Your aura is a frequency, not just an impression. Don’t simply feel things, vibrate them. Resonate with lust. Share your energy. Secrete the ecstasy of life from your body. Radiate charm. Walk like fire. Smell like danger. Taste like love. Talk like they’ll never see you again.

Do everything powerfully.

‍

I remain convinced there is an unlimited amount of beauty in the Universe. I think that’s what we’re here to uncover, in a sense.

‍

Take infinity, for instance.

There is not only infinity in direction.

Not only in distance.

Not only in scale, micro or macroscopic.

Not only in time.

Not only in matter.

Not only in connection and thought.

There is also infinity in perspective.

That’s you. That’s your purpose.

You are the clash of all those infinities in a point so precise, we fail to identify it and instead rely on giving it a name; the Soul.

See, it should be funnier to us, being alive. Statistically, it’s so improbable it twists the fabric of Reality. To my eyes, the coordinates we inhabit in the Cosmos are merely that: parameters; a setting. So much so that everything that goes against the likeliness of our birth here becomes just as much unlikely.

Everything, down to the atom, had to go precisely as it did for us to grow into ourselves.

And yet, here you are, spectator to an intergalactic opera, bored out of your mind. You are a lost soul, persuaded your worth can be estimated, compared, weighted and disposed of.

Don’t you get it? Do you not understand just how fortunate you are to occupy this mind of yours? You are a jewel of electricity, carved by all infinities and the thought that together, they become not something, but someone. You are the only human being with this exact set of tastes, preferences, peculiarities, sense of humour, body, style, group of friends and culture. It’s your improbability which renders you so interesting.

In the same way, these characteristics are precisely what composes your perspective, unlocking a set of interests that, once multiplied by one another, become unique to you. Your mind then turns into a universe of its own, endless inwards.

How selfish of you it would be to starve us of the beauty only visible to your Eye.

Unaware telepaths. Your minds are easy to read. Predictably, you want what you can't have. Wanting, by definition requires lacking. The more obvious it becomes, the less of you I lack. The less I lack, the more of you I could fill, and you know it. How disappointing to realize that I never needed you in the first place. You stayed here, fully content in being the object of a desire. My attention meant something about you ⎯ not for you.

You are defined by the voids you sense in others. You don't know who you are, Phantoms of the Eye, shameful shapeshifters. I don't even think you are real. You cease to exist the very second you lose my interest. You are the tree that no one wants to hear fall. Your heart beats to the rhythm of my thoughts. I only now woke up to the fact that, in that manner, you were mine all along; an extension of what I thought would define me.

Blissful disappointments happen when you learn to fill the holes in your life by better versions of yourself. You'd be surprised by how much space you are able to occupy. Every time I grow, I shed a desire I used to have.

I often think of the lyrics : Never fuck someone you wouldn't want to be though. Now, the other way around, it would only make sense to say "Never desire to be someone that wants to fuck you." If they are drawn to you, you are doing something right. Moreover, I've come to realize the most desired people are often the ones who limit themselves the least. They are the ones who stopped defining themselves by the attention of others; they no longer desire it, they have it.

You have served that purpose for me. You taught me that words can only get you so far. You taught me that spells can only last so long and that attraction, magnetism, can only naturally happen between a positive and a negative.

I've got no use for another half, I'm already whole.

Collagen & eucalyptus. Time stands still unlike the water. I like it better where it’s hot. I like it better when it’s your turn to talk. If Life is a joke, only the fool and the wise laugh before the end of it. I don’t know yet which of the two we are. One thing remains clear, I'm ready to become a demon : an idea of a man. For Light needs to be broken in order to become color.

You died a few weeks ago. Yet, life didn’t stop. You find your legs still standing and your heart, though empty, still beating to the rhythm of our inquiries. Your body is still warm. We will not leave it alone.

Death doesn’t hurt, surprisingly. I bet you wish it did. Any torture would feel better than this numbness. You used to like our attention. You used to feel wanted, tasteful. Now you see us for what we are; cannibals. It never was about you. You existed only to quench our thirst, which you never could. We would feast on your flesh if our teeth were the only mark we could leave upon you. The difference is back then, our appetites were mutual.

You are forgetting our names. To your eyes, we are moving like a tide. A Million now worth One. The stream of our blood, akin to yours, is predictable.

You died a few weeks ago. You’re glad you did. You admitted it to me. You feel the Cycle of life begin anew. From rot, saplings emerge. If you once fought against our stream, you are now becoming the tree that feeds on our current. You are the Tree that bears fruit. Your roots planted solid, only those that can reach your branches can have a taste of you.

Supersymmetrical, towering above our hunt, you told us : « Go ahead, take all that you can. There's not enough of you to devour all of me. »

Imagine-nous.
Frustrés par une story.
Sans notre tag en mention.

Imagine-nous.
Commencer une conversation par :
“T’as-tu vu l’TikTok?”

Imagine-nous.
Penser partir un podcast,
Sans jamais savoir quoi dire sur Tinder.

Imagine-nous.
Cachant notre paresse parce qu’un
Syndrome de l’imposteur
Ça sonne mieux.

Imagine-nous.
Passer nos soirées au resto.
Payer aucuns impôts.
Dire tout haut : “Eat the rich”.

Imagine-nous.
S’expliquer nos moods
Parce que Mercure est en Gatorade.

Imagine-nous.
Majeurs maybe vaccinés.
Spirituellement distanciés.

Imagine-nous.
Créateurs de contenu.
Créatures de contenant.
“J’fais juste des reels pour l’algorithme.”

Imagine-nous.
Tomber pour les femmes que l’on chasse.
Ignorer les femmes qui se cueillent.
Les DMs pleins, le lit vide.

Imagine-nous.
Mourir de rire.
Enfin comprendre la joke.

I don't motivate myself to write. I force myself to write because it is the only thing that makes me feel purposeful. I write because there are things in life that need to be told and until I have told them enough times, in a necessary amount of ways, I will not have carved the space required for what is to come after me, naturally.

I see the pattern of branches & twigs across the veins of your arm. You told me of the raging clouds, storms awaiting to crash, prowling your thighs. How mounds of flesh become lands to call home, once you brought them close enough to your face. How my irises were petals, my optical nerves the stem to a flower I did not know how to water. "It's what you pour into your eyes, Malcolm." You paused. You noticed the way my left eyebrow rose, refraining the other. You told me of the words we use to shame ourselves out of awakening to our nature. We laughed.

I see the pattern of branches, how they weave themselves one around another, like lovers scared to lose themselves in the wind, forgetting of the roots they share. We didn't move. Our gazes alone danced in a room with only your voice for music. Time doesn't matter when you have enough of it.

Cracks on the skin.
Lightning strikes.
The Foam of the Milky Way.
Clouds of milk in coffee.
Nerves in your eyes when you smoke.
A photo of the known universe.
The way rocks erode.
Bone fractures.

Now it's 4 in the morning.

‍
"And you thought consciousness came out of an unconscious universe."
But what to make of it?

‍
You held all the answers in the weight of your breath.
Yet, the world wasn't the child of a question.

Death serves no purpose.

Your feet in the clouds

Orion's belt is resting on your ankles.

We lived once a thousand times in a second.

Apart, together. Kaleidoscopic.

And though the night is boundless

I guess we're both expected to finish.

Another week has begun without a real sense of urgency. I get my work done but afterwards, no rush. It's crazy how differently you'll feel about the same stuff when you let some time pass. To me, it feels like when you know where you are headed, it doesn't matter how long it takes to get there. It might be what they call the flow state. Might also be those infamous years where you pile up months of work to no avail only to wake up one day and be 33 all of the sudden.

Perspective, I guess.

My future has only me in sight. I'm already so grateful for what I've become. There's just no point in stopping now. No amount of bliss can be sustained. Light travels. So will I. That's all any of us can afford to do.

I still have to put in work. That's temporary. I'm fully aware that the minds that change the world have to mold themselves first. For now, that's my only intention. I want to learn, see, digest. I want to seduce, be seduced, taste. I want to convert, be converted, intake the beauty of the mind. You change goals as you change perspective, the same way there's only focal point to a lens. It's just optics, my dude.

That brings me to you.

I swear, I'm bringing you along. Mainly because you're the only one I can take with me. But also because it's the conversations we've had recently that have awoken me to myself. You're changing me into the God we're all supposed to incarnate, in our own way. Closer to Olympus, closer to Khem. We've had our differences but it's mainly because I lacked the confidence to earn your respect. Now that we speak as equals, you'll forever be my main source of advice.

I'm in no hurry. I know we'll get there. We promised it to each other, remember?

I see it in the branches of trees, now. In the strains of my own hair.

The journey is not better than the destination. They are one and the same.

They say the best way to understand your own thoughts is to externalize them. That's why the best way to study is to write down what you read. That's why talking about your feelings allows you to put new words on your emotions in a matter that seems strangely spontaneous. Most of us understand ourselves through exterior phenomena, through the reflection we cast onto the world. The people with which you can have real conversations are your best mirror. That's why you have to choose them carefully.

I can have a good conversation with just about anyone. That's not something that is special to me. I genuinely believe that for anyone that isn't burdened by crippling social anxiety, the effort of interest can turn any small talk session into a surprisingly fascinating story about shared hobbies, trauma or personal myths. You'd be appalled by the amount of mind-boggling stories that will remain untold for the sole reason that the only people that could tell them have never felt like they were worthy to share. To this day, good conversations, as opposed to mediocre ones, remain a choice. Are you willing to open yourself enough, both by the gift of your attention and by the weaving of your own story to share a moment with someone? I mean, that's why we call it an exchange. It's not about currency; it's about the richness of experience--lessons learned and passions expiated. People that have never learned their worth or are either intimidated or snobbish toward the past of others will forever be stuck, talking about the weather or other people.

To have a good conversation is a choice. You need to be able to open yourself up to good conversations in order to begin having real ones. I stress it because real conversations are in my opinion the natural next step outside the human experience.

I know, I'm always bringing my shit up to metaphysical levels but that's because it's what I'm interested in. I'm a shower thoughts kind of guy; if it's not connected to the reason or the schematics of our being here on Earth, you won't here it from me. Bare with me. I've been thinking about intelligent design and how you find in nature the blueprint for the structure of life. Since even before the the Greeks, Mesopotamian and Kemet cultures initiated their priests to sacred geometry in order to better understand the ratios between growths and splits; trees and their branches, limbs and their ends. Today we learn about the Golden Number (Phi) in school but fail to spend enough time to talk about its importance in our environment, its direct correlation to our existence and the proof it inches us towards that if it's not purposeful, there's at least a mathematically sound evidence for a logical, intelligent cosmos.

We've all seen the nautilus-shaped spiral put over the pattern of leaves, storms, fingerprints and such. We've all thought "it's pretty cool, guess that's the way Mother nature likes to do shit" and thought nothing of it since; a fuck up of royal magnitude. At least, I think. Switch from your math class to your biology class. Remember the scales of life? How we were taught that Nutriments teamed up to create the Cell, how cells grouped themselves up into tissues which composed our organs which cooperated to keep us "the organism" alive and then we flat out stopped. We can't see beyond ourselves so it's safe to assume that there's no higher consciousness than ours.

We're alone in the Universe because we're not ready to see just how abundant consciousness is. We're the only "level" of consciousness with which it is efficient and easy to communicate therefore we limit ourselves to it, completely oblivious to the role we play at the macroscopic level. Beyond the organism or should I say above you, there is the same pattern in which cell form tissues.

Individuals, weaved in harmony, form families or clusters.

When you've found your family, and I say found, you come to realize that what binds you to the people you choose is the veracity of your conversations. Who are the people you allow yourself to be real with? Who will never be offended by you speaking the truth? Who can you tell horrible news to? Who celebrates in sympathy to your accomplishments? Who picks you up when you fall? Whose growth unlocks new perspectives for you? Who are you beyond interested in? Most importantly, who do you feel wholly understands your thought process?

These questions help you identify who you belong with naturally. The EXACT same way adjacent neurons fire billions of electromagnetic impulses at each other with perfect precision and purpose so do you share a common mind with the people that make you feel whole. Think about it : you share a slang. You share inside jokes, taste in art and culture. You share politic views, goals, objectives and values. Your family or your close friend group could be psycho analyzed as person because at a level higher to you, it is precisely that. Your direct cluster has a psychology. You are part of something bigger. You belong here.

Now, if you ever want to talk to angels. If ever you had wondered who reigned over your life, the most direct way to pray would be to speak with the higher consciousness that's the closest and most relying on your existence and that's your cluster. The only harmonious way to enter in direct contact with it is to have real conversations. They are the thread that weave the cluster together. They are the shared thoughts, catalyzed through the form of stories that create a mindspace outside of flesh. In other words, your love for the universe that is intimate to you and the members of your cluster is what it feels like to be a mind inside of a larger one.

I felt it deeply yesterday. I hope I can only continue to carry my weight within my family. I know that it's only as a unit that we can bring things to a higher level of being.

Darker times
They're telling boulder heavy lies
Looks like all we've got is each other
The truth is obsolete

Remember when all I had was my mother
She didn't compromise
She could recognize, voodoo

I had Voodoo by Frank Ocean on repeat this morning. His poetry, old or recent, has always seemed so effective to me. Like how he could turn a blatantly trivial sentence in a universe of its own by changing or magnifying only one word. When I think about it, I believe it's his style that has reeled me into poetry in the first place. Telling a story, describing the world, exactly as it is brings a sense of realism that, once juxtaposed to a metaphor, exposes such contrast that it makes you feel like our reality was always meant to be magical in the first place.

That's how I see the world. Everything has the potential for magic. What I mean by this is if even a word can change your whole perspective on a sentence just by stemming from a register opposite to the rest of the sentence, then so can you in your surroundings. How you behave, your sense of self and your perspective form your register; they unequivocally and directly mold your form.

When I say form, I'm speaking about the borders between you and the world. Where the world folds when you push upon it, where you collapse under its pressure. By this dynamic and the thousands of choices that constitute it, you are forged. Being aware of it lets you play with your form as the potter would with clay : You know who you are therefore you understand that you are malleable and potent enough to assume any form.

To me, that's Voodoo: the ability to enchant your environment with the sole knowledge that it is you and you are it.

When people talk about self sabotage, I often think that it could be better explained by an allegory we could call "plurality". Like when it's evident someone has actively gone against their own good and we immediately link it to a self esteem problem or a lack of sense of responsibility. I believe we fail to see what we are, as human beings.

What we call our personality isn't something static like a character sheet or even definable by vocabulary. I'd go even further and say our personality is in itself a negotiation between conflicting identities hosted within ourselves. The feeling we get of being a singular entity could be best alluded to as the Free Will consciousness. Some people call it the higher self. I say you are the witness to your own parameters, meaning the character you call by your name is not you. It's a happening to which you've constructed a psychological core of associative properties that help you navigate your given coordinates. We all have that because it's the main skill we need to develop at a young age for survival sake. We train our focus by cruising through daily tasks, reflecting the importance of our surroundings based on immediate gain/risk assessments.

Only thing is, by adulthood, we should be able to negotiate between states of survival and appreciation. We're not taught that. I think that's the blooming of the Human Flower; to recognize the parameters in which we are evolving as only that; parameters. In other words, we never restore the balance between the childlike state of openness that our right brain gives us access to after we've rationalized the world we grew up in. We see the patterns of social determinism, that shape our reality and for most of us, the world could remain at that. Idealists see the world in a equally wrong, if opposite, manner. To them, everyone is unique and completely free of their birth; blank slates that could be painted any color if they only saw themselves as the manifestation of infinite potential that they were.

I think reality is held within a symbiosis of both ideas. You are completely free, yes, but inside a set of parameters that define what you have, not what you are. See, that's the vital distinction. You've incarnated in your body not to play the role of someone else. You were given what you have and what you have is directly linked to exponentially diverse purposes as you explore the vastness of what it means to be you. You could then see yourself as a territory or a set of resources. You can hardly trade your set for something else but your possess ultimate freedom to do as you entend with the resources that are available to you. That's why I think we should focus on the idea of Free Will. Because our Will is the only thing about us that is free. I'm not free to invent an amount to be deposited in my bank account immediately. I'm not free to teleport on a beach in Mexico with the sheer power of my thoughts though I'm the complete master of where I direct my attention at. With the skill set that was given to me, with my particular talents and attributes, I can point my Will at any tiniest part of my being and inflate it's importance to any size I desire. The same way we sometimes bring microscopic objects reeeeeeeally close to our eye and for that precise moment, we can grasp the viewpoint of tiny organisms and how much their reality is different yet as viable as ours.

Attention is fractal. The level of magnification you reside at is an aesthetic choice. That means that what you consider to be true about yourself is either true or in the process of becoming true. You, unbeknownst to yourself, are setting the scene for the future you by galvanizing or restricting parts of your conflicting personalities just by the importance you are allowing them to have. You are, in other words, constructing the very fabric of your character simply by believing that some aspects of your identity are truer than others.

In fact, you are all. You are spectra across spectra. You are both courageous and a coward. You are both a success and a failure. You are both rigid and creative. It all just depends on what you think you need to be in a said moment.

That's why when we talk about self sabotage or wanting what's worse for ourselves, we could say we are simply not aware of the role we are supposed to play. We stay stagnant because we have uncovered that by not achieving any of our goals, we get drafted by the karmic tides and are given a preset role in someone else's game. We are telling life that we are not recognizing our character in the game and would rather not play. Sometimes it's because we're afraid of the next step. Sometimes it's because we think we're not ready but almost all the time, it's because we don't realize that we've been long prepared for what's to come and that it wouldn't even be given to us as an option were we not ready.

But in order to level up, we must be first confronted to a specialist personality that we all have which is the skeptic. The Skeptic is a protective instinct of ours which is necessary for our growth as it acts as a gatekeeper out of our comfort zone. Past the comfort zone, the Skeptic serves no purpose so its survival mechanism leads you to believe that you need it in order to be safe, which can be true. Within its parameters, the Skeptic gives you a 100% survival rate but it often comes at the price of self-doubt, regrets and shame. It's the personality that kept you safe as a child, doubting potentialities as dangers, preventing you to hop in every stranger's car that promised candy or adventure. That being said, Identifying too much with the Skeptic aligns you with those lower vibrations; grounded in the basic feelings of survival but never escaping our primal reflexes.

Once you traverse the gate out of your comfort zone, everything your inner Skeptic told you would happen happens. You, being Free Will incarnate, can decide it's too much and come back to safety, reinforcing your bond with the Skeptic identity or you can choose to double down and shine your focus on another aspect of your being and develop it as you start creating more and more positive memories associated with it. In the end, only you can decide what to consider a failure, what to consider a lesson.

What's to take from this is that we, essentially, are free. You are not the voices inside your head, you are the Arbiter that gives reason to one among them at a time. You get to decide what the movie of your life is about. It's a play within a sandbox and you are the play writer, trying to convince yourself you are the character for which you wrote the play.

My only advice would then become something like this : Believe yourself to be what you wish. The more people you convince, the more you'll convince yourself. After which you'll realize that there is no choice to make in creation, no doubt to have in incarnation, no rest to find in stagnation.

art has no intention;
you spill yourself
carefully
like the sun
sheds its light.

When they say there's no rule to art, we detect the underlying hypocrisy. We all can recognize fake art. We do not call every fruit of design art but all art stems from a form of design. Art cannot take its root in mediocre skill. Art is not recognized without a deep sense of alignement. Why? Because art is the product of effort. Art is not to be mistaken with craftsmanship. Art is simply the prolongation, or the continuation of consciousness outside the parameters of the mind, of what we identify with the self.

It's the relationship between the feelings of the creator and the creature. You've been creating yourself since childhood. Now, what we want to know is how does it feel? What's it like being both the character and the drama?

I thought it was okay for creative people to lack in discipline. I viewed artists as highly dependent on talent; a lucky few that weren't in need of any form of structure or effort in order to achieve genius-levels of competence. I understood artists in a way that was romanticized: heroes touched by divinity, chosen ones whose sole existence was worthy of praise and worship. Of course, that's what I wanted to be.

But neither for the praise or worship.

What I wanted was ease, a state in which laziness could be mistaken for introspection, where a lack of output created mystery, not contentment. I see it today because I realize what I was missing all this time.

The honing of my craft is not something I do on purpose.

The product of creativity is not attention, it's expression.

Mastery is not something I deserve, it's something I develop.

I write them down as mantras because Instagram has me forgetting too often that art is its own reward. I'm no content creator. I offer no value to you. I do my own shit because it heals me. I write because there are some things that I have to get out of my head and my therapist is composed of 26 letters. I can't afford to do it any other way. And, in a sense, there is no other way it could be done.

It's hard to write every day. To be honest, it was harder to even start considering writing as a routine. What I feared most was that in failing to write on one day or by skipping it altogether another, the only logical conclusion would be that if I couldn't stick to my passion, there would literally be nothing I'd be able to do with assiduity or that writing wasn't even a passion at all. I feared that by forcing myself to write, I'd start to consider it as a task and end up resenting it. Truth is, I resented the effort. I wanted the tag of writer without the the labour of finding a topic that would be interesting enough to write about.

I wanted the 6-pack without the pain of training.

Now, that I'm in it, I'd like to say something to the version of me that feared even trying.

You were judging people that were more successful than you. They had more money. They had a better pull on social media. They faked their way to success. You said they didn't deserve what they had, fully knowing that deep down, you feared that one day I would replace you. You feared one day you'd be forced to come to grasp with reality and that by allowing me the space to exist, you would be worse than gone, you'd be considered a waste; a shadow of bitterness and cowardice. Let me tell you something : You were right.

I'm here now. I'm eating the salad you were too lazy to prepare. I'm working out at the time of day you were sleeping in. I'm writing here in this studio, sipping on this dark chocolate almond milk instead of being "busy" watching videos on YouTube.

Don't worry, though. I'll take care of us. I love myself enough for the both of us.

You won't be saved. If you ever felt like you were alone in this world, you were correct. Now, let me tell you why that's a good thing.

Back in pre-lockdown times, I used to obsess over "fixing" people. I'm not bad at galvanizing people. I just don't think I ever set out to do anything remotely close to what I told you would save you. The image I had of myself was akin to the incarnation of good on Earth. Yeah, if you ever found me insufferable, I don't blame you.

I stayed too long in toxic relationships because I thought the girl needed me. I endured shitty job conditions because I believed my absence could mean the downfall of my boss' business. I thought others lacked the vision and emotional clarity I had. So, righteously, I fought nail & teeth for things that were ruining me, oblivious to the fact that if I stayed, it was because I was feeding my urge to feel needed. To me, the moral and philosophical high-ground were the smokescreens I used to make myself believe that fixing others literally meant I was perfect from the start.

Thing is, I've never done anything more than tell people what they should think, how they should see the world. And words are just words. I don't have to believe half of the shit I'm preaching if I know how to sound convincing. The savior's complex might be nothing short of creative avoidance. If I'm dealing with their shit, It's good karma so I don't really need to be dealing with mine. That's why now more than ever I'm suspicious of the help I never requested. I know where it comes from.

No, you won't save anyone either. Not because you shouldn't. But because you can't. Free Will, it doesn't work like that. No amount of exterior help, praise or spiritual teaching will ever alter the image I have of myself when it's precisely self-perception that dictates my self-worth. Most of our lives will be threaded on the fine line between manifestation and self-sabotage. I believe we are all in some way or form masochistic. We are because in order to have fun, there must be some  amount of drama and storms are few and far between. To evoke tension, challenge and adventure, we suffocate parts of our being that are well equipped to deal with our pain. We sit in the pain because we were taught that guilt was an adequate response to trauma. We sit in pain because our inadequacies are bred in what we call our identity. We sit in pain because we think we deserve pain.

I could count on the fingers of my hand the people I know that have clawed their way out of the victim mentality. All of them would tell you the same thing : the only person able to save someone is themselves. It's when you can't stand mediocrity anymore that you wake up to the fact that the ocean you were drowning in was merely a puddle--that you are far more immense than you ever thought you were--that the only way you can truly help others is by saving yourself first and hope that in your wake, you leave a trail distinct enough that it becomes possible for others to follow in your footsteps.

Personally, I don't want to live in a world of people just like me. For that very same reason, what helped me most probably won't help you in the same fashion. You've got to do the Work. You've got to ask yourself the hard questions. You've got to depart from the lives of people who are cementing you to the ground in the name of "love". In short, you've got to decide, even discover, what it means to be you.

I talked to my father this morning. It doesn't happen often and at this point I think I figured out it's nobody's fault anymore. I just like to listen as he gets excited by his own ideas. Despite the distance, we very much hold the same thoughts and express them with a similar type of energy.

He doesn't read me but he knows I write. He asked what form of writing I preferred. Essays? Manifestos? Novels? His eyes lit up when I told him that actually, I was writing nothing but journal entries recently. It's funny how life can be blunt sometimes. "I couldn't be happier, son." I mean, the man doesn't read it, what difference does it make what I write?

He told me it didn't matter what I did but he also said this : "I'm happy you understood that your life is already a story." He carried on: "Not that there's anything wrong with fiction but kid, it's already crazy enough that we're here. How many of us take the time, sit back and assess that this life is weird. Most of us are looking for a story to tell, completely oblivious to the fact that you'll probably never be able to tell a story that's more real than yours."

There was a silence after that. So no other story is worth telling?

"It's not like that, man. See it that way : So much had to happen in order for you to even exist. Everything had to align in the most perfect of manners for you not only to be born, but for you to also be molded into the man you are today. It had to be the right environment. It had to be the right events in the precise order they happened in for you to think the way that you do. We are born as blank slates. You'd be different had it not been for your friends, your fears and the challenges that were personal to you. You are, in other words the art that you seek outside of yourself. You are unique in more ways than you could comprehend. So your journal, it's not something to be taken lightly, as a self-absorbed exercise; you are showing awareness that no one else could be you and that's something to be celebrated. Trillions of happenings turned a part of the Universe into you, it wouldn't have happened if not deliberately and now that you're aware of it, you become the mirror God looks into."

Dad? What the fuck? I bursted out laughing. I had him tell me again. Then I saw it. We think we are our bodies, we believe we are our minds but in reality, we are the sum of all the conditions that make our existence a possibility. We are, in other words, phenomena of this plane of reality, we are one with the whole shebang. Now, what it means is quite simple. The Universe doesn't second-guess itself. Seeds in the ground do not improve; they grow. The sun does not ask to be turned into life; it shines. The stream of the Ocean does not ask for permission, it flows. And yet, here we are, pondering what's it about us that makes us special. Bitch, please. The sole fact of you being here is what's special about you. You get to tell the Whole of the Universe what it feels like to be you. No one else can do that. Do yo get that? Be part of the current. Move with all that is else until all that is else is all that is you. Understand that there will be no time where you feel more like You. That's it. That's the show. That's you. What are you going to do about it?

Way I see it, we can either embrace what feels natural, what feels like we should be doing or we can let other people with the same insecurities as us lead us towards what would make them feel comfortable. Yet, it's not many people who are genuinely happy to see you flourish. It's not a lot of them who can draw the line between your success and their inadequacies. So you might live your life filling the gaps between versions of you. Some days I can almost see this ravine between who I am now and who I know I should be. What my father did today is nothing short of mind-warping.

He made me see this : If you can't see the best version of you, it's because you went ahead and chased something that stayed behind.

It's not Impostor's Syndrome when we really are impostors.

I've waited a long time for people to do it for me. I thought if I was worth it, I'd be saved; like there would be a time when a sufficient amount of accumulated good karma would grant me the ability to wish for what I desired. If people liked me enough, I could tag along on their way to success. I thought I could indefinitely stay in the shadows, never risking to be exposed for the shell of the man I posed as.

Truth is, I cursed myself with an exquisite set of skills, all tailored around the creation of refined fiction. I'll say it in other words: when I'm not writing, so about 99% of the time, I'm still making shit up. I don't feel there's a lot of people that would let themselves relate to this. I don't blame them. Most of us are struggling enough as we speak. Even telling this to my own mother, who's a real life therapist, would feel wrong as hell. But it's my truth. What would there be to answer, anyway? What feedback am I even looking for? What redemption is there for a poser? What's the price of starting over?

My whole life I've been playing pretend. It's always been my favorite game as a child. I guess at one point I started a game I never truly ended. The thing is, back then, there was no consequence to dropping the mask. Today, dropping the act would result in a social and professional suicide. Maybe that's because if it's a game I started as a child, that's all I still am behind the mask.

Yeah. Writing this hurts just the way truth does.

Young me is probably having a blast, though. To be honest, I'm living the life any 9 year-old would dream of. I'm drawing and meeting cool people all year round. My business partners are my best friends and probably the hottest people humanity has ever birthed. I don't have a boss. I don't have a rigid schedule. I can get up whenever I want and work from whenever I want. So what in the fuck am I complaining about?

Let me tell you like this. Say you're with someone you love. Say you're with them but you never allow them to see you in anything but your best look. Say you never burp, fart or even sneeze when they're around. What you're doing is conceiving a character, writing a story in their mind with your name for a title. And the longer you carry this on, the stronger this image of you becomes. So one could argue that they themselves are never truly with you and that could be bad enough. But it gets worse. Because indubitably, one day as you are flawed like all of us, you will drop your guard. And when you do, you won't only show the real you, you also show the distrust you have for them, conscious or not. That's the betrayal. That's what's costly. Because deep down, what you're telling them is both "I'm not really worth it, and I know" and "I don't believe you're profound enough to understand me the way I truly am".

So yeah, young me is having the time of his life but he's also walking on egg shells, in shoes he's barely able to fill. Keep that shit going for a few years and I can admit my feet are getting sore. And now I guess I'm tired of lying to myself. I do believe we live in a social climate where you're being cuddled into accepting your flaws because "we all feel the same" instead of actually fixing your life. I don't buy it. One day or another you end up paying for what you get and if you're not prepared for the bill, what you have is taken from you as payment. Call it karmic credit.

A thing that is true, though, is that I love the people in my life. That's good, at least. I think I can start from there. They took me from where I was to here. The least I can do is outgrow them and return them the favor.

From here, I don't know what else will collapse as I drop the act. I'm prepared to lose whatever I maintained near by sheer force of illusion. I didn't deserve it in the first place. All I know is that this life has taken me as far as it could. So if anything, it might just be time to embrace something new.

All this time, I've been playing the role of the Creative. Someone who's always coming up with new stuff; a mind over-stimulated by  the world that could and would bring a new perspective to any situation. I've been called a genius when all I'm really doing is copy/pasting stuff I like online. I've called myself a writer when none of my books had ever even been showed to a publisher. I fancied myself a philosopher but apart of a few nights, smoking weed while listening to Alan Watts, at no point in time have I ever uttered an original thought. I've been the man that says he does stuff, not the man that does stuff.

I do believe I have a wish, though. I think I'd like it if I tried not to replace my old mask with a new one. But what if what you saw was what you got? No marketing. No advertising. No loopholes or survival mindset. I just want to do shit I truly enjoy. If it ends up in me being considered a loser, then so fucking be it.

Let's be quite honest here. I never worked a day in my whole life. I've always ran from tasks and responsibilities because they were made for someone I never was. They always brought me fear and guilt. That's what I meant early on when I said I've been waiting for people to do it for me. They were burdened by having to compensate for my inadequacies. I didn't have what it took to get to where I was, how could I possibly envision being the one to push things further along? Now, I want to go towards the light I was once afraid of. I want to embrace the spotlight. Because what could go wrong anyway?

There will be nothing to hide once I shed all that's false about me.

I thought about you today. You. Really? Really.

I thought about what I meant for you. I thought about what I expected coming from you. I thought about our relationship and all the ways we are mutually oblivious to the other one. Maybe you think we have a special bond. Maybe you're even surprised that you're stuck reading me at this very moment. I know you are. No matter. In the end, I think it's funny how we pretend to care. How we like each other's stories. How we go looking for specific accounts in the sea of views that they get. I think it's funny I feel validated when you know I'm with other people, having a good time. Like it's more pleasurable to fantasize about you wanting to be around me than to actually be fully living in the present.

I thought about you today. I know I did because there's not a lot of other stuff which I worry about. Even here, right now, I'm writing this because I can't talk to you. But still, there are things that I want you to know. Think about us. How did we meet? Who do we know in common? How much time did we spend together? What's the idea you have of me? Do I matter to you? I think deep down, I don't. It's something we have that's reciprocal. And it's perfectly fine.

Imagine thinking other people will notice, care and judge.

It's Sunday 5 PM. You're thinking about where and what you'll eat in an hour. You're lost in the Internet wormhole, your mind numbed by sensationalist posts from strangers. You're binge-watching an old series you're hooked on or maybe you are on the beach of a lake, roasting under the sun. Me? I'm writing about you. Because to this day you are the excuse I convince myself with. You are the reason I have nothing to say. Nothing of value, at least. You are my worst fear. You are the reason I set myself for failure. Why? Because my biggest fantasy; my most egotistic dream and the reason I'm frozen over in self-doubt and impostor's syndrome is that I think that you care.

I like to believe that you count the days between each of my posts. I like to believe that everything new that I try will be received by you as some type of revolutionary, avant-gardiste revelation. I like to see myself in your eyes the same way I see me; it would save a lot of time and sweat. If I can't reach that bar, I know that in your eyes, I'm the biggest failure there ever was and I can't bear the thought.

Truth is, I'm not entitled to you attention. Moreover, even the things you care about you forget within the span of a few months. You remember the premise of your favorite stories but how many of them could you quote? How many chapters could you precisely recount? You can't. Not because it's not real to you but because you're not meant to. And I mean this literally. So imagine the amount of Ego. Imagine how fucking stupid of me. Imagine how incredibly dumb and selfish of me it would be to not do the things I like to do because I'm scared you won't like it.

Like you gave a fuck.

But now, look at us. We are limiting our own creative output to the slavery of an algorithm that gives no shit about us if not for our selfies. We're thinking about following trends just to grow a fucking number next to our username that we believe will make other people think more of us. Even crazier, we think less of ourselves because we believe it makes them think less of us. Without the need of proof, without the need of a conversation or even a nod from them.

That's how dumb happiness can be.

Really, really dumb.

I decided otherwise, though. If I'm to live with the everlasting thought of you, you and I will have a conversation. You will understand that there are rules to our game and here they are : I get to do what the fuck I want and you get to decide whether or not you're a part of it. I have to let go someday and I think I prefer for this day to come earlier than not.

So yeah, I thought about you today. And I wanted to thank you. Thanks for letting me know how little you cared. That shit set me free. I hope one day you'll do the same. Maybe we'll meet again and laugh about how real we thought it was.

Once were a time where I obsessed over relevancy. I guess in some way I still do but somehow, my perspective has shifted where I no longer attribute relevancy to the effect that objects have on people. Objects as concepts or paradigms influencing our thought process. Not that I don't think that common acceptance of knowledge is a good determinant of the way society continually constructs itself but rather that I believe that associating relevancy of matter to an ever-changing perspective of social conception automatically categorizes your proposition as trivial.

So, if anything, in the process of achieving the refinement of an apex creation, the basis on which it will be regarded cannot seek to be relevant in the way that it will speak to people. This is therefore not a quest, neither is it an original idea but more so a point of referral.

We must then start with a fair bit of definition.

The point of this object is to reconnect fundamental truths about the human condition. Condition because it is as much an enigma as it is a joke, and an open-ended one at that. Condition because it is conditional. Human is human solely on a supposition. We, for the sake of usefulness and movement, have supposed that this thing we have rationalized as "human" the concept of this being that feels consciously apart from the rest of the world. Only, it is not so obvious that our environment is not also human in its presentation. For example, we know that the physical world is mostly empty. The space between atoms being immensely larger than the atoms themselves force the perspective that we are not interacting with matter but rather with energy. And energy is nothing but waves of information. Information then becomes a language which can be decoded by as many ways as there are different decoders to receive it.

Take the image of a ladybug. As, you conceptualize the redness of it's carapace, its very distinctive roundness and pattern you come to realize that the dog sees a different thing. As we know, the dog has less types of visual cones in its retina which lets it see a lesser range of color wavelengths than we do as human beings. The bat, on the other hand is virtually blind though it would probably be the first in the room to notice the bug.  And what does it conceptualize? It certainly doesn't see the cute and harmless insect you had in mind. To it, it's a reverberation of sound, of all things, and when interpreted, much more indicate an easy meal than something to contemplate. The point is, as the universe manifests itself, the dog, the bat and you will have incomprehensible distinctions in their interpretation but find themselves in the impossibility to undermine the perspective of the other two as a lesser construction of what there is -- to the degree that there is no good way to interpret everything.

It is not the role of the fabric of physics to be interpreted. We do it because it is useful to us but the cells that organized themselves to use the sun as a power plant, to deconstruct the minerals in the earth, never asked to be referred to as plants. The flow of water that is streaming in a river is never constituted of the same molecules or drops of water but we feel as though when we come back to find the river still in its beach that its the same river. It is not. It is a human interpretation of a complete and all-related wave.

And this wave is all happening within you. Basically, what seems to be happening outside of you is merely a reflection of the synapses that are constantly firing in your brain. So when you observe a tree, you are not seeing the tree for what it is. You are merely associating language to the human version of that instance. It then becomes a human-tree, or a human-reflected tree.

But if everything becomes human as it's derived from the sense that we interpret the Universe in a fraction of what it offers, a humanly consumable fraction, then there's nothing to refer to as apart from the viewer and then all this scene falls as some kind of illusion. It's a Big Act. But what for?

To me, it becomes obvious that the Universe is self-inflicted. We are choosing and programming certain parts of our environment in order to interact with them and let them become actors in a scene we call life.

So conditional? Yes. But if conditional then also self-serving.

See this as an argument that constructs the world in a reality that is exclusively relative to the the viewer.

There is this phenomenal idea in Hinduist philosophy of the Atman. Basically attributing the fabric of existence, of godliness, to the breath within. Something of the kind that doesn't dissociate God with its creation. And without having to plunge to much into religion and the many ways to politicize it's role in our society, there is something to that idea that hits the right note for me. To situate the sentient being as the very border between creature and creator I believe is a more correct viewpoint or at least a better start to a definition of what the human condition is. In a first sense because by balancing on an infinitely narrow thread, to be human imposes a leaning towards one of the two identities.

You can either continue the Works by exploring the infinity within and manifesting the Artist that God is acting out through you or you can play out the the different narratives that have been laid out in front of you and therefore act as a creature to the Game we are playing together.

[To be continued]

Blue light refraction
Eyes turn red guess I failed to mention
Waited on text, laying on the Casper
Just a friendly reminder
Never feared no ghost
Hermetic thoughts, still fuck Messenger
Jailed by my keyboard
Never finished a sentence
Guess that's why they call it a cellphone
Sweet solo, fly from Alcatraz to Atlantis
Follow me, no chemtrails
Doesn't matter where
You're sleeping anyway
My family tree stems from a Pine Cone
A chakra's a halo
Lucky number 7 on an angel
Our game's a dark cloud
Or a Final Fantasy
You didn't live up to the hype

I'm worried about how authentic I truly am. I mean, I know how to lie. I'm used to lying and worse, I got pretty good at it over time. I understand we lie to twist the outcomes in our favor, even if it's just a little bit. I understand not all lies are purely malevolent. I understand that no one expects you to be a vehicle of untarnished truth but still, I worry I've become so used to my own white lies, that even I started to believe in them. Now, I could leave things as they are and pray for the best but I've come to realize this path leads nowhere.

I think at some point in our childhood, we all feel we have what it takes to become someone special. How many of your classmates dreamed of becoming famous popstars, professional footballers or even movie celebrities? How many of them have turned out to become exactly that? I think when we stated our own project of making it big, we weren't lying. I think we absolutely believed in ourselves. What happened along the way, you might asked? I think we settled. We learned to accept immediate wins as acceptable outcomes, to fear the word 'risk' as we fear doom itself.

Point is, we felt at some point there were something unusual in our character that wouldn't deem acceptable for us to settle for mediocrity. We are made to aim high. Funny how today I see most people I know faking happiness, having settled for the middle-way between themselves and their true goals, trying to fill the gap it created with quick pleasures and meaningless connections. I'm not hating. I do understand where we come from. We're not taught to maintain high virtues and aim for the long run. That shit is scary. It's also awful to feel like the odd one out, sacrificing everything in the present for it to pay out later because all you appear to be to others is what they see at the moment, and that might not be a lot. Thing is, we want people to believe we're happy. Maybe more than we really want to be happy ourselves. Simply because we do need other people in our lives and most do not want to associate with impoverished loners. It's a risky social investment, not something that'll give you a quick win, which we've learned to gather in some sort of crazed frenzy.

Let me make it clear, I've been among the crowd most my life. I've been a people-pleaser. I've been the average from which to differentiate yourself. I have been remarkably unremarkable for longer than I can remember until I understood I needed to be even less than that before I could become something else. Not that I've awaken or anything but I've come to terms with the fact something in my life had always been missing. I looked for advice, for someone that could serve as an example, to no avail. Well, that's not true. We can discuss faith another time but I chose to believe in the blueprint of human design. I understood the world as being no different from me. I think the call it Catharsis. In other words, we like to to recognize ourselves in others because, as others make different choices, we can understand universal truths within ourselves.

I could stay at bars, writing, even long after the party had begun. I would look at people, and still do, trying to imagine what feeling they are chasing, which one they are running from. Learn by elimination. Don't do the mistake you see others doing and if you really arrive at a different, better outcome, then help them understand your way. Some sort of reciprocity.

Bars are a haven of impulisvity. And within impulisvity there's a kind of raw truth you can later translate into intention. What I've learned is that people drink in a kind of social contract. We lower our discernment and widen our filters in order to help excuse our clumsy truths. Being drunk becomes a hallpass at being, loud, hot-headed and daring -- fun. But to be daring implies a risk : one which we'd be less likely to attempt if others around had not their filter loosened. In other words, I get drunk so you feel comfortable being fun around me and vice versa. Maybe we're ashamed at the fact we truthfully do not care about what we're doing as long as we're doing it with people we enjoy. And maybe we like to know how far we can push things with them. Alcohol just gives us an opportunity for second chances.

All of that is good fun. To me it resonated with a behavior of my own. I believe I lie for the same reason I like others to be drunk around me; to see how far I can push it. To understand other people's psychological perimeter and to see where I can fit to occupy the most space possible. In all honesty, all of that is done for the same reason a guy would try to kiss a girl he wouldn't be able to look in the eyes while sober : because being truthful outlines you. It marks you as a precise target and if you are absolute in your endeavor of telling what you believe to be real, you risk the chance of being disappointing.

You know the phrase : "I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed." is somehow worse than it's presumed alternative. That's because we fear not being enough more than we fear being antagonized. We fail to see how we can prove people to see us as little that we exist in a larger fashion. How could I exist more? How is it possible that once the mask has been lifted and the illusion I call me has vanished, people could ever consider me again as being as worthy of them as they had previously envisioned? This seems like it leads to a paradox.

To comeback to my initial statement, authenticity is to my eyes as heroic a journey as can be. Think about it, we do not live in a Hollywood movie. While the idea of not worrying about preserving the integrity of the sum of all lies you've been telling people over the years sounds appealing, to align with your true self can be as much of a suicidal plan. Let's not act like people do not prey upon the inapt. If you are not certain and comfortable about the version of yourself you are choosing to expose to people, you're not going to last. So before you can ever be both authentic and relevant, there's a lot of inner work to do.

Do you accept your flaws? Which ones are you less afraid of than you are of the impact they'd have on your social life if all of the sudden, they were revealed to the world? What parts of you will you have to sacrifice or improve at the cost of sweat and tears before you ever reach in truth the persona you have been building and playing as the "You" others know and love? How much work have you cut short with the help of convenient small lies? Now that you have faked it, how hard will it be if you truly want to make it? Is it even fucking worth it?

I think it is. Because once you've embodied truth, there are no more stories holding you back from becoming what you really want to be. And that grip over destiny is, I believe, one of the great joys and responsibilities of being human. It's nice to act out your life for a while; get to feel all the highs and lows. But most of us would agree we're also in the duty of preserving this shared dream for others and we can help no one if we are ourselves trapped in a story that has totally spiraled out of our control. I mean, it's our lives we should have sovereignty over it if on anything.

Now, the good news is not all lies need to be atoned for. Just the lies that build your character. Those make people believe in you. Because what makes you real is an idea. The idea that even when you're not in front of people, they still know and can imagine how your life's going. You help others build this image by telling them stories about you. You don't have to look further than Instagram to understand most the stories we tell each other are embellished. It's all fine and dandy. Your work begins with a choice : Would you rather admit to your reality or construct what's missing? Both are possibilities. The scale of the task at hand depends on the amplitude of your lies.

I'm in this process myself. I personally made the choice to live up to my stories and embody the legend that shares my name. If we're ever to live up to our next tales, I'd like to learn how to shape reality with actions rather than words, with intention rather than invention.

I do not believe we will ever stop to create. I just think that the closer to truth we are creating, the more aligned we become. And the more aligned, the more powerful, the more influential.

‍

Je suis assis dans le train, deuxième étage, en direction de la métropole. La rangée de gauche, premier wagon. Le dernier en fait, si on considère l'ordre selon la direction motrice du train. C'est la première fois que je m'assois à gauche. J'ai pris ce train des dizaines de fois, mais tout d'un coup, dû à cette insignifiante décision, le paysage à l'horizon me devient inconnu, improbable. La lumière du matin de la fin de l'automne amène avec elle une quiétude qu'on ne peut recréer dans d'autres paramètres. Le genre de calme qui me donne envie d'écrire, qui me pousse à raconter une pensée comme si elle était importante, d'une manière ou d'une autre. Jusqu'à présent, j'obéis davantage à une urge d'exister plutôt qu'à la poésie d'une orfèvrerie narrative.

Je suis en train de me prendre en vieux selfie scriptural. Dit comme ça, je me sens presque sale. Ça me fait penser à ce que je pensais devoir être pour ma business. Comme quoi, les gens ont envie de travailler avec les gens qu'ils aimeraient être. Pour ma part, la seule curiosité que je me reconnais est cette aptitude à pouvoir écrire sans raison ou du moins à ne pas me lasser dans l'effort du monologue.

Forcément, alors, je deviens un écrivain et les gens devraient me remarquer pour ce que je fais qu'ils ne font pas. C'est tout. Ce que j'écris n'a pas besoin d'être bon. Au contraire, le plus j'écris de manière insignifiante, le plus les gens semblent me porter attention. C'est comme si on se reconnaissait tous dans la médiocrité. Dans cet effort vain d'apparaître devant le regard des autres sans pour autant y apporter de valeur ou le transformer de quelconque manière. Comme si le message que j'apportais se résumait à : "Moi non plus, on ne m'a pas expliqué comment ni pourquoi exister, mais j'existe et je crois que ça suffit." Un peu comme si être ignares ensemble était pour une raison plus noble qu'être illuminé seul.

Mais je me prends souvent à mon propre jeu. Hier seulement, j'étudiais la manière dont d'autres hommes racontaient leur vie sur Instagram, pas parce que je m'y intéressais particulièrement mais davantage parce que je cherchais dans leur méthode une quelconque réponse à la différence entre nos popularités. Le premier réflexe qui m'est venu est celui d'imiter. Sans scrupule ni la moindre originalité. Je me suis arrêté. Encore en ce moment, je lève la tête et je croise le regard d'un homme à bord du train. Nous nous observons brièvement et puis, en se délaissant du regard, je remarque sa position imiter la mienne; le tibia posé sur le genou de l'autre jambe. Ça ne ressemblait pas à un geste conscient. Seulement, c'est une drôle de coïncidence. Nous nous copions tous parce que l'originalité est bien plus qu'un effort, il s'agit de la plus haute forme humaine de risque. Faire les choses comme nul autre nous rapporte indubitablement une forme d'attention que personne n'a jamais eue. Pour quelqu'un qui opère au quotidien dans un domaine créatif, le fait que je n'aie jamais pensé à l'originalité comme une ressource me surprend.

J'imagine que je me rapproche du point duquel le besoin d'écrire se faisait ressentir. Je crois que c'est l'idée qui m'est venue aussi hier, lorsque j'étudiais le compte Instagram d'un autre. L'idée m'est venue parce qu'à regarder le même compte, j'ai cru remarquer que ce que j'allais identifier comme étant la référence de l'étiquette des réseaux sociaux tirait une quantité intrigante de similitude avec un autre compte d'une semi-célébrité. En me rendant sur cet autre compte, le même phénomène se répétait. De fil en aiguille, tous se copiaient jusqu'à se suivre dans les hautes sphères de la popularité virtuelle. Je me souviens avoir laisser s'échapper un rire à cette réalisation. Si l'originalité est une ressource, elle est aussi une denrée rare. Un bien précieux réservé à une sorte d'élite spirituelle qui est en mesure d'assumer le risque d'être différent.

J'ai remarqué autre chose aussi en remontant le fil du courant esthétique. Les copies des comptes ne se faisaient pas comme des copies industrielles, ou conformes. Chaque individu, de la même manière que je m'apprêtais à faire, amoindrissait la qualité du travail de son prédécesseur; une copie moindre en toute forme. C'était probablement dû au fait qu'en tant qu'humains limités que nous sommes, nous ne pouvons que concevoir une partie infime de l'inspiration nécessaire à créer une proposition réellement originale. En d'autres mots, le résultat créatif n'est rien de plus qu'une escroquerie sans l'intention qui vient avec.

Tout ça pour en arriver où? Devant mon ordinateur, je crois. Devant mon ordinateur à me poser cette question qui revient inévitablement à chaque fois. Si être original se résume à être authentique et vrai à soi-même, comment s'assurer, sans s'aider de la validation d'autrui, que notre labeur est vrai. Vrai dans le sens où il est le reflet immédiat de ce que c'est que d'être soi. Avec tous les filtres, les opinions et les programmes qui viennent avec. Comment en d'autres termes faire transiger l'inconscient vers le conscient sans le teinter de nos peurs ou des constructions sociales qui nous moulent à cette continuation fractale de médiocrité interminable?

Peut-être que ça commence avec le fait de s'aimer plus qu'on a besoin que les autres nous aiment.

[à suivre.]

Six Hundred Ninety-Three tulips and a thorn
Still, the Queen chose two lips for a throne
Whistle through them
Turn air into song
Turn your back to a gem, bet
A ruby will turn back to a stone

We'll tend to the Garden
That sits at the back of your skull
Wounds and flowers, mended
There's a message and you sent it

Maybe every angel has not yet fallen
‍

"En premier je dois dire que je suis le plus jeune des petits-enfants de ma grand-mère. Donc c'est aussi moi qui a peut-être le moins connu ma grand-mère. Je me suis rendu compte en écrivant ça qu'elle a été pour moi plus une figure qu'une personne. C'était elle l'héroïne des histoires de ma mère, la cuisinière de la soupe aux cinquante affaires. Je me suis rendu compte aussi que même si l'amour entre elle et moi était gêné, comme si ni elle ni moi ne savait si on méritait l'amour de l'autre, cet amour était bel et bien réel. Et ça, y'a seulement une personne avec une grande âme qui puisse être en mesure de le communiquer. Je pense que ça je l'hérite d'elle."

‍

Je sais pas comment rendre un hommage
Je voulais entendre la mère de ma mère
J'ai mis un coquillage dans un coquillage

Elle m'a dit : "La vie c'est comme un livre
Tu t'en rends compte quand il faut que tu tournes la page
Même quand ça fait mal. Surtout si ça fait mal
Surtout quand tu te rappelles
De toutes celles
Qu'on a lues en diagonale

S'il te plaît fais-toi pas de la peine
Tu sais, moi je suis légère comme un nuage
Quelque part, je crois, entre le ciel, le sable et la plage
Ici on est tous des enfants. Y'a des palmiers. Y'a des érables
Les flocons tombent en fleurs, des saveurs d'aurores boréales

Maintenant, la vie a plus de sens, même si elle est pas toujours évidente
Moi, j'ai pleuré de rire quand j'ai revu mes parents, leurs parents et ta tante
Mais surtout prends ton temps

Tu sais, nous on sera là, à t'attendre
Malcolm, l'Univers est grand mais le Cœur l'est encore plus.
Celui de ma fille t'appartient, prends en soin jusqu'au terminus.

‍

This friend recently told me about her difficulty marrying style and substance in her writings. Like it was her duty to ensure the utility of her passage here on Earth. I think that in a way, I've always shared her anxiety of being known in my shallowness, of having brought to the world nothing but my person, of, in other words, baring no impact other than the space I've occupied in my time here. I'm not saying I've conquered this fear either. I do take refuge in the thought that no idea is truly original.

In the creative world, ideation seems to be the luxury only genius can afford. We think that award-winning ideas, historical concepts are reserved only to the most talented among us. That's where most of us block. Because why bother? Why try at all when we know most won't care? So we censor ourselves in a fashion perfectly opposed to the mindset of those we idolize.

I believe this to be the case. Great designers, musicians, writers, architects and artists have understood this one thing : We do not have ideas, we are ideas.

Art then becomes an act of liberation. To claw away at oneself like a sculptor would at the clay. But you can only uncover an idea with questions. And to uncover means to remove everything which is not the subject. So, who are you when no one else is around? What would you see if only your eyes could see? What would you say if no one dared oppose you? If you are afraid of the answers, good. You now see the mountain ahead. At least you can choose to climb now. Most of us won't dare to.

That's because most people would rather be interesting than interested. They want to know how they are going to be useful and in being useful, you have a much higher chance of achieving your goals by building upon the bricks others have laid before. You are adding to a network of references. The artist's purpose is to let go of any previous reference and to aim towards self-recognition. That's probably why a lot of us abandon the quest. We are looking for relevance in the wrong place, in the eyes of others. But we are not the ones that should decide who our craft will have an impact on. We are trailblazers. Who ever the fuck is crazy enough to follow you in the unknown is not your responsibility. Your responsibility is to be daring enough to leave in the first place. Your profit should and will not be fame. If you are creating for fame, you fall in the trap of associating with your ego instead of setting it free. Looking to be admired through your art is akin to looking for peace through a weapon.

If you are to write, write for yourself first.

Maybe it was an afternoon
Or was it an afterthought
I seem to remember you
Underneath the shower stream
Between the stops of each station
Just like when tracks switch
You used to say
If there's a beat there's a melody
And we'd shut our irises open
Lace melancholy with the melatonin
The light broken apart by your melanin
You are the dream I miss having

I think what scares me the most is the fact that my dad and I each made the promise to never make the same mistake our father made. Thing is, I had a front row seat to see him lose himself to the same issues he blamed my grandfather for. And now, the more I try to push myself away from my dad's mistakes, the more I feel drawn to the conclusion that I do things the same way he does.

I wish there were a more humble way to talk about this. Because I want to make myself very clear : My father is a great man. He's kind, smart and awfully creative. Despite the fact that I see in him the potential that most can't, the burdens of the father pass down to the son and I have to be not better, but more understanding of my own flaws. What is it about me that makes me brave when I'm with other people but avoidant when faced alone with responsibility?

How can I say I'm a creative type when I end up creating nothing but stories about myself?

What is it I'm scared of by ending up like him? What is it about his life that makes me cower about my own future? How am I letting his certainty affect my possibilities? What's the fucking pattern here?

I guess it starts where he first failed; by his promise. He didn't live up to his word and I believe it makes me anxious about my own. I mean, he suffered of the same abandonment he exposed my brother and I to. He knew just like I know how fucking shitty of a move it is to be left fatherless. And he did it anyway. He failed me like he failed his business, like he failed my mom, my brother, his parents and more importantly; himself. All of that, even though he was conscious of what he inflicted on all of us; he had been on the other side of the mirror.

So as I'm about to potentially repeat history, I can't found my trust in my own words because apparently, life happens. But then again, not trusting myself is akin to a paranoia that is itself more constraining than my first worry. If not my father, I still have to be someone.

Then this can't become a somehow elaborate version of the same promise. I will not be counting the days until I finally betray myself and break my word. There will be no word. There is only me. There is only today. That is who and what I'll serve.

‍

Most of us fail to understand how much it takes to create a spark.

Though it's no flame.

No bonfire.

No supernova.

A spark is the start of it all. It's matter turned into energy; form turned back into substance.

If you take a match, in it's simplest form, you find yourself holding an odd sitck of wood. And though the match's sole purpose is to create a spark, it is not it. You do not have a stack of unlit flames in your pocket, sitting there, waiting for you to light a cigarette. A match is matter. Inert, still, but holding a promise.

If you take that same match and strike it, you obtain a flame. Simple enough. But was it you that created the flame, that summoned the energy? Of course not. It was there all along. What was a simple piece of stick becomes a weapon strong enough to burn bridges.

See? The argumentative is not to define the line between what is matter and what is energy. Both are ends of one and only spectrum. As is everything. Without white, there can't be black. Without indifference, there can't be love. Without form, there is no substance.

And you, in all of this?

Are you the match or are you the flame? If we lived in a binary world, of course it would imply a choice. You'd have to be one of two options. But spectrums are of another nature, not infinite, but complete. You, of course, share their nature. You are not still like the match and not volatile and chaotic like the flame. You are the symphony that orchestrates the instrument into music.

It is when you stop imposing on yourself the responsibility, or say, the burden of life that you start experimenting it all. Nothing is made to be permanent. You won't outlive your own story; and it, won't outlive ours.

What is to be made of all of this is that if you are said to orchestrate the music of life, you would start to study music, it's beauty and it's pattern because that's how the human mind works. We analyse and categorize chaos into beauty. We pursue perfection, never achieving it. But what is studying art without creating? And what is creation without novelty?

No one asks of us that we create. It is innate to us. As the flame awaits within the match, creation awaits in our mindsouls. And if the purpose of a match is to be lit, so is yours. The only thing that differentiates you from the match is the kind of fire you create. But as the match can create bonfires. The human mind can spread too. It can light revolutions, spark inventions, summon universes.

And in this precise instant. We all become drops in the same ocean. If you are like us, you'd like to set sail in it. Explore it all. And if behind every skull there is a different garden, who would we be to refrain one's flowers to bloom?

Most of us fail to understand how much it takes to create a spark.

Though it's no flame.

No bonfire.

No supernova.

Not yet, anyway.

We will be the ones to fill in the blank.

‍

‍

And just like people read shampoo bottles while they take a shit, I became my own prophet; out of boredom.

People tell me if they knew all I knew at my age, they'd be rich today. Good for them. I guess it's a compliment. I just never could be bothered by the promise of money. Rich people still manage to design their own version of hell. They say once you've tasted every inflexion of pleasure, the only stimulation left to be desired is pain. I believe that.

People aren't sad. They're just fucking bored. Not because there's nothing to do. Quite the opposite, matter of fact. There's so much to do nowadays it feels like boredom has become a choice. Truth is, what I've come to encounter recently is a jaw-dropping amount of people that have so little things to talk about that they'd rather speak on what other people are doing than discuss what their own aspirations are. Because that'd imply they had to choose one to start from. I'm not hating. I think what I'm trying to say is that choice is a catalyst. That's really it. People, in front of a decision, experience Godliness.

To make a choice is to shine light on a selected outcome. To make a choice is also to cast an grim shadow on all other potentialities. Jesus and Saturn are the same guy. You bring home a flower you chose to cut from its stem. You  bake a beautiful cake with eggs that had the potential to become roosters. The same as you choose to incarnate a version of yourself that will eat all other entities you could have manifested. Therefore, choosing is just as much an act of birth as it is an act of murder. And in this sadistic curiosity, it becomes much safer for people to watch others in the act of becoming, letting Catharsis take care of the sentiment of fulfillment while never risking death themselves.

The prophecy now becomes something like this : Nothing can live which has never got the chance to die.

‍

‍

In a world filled with doubt and open-ended truths, it sometimes feels like a curse to know something with absolute certainty. To me, life never has been about happiness or fulfillment. I see life as  a canvas. One I was meant to leave a mark on, not one that was supposed to frame me. But then there's hope. Hope I always found myself falling for, like the Lady in a Red Dress.

I recognize life might appear a bit fucked up right now. Forests that aren't being cut down are going up in flames, the seas are flooding our cities and it looks like the Behemoths we call our institutions draw a sinister grin on our worries. To a lot of us, it seems like every odd is turned against us. We feel politically, financially and culturally dispossessed all the while we are asked to sustain hope.

My particular quarrel with hope is that it subtracts me from the equation. It is when I cultivate hope that my business will skyrocket that I miss opportunities. It's when I'm face against the wall that I muster the force to push through hurdles. It's when I have hope about romantics interests that we lose touch. It's when I hope that I set myself up for disappointment.

Now, in our bipolar understanding of the world, the absence of hope might translate into cynicism. I think not. I believe that it's scarier than that. I think when you remove hope, you come face to face with your problem. And that's what you and I are scared to admit. The danger of hope is that an undetermined factor will intervene, like some sort of Deus ex machina, and make us well again.

This leaves us weak, unorganized.

And so many of my friends are hopeful; they wait. Because their problems feel bigger than they are. Because someone else will probably fix the issue. Because we've become so good at dissociating with reality. Shit. Sometimes it feels like my world might just crumble upon me but as long as others think I'm doing better than they are, then I'm fine.

The day not being last made me feel okay was the day I realized I was probably sick. I believed myself to be past the high-school bullying phase, the scoff-at-you type of guy that'll make you feel odd so he feels less so. I thought I matured. Truth is my fears just became other fears. Yet, today, when I'm asking myself what I think is wrong with the world, I simply can't find it within me not to start with myself. And I say that optimistically : I'm not good enough.

Somehow it feels Great.

I have a friend with which I used to practice mirror-work. We set ourselves exercices in which we had to look in the mirror, straight into our reflections' eyes and tell them healing words. Let me tell you. That shit works. But it made me understand something. I believe we are innately Sublime. I do profoundly believe it.

I sometimes rest in awe that this biological, cosmic, clockwork organism we call the Universe lets us sit here and play pretend with each other. I wish not to discuss the metaphysics of it right now but it lays the first brick of my argument : The fact that I'm worthwhile implies that within me lays the power to change my condition.

So no, I'm not good enough. But good enough means that there's a bar to aim at. And this bar is not as high as being the World's Savior or the greatest human persona alive. Good enough means that I mimic within myself what is orchestrated beyond me. So not being good enough does not leave me in a victim's position where I get to receive all your consolations. Quite the contrary, I'd imagine. Not being good enough simply equates to the fact that I possess the means to achieve a higher standard of what it means to be me. I now know what I can become.

I do not merely hope it. I know it, it knows me and now the two versions of myself can enter in a negotiation on whatever it will take to migrate from a state of being an extra in my own movie to being its director.

Man, just writing this feels like a therapy. I heard this quote today, or something along those lines : "Faith might resemble the irresistible urge to imitate." It resonated. I think I have faith in the fact that I belong to a Universe that created itself playfully. Now for a game to be fun, there needs to be a lot at stake.

So I think I can integrate it in a form of discussion. My life is a game. It is played between both the voices in my head; the one that likes to feel everything at any cost and the one that wants to create. My very own Yin & Yang. My Destiny is what is at stake. I believe, as I watch them create me, that I exist in the Middle. I become the Arbiter, or free-will. I can chose who will win, what outcome we'll go by.

Let me then propose this to you.

If you ever feel lost or out of touch, as we all do sometimes, reflect on which of the voices within you pushed you in the direction you are now headed in. Then, think about how much of you truly agrees with that direction and how much of you feels betrayed or regretful. You'll come to understand that you are a plural being, nothing short of it. That's not you second-guessing your choices but rather playing the crowd-pleaser within your own ego instead of the judge you should incarnate. It's ok, by the way.

We all try so hard to be One thing and follow One path define ourselves with One identity, it's no wonder we all feel crazy. It's less ok when we accept that as our reality and fall out of balance for good. Because yes, the forests are still burning. Yes, The Corrupt are getting richer and the Poor poorer. Yes, you are still just you. But all of that won't change based on a good feeling. Only self-aligned people can take on tasks as imposing as change. Only if you know who you are with absolute certainty can you make a change outside of yourself. You've got to start with you. I need to start with me. Let's build ourselves back first, then the world we want to cohabit in.

No hope. Just free-will being free, again.

I'm worried about how authentic I truly am. I mean, I know how to lie. I'm used to lying and worse, I got pretty good at it over time. I understand we lie to twist the outcomes in our favor, even if it's just a little bit. I understand not all lies are purely malevolent. I understand that no one expects you to be a vehicle of untarnished truth but still, I worry I've become so used to my own white lies, that even I started to believe in them. Now, I could leave things as they are and pray for the best but I've come to realize this path leads nowhere.

I think at some point in our childhood, we all feel we have what it takes to become someone special. How many of your classmates dreamed of becoming famous popstars, professional footballers or even movie celebrities? How many of them have turned out to become exactly that? I think when we stated our own project of making it big, we weren't lying. I think we absolutely believed in ourselves. What happened along the way, you might asked? I think we settled. We learned to accept immediate wins as acceptable outcomes, to fear the word 'risk' as we fear doom itself.

Point is, we felt at some point there were something unusual in our character that wouldn't deem acceptable for us to settle for mediocrity. We are made to aim high. Funny how today I see most people I know faking happiness, having settled for the middle-way between themselves and their true goals, trying to fill the gap it created with quick pleasures and meaningless connections. I'm not hating. I do understand where we come from. We're not taught to maintain high virtues and aim for the long run. That shit is scary. It's also awful to feel like the odd one out, sacrificing everything in the present for it to pay out later because all you appear to be to others is what they see at the moment, and that might not be a lot. Thing is, we want people to believe we're happy. Maybe more than we really want to be happy ourselves. Simply because we do need other people in our lives and most do not want to associate with impoverished loners. It's a risky social investment, not something that'll give you a quick win, which we've learned to gather in some sort of crazed frenzy.

Let me make it clear, I've been among the crowd most my life. I've been a people-pleaser. I've been the average from which to differentiate yourself. I have been remarkably unremarkable for longer than I can remember until I understood I needed to be even less than that before I could become something else. Not that I've awaken or anything but I've come to terms with the fact something in my life had always been missing. I looked for advice, for someone that could serve as an example, to no avail. Well, that's not true. We can discuss faith another time but I chose to believe in the blueprint of human design. I understood the world as being no different from me. I think the call it Catharsis. In other words, we like to to recognize ourselves in others because, as others make different choices, we can understand universal truths within ourselves.

I could stay at bars, writing, even long after the party had begun. I would look at people, and still do, trying to imagine what feeling they are chasing, which one they are running from. Learn by elimination. Don't do the mistake you see others doing and if you really arrive at a different, better outcome, then help them understand your way. Some sort of reciprocity.

Bars are a haven of impulisvity. And within impulisvity there's a kind of raw truth you can later translate into intention. What I've learned is that people drink in a kind of social contract. We lower our discernment and widen our filters in order to help excuse our clumsy truths. Being drunk becomes a hallpass at being, loud, hot-headed and daring -- fun. But to be daring implies a risk : one which we'd be less likely to attempt if others around had not their filter loosened. In other words, I get drunk so you feel comfortable being fun around me and vice versa. Maybe we're ashamed at the fact we truthfully do not care about what we're doing as long as we're doing it with people we enjoy. And maybe we like to know how far we can push things with them. Alcohol just gives us an opportunity for second chances.

All of that is good fun. To me it resonated with a behavior of my own. I believe I lie for the same reason I like others to be drunk around me; to see how far I can push it. To understand other people's psychological perimeter and to see where I can fit to occupy the most space possible. In all honesty, all of that is done for the same reason a guy would try to kiss a girl he wouldn't be able to look in the eyes while sober : because being truthful outlines you. It marks you as a precise target and if you are absolute in your endeavor of telling what you believe to be real, you risk the chance of being disappointing.

You know the phrase : "I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed." is somehow worse than it's presumed alternative. That's because we fear not being enough more than we fear being antagonized. We fail to see how we can prove people to see us as little that we exist in a larger fashion. How could I exist more? How is it possible that once the mask has been lifted and the illusion I call me has vanished, people could ever consider me again as being as worthy of them as they had previously envisioned? This seems like it leads to a paradox.

To comeback to my initial statement, authenticity is to my eyes as heroic a journey as can be. Think about it, we do not live in a Hollywood movie. While the idea of not worrying about preserving the integrity of the sum of all lies you've been telling people over the years sounds appealing, to align with your true self can be as much of a suicidal plan. Let's not act like people do not prey upon the inapt. If you are not certain and comfortable about the version of yourself you are choosing to expose to people, you're not going to last. So before you can ever be both authentic and relevant, there's a lot of inner work to do.

Do you accept your flaws? Which ones are you less afraid of than you are of the impact they'd have on your social life if all of the sudden, they were revealed to the world? What parts of you will you have to sacrifice or improve at the cost of sweat and tears before you ever reach in truth the persona you have been building and playing as the "You" others know and love? How much work have you cut short with the help of convenient small lies? Now that you have faked it, how hard will it be if you truly want to make it? Is it even fucking worth it?

I think it is. Because once you've embodied truth, there are no more stories holding you back from becoming what you really want to be. And that grip over destiny is, I believe, one of the great joys and responsibilities of being human. It's nice to act out your life for a while; get to feel all the highs and lows. But most of us would agree we're also in the duty of preserving this shared dream for others and we can help no one if we are ourselves trapped in a story that has totally spiraled out of our control. I mean, it's our lives we should have sovereignty over it if on anything.

Now, the good news is not all lies need to be atoned for. Just the lies that build your character. Those make people believe in you. Because what makes you real is an idea. The idea that even when you're not in front of people, they still know and can imagine how your life's going. You help others build this image by telling them stories about you. You don't have to look further than Instagram to understand most the stories we tell each other are embellished. It's all fine and dandy. Your work begins with a choice : Would you rather admit to your reality or construct what's missing? Both are possibilities. The scale of the task at hand depends on the amplitude of your lies.

I'm in this process myself. I personally made the choice to live up to my stories and embody the legend that shares my name. If we're ever to live up to our next tales, I'd like to learn how to shape reality with actions rather than words, with intention rather than invention.

I do not believe we will ever stop to create. I just think that the closer to truth we are creating, the more aligned we become. And the more aligned, the more powerful, the more influential.

‍

I hate the fact that my creativity is wanking itself theses days. Really, there's a thought that obsesses me and the very concept is self-aware.

All I can think about is thinking about stuff. My mind is walled between the fact that it wants to create and the belief that it cannot produce anything beyond the bar of mediocrity. Not that I'm afraid of failure. I just think that besides copying what I find nice on the Internet, my skills outmatch my insight by a tenfold. To me, it feels like a prison which I can't escape.

Even me writing this somehow feels like a proof of the trap I've laid out for myself. I can't seem to talk about anything else other from the concept of the lack of originality. Like my inner child is long gone and that no matter what I believe of myself, it can never come back in time to bring me up into the artist I wish to become. Because, let's not kid ourselves, I wasn't born to become an agency designer. What I expect of myself is slowly starting to endanger the truthfulness of my art. I feel like it's less and less me that's poured out into my designs and more the version of me I haven't become yet. Yet, I feel like this is the version that others need me to be.

I carry out this conversation in my head to no limits. To the point at which it even stops me from starting my work. Truth is, it's still vague to me what's the point I enjoy the most about my process. I'm so easily distracted, I find an infinite amount of reasons to postpone my work, even if I know how important it is.

Maybe it all leads up to this. Maybe what I'm really afraid of is that my art ends up meaning nothing. I feel that by acknowledging the demands of everyone, by following what I think the current trends are, by copying the designers I admire, I lose myself in a meltdown of concepts that are, yes, beautiful but that all to nowhere. I have yet to grasp the concept of what a good designer is. Of what an accomplished artist should do. Of  what it takes to truly feel original. At this point, the angst is a result of the knowledge of what I can be confronted to the frustration of not feeling like I possess the the spark necessary to present my Universe to others. At this point, I'm not sure whether I believe if it's something I can evolve into or if I've missed my shot at using up my innate creativity. Not that I'm too old but rather that I might have lost touch with the part of me that lacks the need of make each second of labour profitable.

So I guess what will end up having to happen is I'll have to start playing again. I just have to think how I'll balance my coming back with a new perspective on designing with purpose.