Nicolas Boulenger

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. Message. 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 through on what it means for your life, your behavior, your day-to-day.

You have to accept that it works its way into every corner and, in the end, affects every part of your life.

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.

Let alone 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 edges!

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 newspapers 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, and he's really engaged. 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 hit record for 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:

As it happens, I talk 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 labored 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 magic 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, built.

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 day you stop getting 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 it's the peace you make with the emotion that defuses 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 all 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 you, here's what I suggest:

Stop everything. Be still 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 tight throat. The shortness of 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 race by 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 something too rich 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 the way to go.

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 you.
• 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 list of pros and cons, 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 make up our minds.

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 score my options for the next move.

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 they're huge hits. 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 else...

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

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

I still have two social media 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 are a good fit for 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.

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

On a scorching day like today, I see how my professional work remains powerless against what really 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 go against 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 the raw material we humans work with.

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 this really is inner work.

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 polish, no beating around the bush, no need to make sense.

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

Then, if you keep digging from both sides, you'll eventually meet in the middle.

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.

For experts and entrepreneurs:

I'm launching the "Story, Presence and Content" workshop. The first cohort will run at the end of October.

It comes from something I realized and have shared before:

Helping people build the right story isn't enough.

It clicks, they see why it matters, but...

Often, things stall after that.

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

So for a while now, I've been adding a very hands-on part to my coaching, where "we make things together".

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

It's often the most important moment.

The story isn't theoretical anymore. You see how it gets put into words in front of someone, or in front of a camera.

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

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

For them: it speeds up a process that would probably have taken them several months – assuming they didn't give up.

For me: it helps me understand where the real resistance was. So I can help them get around it.

That's why I decided to turn it into a workshop.

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

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

It'll create the kind of momentum 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 first version, no frills.

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

Find out more here.

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 keep watch over my thoughts like a shepherd.
When I feel an attachment, I watch it transform 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. Clear enough.

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 realized 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. In the end, if you act, it's because you 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: a reaction that seems absurd to us was the best anyone could come up with. Because we're imperfect, fallible and anxious. And that shared weakness should inspire 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 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've been talking about this a lot lately.

See the related notes.

I keep watch over my thoughts like a shepherd.
When I feel an attachment, I watch it transform 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 realize 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, about what meditation is or what it isn't, 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 know what you're thinking:

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

For me, it's not a goal but mechanics: 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.

That keeps getting 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.

And 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.

Mechanics. Not 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.

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, or resting, 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? Almost by 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 become less of an obstacle over time.

In the end, I'm just giving the body (which includes the brain) 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. Vacations.

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 in the here and now.

I can make a statement of intent.

But I can't guarantee the future.

So we'll see.

In Buddhism, dukkha describes what is "not right, not satisfying."

In particular, it's used for the joys and pleasures of life that are fleeting and "won't be enough."

Without realizing it, we're always looking for a permanent solution.

"If I find the right person, I'll be happy for the rest of my life."

"Once I land the right job, I'll never have to worry again."

"If I buy this car, I'll be a complete person."

The brain keeps making us believe that the next step, the next purchase, the next desire will unlock everything for good.

And we fall for it every time.

Dukkha is the daily reminder that we're wrong.

It describes both suffering – which is inevitable – and the fact that fleeting pleasures are never the solution.

So saying that "something is dukkha," for a Buddhist, can mean two things:

1. This thing brings suffering. But suffering is inevitable. So it has to be accepted. It will pass.
2. This thing feels good. But the good is temporary. Once the effect fades, the same desire comes back unchanged.

It's the "unchanged" part that's the problem.

A "dukkha" action or pleasure leaves us in exactly the same situation afterward as before.

"But if we enjoyed ourselves for a while, where's the harm?"

The harm is the illusion.

Part of us truly believes the action will change everything.

Or at least that it will bring us closer to something better.

But it brings us closer to nothing.

It leaves us in the same state and, the next time around, we start all over again.

And again. And again.

This action "is not satisfying" because it sustains a perpetual cycle of craving and temporary satisfaction.

During which we never look for the "real" solution.

The one that could free us in the long run.

For example:

This morning, walking down the street, I caught the smell of the bakery.

A strong craving for a pain au chocolat – or a pain suisse.

In the end, I held back... but not through willpower.

That had nothing to do with it.

I just realized that after a pain suisse or a pain au chocolat... I'd want another one. And another.

My craving for sugar is never satisfied for long.

And so it became very clear to me that if I ate that pastry, five minutes later I'd find myself... in exactly the same situation.

If I could eat a pain au chocolat and be happy for the whole day... let's go! No regrets!

But no: the pleasure of a pain au chocolat is utterly fleeting.

It's not the solution to everything.

It's not even a step in the right direction.

Once the effect fades, I'm back in the same place.

And I have to go looking for the next fleeting pleasure.

A whole life can be spent this way.

Chasing the next pleasure that will solve nothing.

Wisdom begins when you've had enough.

You're communicating out of order. Literally.

You're trying to hang the tinsel before you've got the tree.
And it's Easter.

Now that things are working better for me (60k followers, 10 leads a week, tons of messages and opportunities), let me walk you through the steps I recommend.

Which are pretty simple, really:

1. Pin down your unique story

Nobody will pay top dollar for doing what everyone else does.

Sum up your unique value in two sentences.

These two sentences have to resonate with you 100% and build on your real strengths.

If you force it or fake it, even a little, you'll burn out.

And success depends on your ability to build something that keeps running over the long term.

2. Create a CTA and an offer

Yes: a single offer.

Very clear, very strong, fully aligned with your value.

With a button on the front page (Call to Action).

That button is your only metric.

Followers, feedback, pats on the back are all great.

But what we want to know is how many people click.

The ones considering paying for what you offer.

Those are your future clients.

3. Create content to spread your story

To exist (and to get clicks on your button), a stream of people has to come into contact with your story.

For that, you have to create content.

Otherwise, how would your audience know what you offer?

Yes, social videos work well today.

But your website, the people you meet, your articles, your talks are content too.

And every time, you weave in your story.

It's the repetition of your story that carves out a slot in the viewer's mind.

Your name, or your company's, gets tied to one specific subject.

That's why people call you.

4. Start a dialogue with your market

So far, you haven't defined your target. That's normal.

You've defined yourself and your offer.

Your target is the people who click the button.

You adjust your story based on their feedback.

You build your customer avatar from what they ask you for.

But never stepping outside what makes sense to you. Otherwise you won't go the distance.

Because the goal is to last.

5. Enrich your communication

You don't spend a fortune (or your energy) before you've found a story that works.

That is, a story:

• That works for you,
• That attracts paying clients.

Once you have that, you can step on the gas:

Articles, videos, newsletter, podcast, paid ads...

Whatever is easiest and most natural for you.

You put more and more resources into an ever sharper story, because you have proof it works (revenue, not compliments).

That's the key to long-term growth.

If you hit a plateau, it's because your story is too generic. Sharpen it.

Because before being a manager, an entrepreneur is a storyteller.

Management is the work of keeping your clients happy.

But you win those clients through your story.

Everything is connected.

My videos on "how to free yourself from the future and from your obligations".

The themes I explore in my web series: loneliness, the future, AI.

And this week, it all clicked during a conversation with Lalao.

A few months ago, she fell apart.

For the very reasons I often talk about in my videos.

And to climb back out, she had to learn to live differently.

Here's the incredible part:

• Lalao is an actress in the series,
• the episode she's in tells the story of a woman pushed to the breaking point by her obligations,
• the ideas that helped her are the ones I'm talking about in my videos right now,
• we hadn't spoken since the shoot, almost five years ago,
• I recorded our conversation almost by accident, and it's about all of this.

A lot of people tell me, "your videos are great but... how do you actually do it?? You should make a podcast!"

That's more or less what we did. Without planning it.

So you can take it all in, I've gathered everything here: the episodes and the podcast.

It takes about 30 minutes.

And unlike everything you consume on social media, this content converges.

It creates meaning instead of leaving you more lost.

And it happened by chance. Or not.

Episode 5

Because otherwise you won't understand the ending of episode 6.

But you won't regret it:

It's a funny episode, it won an audience award, and it's about AI and loneliness.

Episode 6

It's Lalao's episode, out today.

Which happens to be the fictional reflection of what she lived through afterward:

Podcast

No, it's not really a podcast.

It was recorded any old way; we didn't know we'd ever release it.

But it ties everything else together:

And to follow Lalao Pham Van Xua on social media, it's right here.

And the other episodes are here.

I get a lot of comments under my videos that say:

"So I stop paying rent?"
"So I stop going to work?"
"I stop picking up my kids from school?"

As soon as I talk about presence, about no longer living in the future, about not letting yourself be trapped by your obligations, people threaten to drop everything.

Ironically, of course.

Their way of telling me it doesn't seem viable.

They're not wrong on one point:

This is absolutely not about stopping everything right now.

Generally speaking, don't change a thing.

Because if you changed everything overnight, that too would be an intellectual decision.

One that would be no better than any other decision made to escape the past or improve the future.

It would be a means to an end.

Like everything else.

The goal is precisely to start operating differently.

To disconnect action from outcome. To stop doing things in order to be rewarded later.

To do for the sake of doing. Because it brings joy.

But a brain anchored in the future doesn't understand this.

It only thinks in terms of transactions, effort, investment.

It doesn't know present joy, only future reward.

So the first task is to reconnect it to the present.

Little by little. Without changing anything else.

Bringing small actions into daily life that aren't aimed at any result.

Spotting the moments in the day that aren't a run-up to anything.

Learning to live here and now, even for just a second a day.

And when that capacity to live in the present solidifies, when it starts to become part of who you are...

Life changes become inevitable.

Without having to decide anything.

What we often mistake for love:

• The desire to possess someone
• An all-consuming passion that must be satisfied
• Using someone to reach pleasure
• Wanting to fulfill yourself through someone else
• Needing someone to maintain your equilibrium
• Leaning on someone to reach a goal

I'm probably forgetting some.

I've been reading Osho's The Book of Secrets for a while now.

Whatever you think of him – he's a controversial figure – he's an exceptional spiritual writer.

And on love, specifically, two things he says have stayed with me.

First: lust is never love.

When you look at someone with carnal desire, that person is no longer a person.

You're not interested in the whole being, only in a part you want to use to satisfy a desire. A part you could find in someone else.

That's why lustful stares are unpleasant.

They objectify. They depersonalize. You become a function.

Real love, Osho tells us, is exactly the opposite.

The beloved feels whole, unique, distinct from the rest of the world.

Picture a lowly clerk, he says.

To the institution he serves, he's just a number.

The institution uses only a part of him. Again, he is an object.

If he dies, he'll be replaced by someone who can do the same thing.

And the world will keep turning.

Nothing in that relationship is love. It's utility.

But one day, someone falls in love with that clerk.

Not the colleague at the next desk, not the one across the hall. Him!

And for that person, this clerk is different from everyone else.

If he dies, it will be a catastrophe. Nothing will ever be the same.

He becomes irreplaceable.

Unique in the universe.

All because of one look.

That is love.

I'd love to do this work on myself, but...

"I'm held back by money."
"I have trauma to deal with."
"I have a disability that stops me."

Look hard enough, and we all have an Achilles heel.

And in most cases, it's a perfectly valid obstacle.

Some things really are harder for some people. The world is unfair that way.

But in some cases, the obstacle becomes an excuse. Then a shield.

Not: "I can't do it."

But: "I've stopped trying."

"For a reason you could never understand because you don't suffer from it. (So leave me alone.)"

And it's true, it's certainly not up to us to decide for others whether something is an obstacle or an excuse. What do we know?

But for yourself, it's worth looking into.

Because it's easy to get caught up in the game.

The game of standing still because it's comfortable. Because you have the perfect excuse not to do the work that scares you.

And every morning, you choose the routine. And every evening, you complain – because complaining is part of the game.

The years go by, the story gets smoother. It becomes a kind of armor.

After all, if you can convince others, why wouldn't you believe it yourself?

"I'm a victim of my condition, of life, of fate. That's how it is, there's nothing to be done."

The question that gets you out of this torpor isn't:

"Is it true?"

But: "Is it what I really want?"

Because if you keep telling yourself you can't, you end up unable to.

You kill what was possible in you.

Without ever knowing what you might have done if you'd told yourself:

"I can. It might be harder for me, but I'm going to keep trying."