for you?

Not so much resolutions as broad principles I've been exploring for a few years now:

1. Gain clarity Without clarity, every decision, big or small, is at the mercy of our irrational fears and unconscious anxieties, and ends up leading us in the wrong direction. Clarity is the first thing we should be looking for. Before work. Before love. Before brushing our teeth in the morning. But here's the thing: to realize how important it is, you already need a bit of it. That's the paradox. Unless...
2. Want to grow It sounds simple, almost childish, but it works. Call it what you like: faith, grace, resilience. If you truly want to grow, to gain wisdom, to become a better person, you find a way. Even if that way isn't visible yet or – harder – if it isn't the one you had planned at the start. But you have to really want it. Like: really, really. Then no paradox, no excuse, no obstacle holds up. That's true faith.
3. "Where?" before "How?" "How?" is the question everyone is obsessed with. "How do I do this? How do I get there?" So much so that in the end, we don't go where we want to go, but where we know how to go. We let ourselves be guided by the "hows" we learned at school, at work, on TV, instead of asking the only question that matters: "Where?" "Where do we want to go? And why?" The wrong direction, even when you head there very fast or very efficiently, is still the wrong direction.
4. Direction before position Where you are doesn't matter. At rock bottom, on top of the mountain, halfway up the slope: it's temporary. What matters is the direction (the rate of change, engineers would say): are you going up or down? Growing or falling? By shifting your inner slope a few degrees, you change both the person and the destination. It isn't necessarily visible right away, but in the long run, that's what makes the difference.
5. The solution is always inside The problems we have are a function of who we are. If a genie snapped his fingers and made all our problems disappear tonight, we'd be happy for a day, and then, in less than a week, we'd build ourselves the same ones again – or similar ones. So there's no point blaming outside circumstances: they have nothing to do with it. Look for the inner causes that are the source. That famous inner slope pushing us up or down.
6. Problems before solutions In business, we're told, you should never bring a problem to your boss without offering a solution at the same time. In life, that's nonsense. Spotting problems is the first step toward solving them. It's called clarity. Once the obstacle is spotted, mechanisms will kick in to get past it. It's denial that keeps difficulties alive.
7. Get to know yourself Since we aren't handed one at birth, it's urgent to invest in writing our own instruction manual. Observe yourself. Practice introspection. How does anger arise? Jealousy? Fear? What deep reasons drive our actions? What irrational fears control our impulses? Identifying the inner mechanics lets you free yourself from them and so, in time, be more deliberate in everything.
8. Beware of thoughts Nothing truly important is intellectual. Thinking can be playful, social, productive, but the pillars of a life can't rest on logical reasoning. Our brain makes up problems when it can't find any. By nature, thought is never at peace. You have to let that machine run without worrying about it too much and look for balance elsewhere. In that sense, thought is a bit like television: it only becomes harmful when you believe it's telling the truth.
9. Beware of numbers Same with numbers: they're never where they should be. Cholesterol too high, salary too low, temperature too cold, interest rate too steep. By their very nature, numbers measure what's missing or what's too much, so they're a constant source of dissatisfaction and imbalance. Better to focus on what can't be measured: the joy of seeing someone, the pleasure of an activity you love, the beauty of the sky.
10. Live in the present It's a worn-out phrase, but it's also the key to the safe. Only the present exists. The past is memory – often selective and distorted. The future is imagination – often filtered through the anxieties of the moment. So not living in the present means living in your head. Being a prisoner of your thoughts, your opinions, your memories. Why not, after all. But every now and then, it's always a good idea to take a trip to the "here and now." To stay in touch with the world, with others, and with yourself.

Happy 2023.

Two very bad reasons not to act.

The two main causes of our inaction.

So much so that now, when I feel I'm about to give up on a project, big or small, I ask myself: "Am I giving up out of fear?" If I realize fear is the only (or the main) reason, I push myself. Or at least, I try to examine that fear, to bring it into the light so it doesn't steer my choices from the shadows.

If it isn't fear, I ask myself: "Am I giving up out of comfort?" Is the warmth of my cozy nest keeping me from setting off on an adventure? The nest in question isn't necessarily material: it can be comfortable thinking, attachment to habits, too much satisfaction with what I already have. Same thing there: I try to shake myself up or, at least, to be aware of it. You fall into fewer holes once you've spotted them.

Fear turns us away from the new. Comfort ties us to the status quo.

Don't get me wrong: there are a thousand good reasons not to take the plunge. Sometimes, real courage means not acting. But if those reasons come down to fear or comfort, it may be worth looking further.

As you can imagine, a pagan like me isn't especially concerned with the birth of Jesus Christ. As for New Year's Eve, I'm too much of a snob to want to party at the same time as everyone else.

And yet, I really like the holidays.

Precisely because (almost) everyone celebrates them at the same time. A bit like Sundays. We've agreed to do nothing on the same day, and everyone chooses how. Parks, walks, vacations, bike rides, family, satanic masses.

There's so little we agree on.

I could go over how I got into meditation and everything it has changed in my life, but we'll do that another time. It's a mistake I often make when I start a new site or a new notebook: wanting to "start from scratch" and explain how everything began. But I quickly get overwhelmed by the task and give up.

So let's talk about the present.

One real sign of progress I've noticed in my practice is recognizing more and more mental contents as thoughts.

You probably know that in meditation, you try to step aside so you can recognize that a particular anxiety, fear, or anger is "just a thought" that will pass the way clouds pass in the sky. That simple relabeling is enough to free you from it. When an existential anxiety is brought back to what it really is – a brain fart – it loses its power.

Except it doesn't always work.

While some worries are quickly recognized for what they are – intellectual constructions – others are more stubborn, more insidious. As if, in the game of recognizing thoughts, they didn't count. "That," we tell ourselves, "is reality."

But the thoughts we can't manage to label as thoughts are often the most intimate ones. The ones we're most used to, which we've been carrying around for years, sometimes since childhood. They're part of us, part of our mental patterns, of the way we react day to day. They're like wallpaper stuck to reality so tightly – and for so long – that we can't imagine the world without it.

Progress in meditation, for me, is the process that lets us question those things too.

Day after day, the frontier of awareness expands, and what we thought was the fabric of the world, the essence of things, fate (...) turns out to be just one more element of our inner world. Another brain fart.

Until the day when, torn by an anxiety so familiar we thought it was inescapable, we suddenly find ourselves able to say the magic words:

"That, too, is a thought."