Some personal convictions

Confrontation with nature, that brings us back to our animal condition, allows us to come into contact with ourselves and from there, to accept otherness. From here, I am convinced that such experience is a prerequisite for establishing a relationship that is both sustainable and effective with our peers, in today time when the utilitarian object relationship seems to be obvious in our capitalist world.

This world views human relationships in terms of competition, which Darwinist theory would also have confirmed. However, some ethologists are now discovering the superiority of cooperation over competition. Won over by this new idea and driven by humanist values, I place sales and management – which occupy me on a daily basis – in the register of a helping relationship.

An outdoor enthusiast, I like the idea of walking as evoked by Bruce Chatwin in his Anatomy of Wandering, taking up an idea from Pascal.

I quote: By becoming human, man had acquired, along with the ability to stand and walk in long strides, a « pulsion » or migratory instinct that drives him to walk long distances from one season to the next. This « drive » is inseparable from his nervous system, and when repressed by sedentary conditions, it finds escape in violence, greed, the pursuit of social status or the obsession with novelty. This is why all the great spiritual masters have placed pilgrimage at the heart of their message.

The human species is indeed predetermined to cover long distances, according to some recent discoveries that I mention in the section devoted to trail running. On a more prosaic level, I see trail running as a way of regaining control of the time that has been confiscated from us by technical progress. The cadence that our animal gravity imparts to our strides enables us to mark the measure of time so that it is in harmony with our deepest essence.

Music is another way of escaping the frenetic pace of our so-called modern age, which demands that we constantly process past information while projecting ourselves into the future. To refocus body and mind on the present moment, playing an instrument gives our hands the power to control the flow of time in the form of rhythm and tempo. A classical guitar monomaniac, I like to give myself over to another musical genre that invites freedom: jazz.

The disruptive arguments set out in this blog are the result of stepping back from the mainstream media. Renouncing unnecessary social networks, television or radio news flashes seems to me to be a primary condition for freedom of thought. Involving in-depth reflection, I favor the written press over audiovisual programs whose infernal cadence gives us the impression of living in a permanent state of emergency, in defiance of any hierarchy of information. However, I don’t reject quality audiovisual media, and I’m even in favor of podcasts and other replays that give us a choice not only of content, but also of listening times.

At a time when mankind shares a univocal representation of the world,, distance from screens seems to me to be essential to the development of autonomous thought and from there, the best defense against standardization which leads to communitarianism and intolerance. To become oneself while respecting the diversity that characterizes us as living beings, the positive experience of contact with nature is undoubtedly more fruitful than frequenting the Internet where most people get lost.

Some references that inspire me: Erasmus, Frans de Waal, Henry David Thoreau, Theodore Monod, Reinhold Messner, or Richard Powers for his great book « The Overstory », in line with the inspiring litterature of Edward Abbey, great author of Désert Solitaire.