The Greek myth of Orpheus meant he couldn't back at his wife Eurydice. Think of nothing else if wanting to achieve, keep going, and don't look back, doubt if looking back [cafĂŠ waiter does the same]
17th century thinkers - aristocratic phrase "presque rien" and "je ne sais quoi" is what they used to define good taste
Pg. 22: "Success what not linked to the amount of work put in, but, on the contrary, to the absence of apparent effort- the naturalness, the palpable ease with which the artist had achieved his or her aims"
Dates back to the Grand Siècle [17th century]
Pg.23: "The bourgeois society that came after, born out of the Revolution, logically enough took the opposite approach, vehemently affirming equality and the value of work"
The idea of ease [royalty] survived. French are monarchical, focused on own pleasure
Pg. 23: "Perhaps the reason why the French are so ill-disciplined, capricious, and prone to complaining is because in each of them exists a monarchic streak, concerned only with their own pleasure. Add to that gastronomy, an exaggerated sense of personal freedom, a taste for beauty, and the desire always to be right, and you will arrive at an approximate but precise formula for the je ne said quod, which gives the French soul its characteristic bite. A mixture of noble arrogance and popular insolence, seriousness in things lighthearted and lightness at moments of great seriousness; in short, a desire for effortlessness synonymous with both elegance and pleasure"
Roustang - âDoing nothing means doing nothing in particular, not stopping on any particular thought or feeling or sensation. This doing nothing becomes letting things happen. Now, letting things happen is the equivalent of a state of receptivity without limitation. When you are open to everything and nothing, you really have no preferences, no wishes, and no plans whatsoever, what you touch and what you receive is pure force of action. You are at the source of the action. The individual who just lets things happen is constantly adjusting themselves to what comes towards them, and thatâs the beginning-and already the fullness-of actionâ
They refuse to be satisfied with appearance of effortless, want to feel it, continuously
No point in writer's block, no fear in committing yourself because it's not possible to start anyway, nothing is harder than starting, finishing is hard too because they are both not possible
Giacometti, the sculptor, couldn't finish what he didn't start
The solution to this starting and finishing problem is from a book by the philosopher Alain: continue, then start
Continuing and starting is one idea
Don't know what to do with life? Alain explains where to direct effort
Pg. 31: "Everything's already started, we just have to continue. Just accept yourself where you are now, with whatever you are about to do next. Al resolutions for the future are imaginary. Keep on doing what you're doing, just do it better"
We are always caught up in the action!
No need for big decisions
Alain explains that this is true in the form of writing, using example of Stendhal. Content of writing doesn't matter, what matters is act of writing. Don't look back at what you've written.
Doing the hard part before starting concept is still confusing to me!! Stendhal copies out, translates, goes back to an earlier draft in order to do the hard part
Pg. 34: TIP!! "You can save the sentence that isn't quite right and put it with the sentence that comes after, which might start with "or rather," or "to put it better." Writing isn't about producing one perfect sentence after another, but about correcting your first, imperfect sentence in the one that follows, and so on"
Pg. 36: "We learn to writing by writing, not by deleting"
The French habit of writing without crossing out, improvisation and not looking back
Perfection is not a problem, more like launching pad
Freedom of not re-reading your own words, much like your life
Nothing is ever 'too late' we can always remake ourselves, true action is continuation, not radical starts, no clean sweeps
Stendhal says to borrow first sentence or first action from someone else and to ride on others' momentum
Giacometti - he just obsesses, doesn't need to achieve, hasn't begun yet
Pg. 40: "He may always feel he's failed to do what he was trying to, but his work gives him great pleasure"
Pg. 50: "Freedom is dizzying, and the finality of possible outcomes is a promise of failure, a sky without stars, a metaphysical void studded only with questions: why do this and not that? Why go this way, not that? At least a tightrope walker knows which way he must go"
The route is not laid out in life
The way you start determines success
Descartes said indecision is the worst evil, not just evil
Andre Gide, admirer of Stendhal, said that Stendhal wrote straight off
Pg. 52: "We do not hesitate because we are lost, but are lost because we hesitate. You're really lost not when you don't know where you are, but when you don't know what to do next"
Stendhal threw himself at the ink. Napoleon threw himself into battle
Pg. 53: "Walking, in the same way, involves setting off, beginning to fall, correcting the fall to convert it into energy and then into a forward movement. In order to learn to walk, you need to ask a fall, to set out without hesitation"
Descartes advice to follow erroneous opinions, the content of a decision is most important once you've decided it's the right one
Descartes - choose randomly instead of not choosing at all
Pg. 56: "What makes for a good decision is making it, and sticking to it, as if it were the best one possible. In that critical moment of action, it's always the best one possible. Why? Just because"
We don't start because we've thought about it forever but because indecision is worse
Alain - action first, then thought
Thought must be light and inside the action. When regulated by action
Alain, like Descartes advice, is not to think
Organizing cabinet before knowing what papers to put in it for example
Example of speech: "Our thinking isn't made to set out first; people who think out their actions never actually act. The Himalayan mountain climber can teach us something here; if he just sits looking at the mountain he will never find his way up it. "The reason I walk is to find out which way to go"
ACTIONABLE PEOPLE DO THING BECAUSE THEY DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY'RE DOING???
If actionable people knew what they were doing, they wouldn't do it. They don't act on knowledge but in order to acquire knowledge
Joy of action is in surprising oneself
Action is constantly making small decisions, the never-stop-doing
If no idea which way to go, Descartes says to choose randomly and stick with it, if you have clues then you can pivot continually
Alain: "I discover what I want to say when I open my mouth" [no thinking before speaking]
Pg. 63: "When we start speaking, we often don't know exactly what we're going to say. And this isn't a defect: it is in the very nature of the spoken word. That's what speech is there for: to teach us what we think by making it real to us, and therefore open it to being redirected, modified, or corrected like any other living thing. The paradox here is that you mustn't think too hard about what you're going to say if you want to say it well"
Pg. 64: "And if the only way to say what you have to say is to find out in the saying, then you must first begin. Even when we think we know exactly what we mean to say, the way of actually saying it is discovered by speaking, with a certain nonchalance that is somewhere between sleepwalking and tightrope walking, maintaining a subtle balance between intention and meaning, out there on the rope"
Improvisation is a waking dream
Speech and living is the same in this respect
Pg. 65: "People's attention, when we speak, is not directed at something that already exists, but at a reality that is being formed at every step - every word - of the way, right in front of us. You get the idea: if we never spoke until we knew what we were going to say, we'd never begin a single sentence"
Skip the warm up in life, it's not surprising
Pg. 143: how to sit in an armchair
Hypnosis is just suggestion
Aggressiveness of aversion therapy, it's reliving one's fear in order to make it disappear
Pg. 147: "All you need to do for this, François Roustang says, right here and now, in your armchair, is adopt a desirable position. And the only desirable position is the one that brings you comfort"
Pg. 148: "Relaxation is not the opposite of action; it is the requirement for its being possible"
Comfort cures phobias, not suffering
Pg. 149: How do you see energy?
Greek statue is different from Michaelango, it's the body stripped of all effort
Auguste Rodin noticed this tendency
Pg. 153: instructions on how to stand like a Greek statue vs a Michaelango statue
The Roman 'S' shape for the body position is the same as a Middle Ages statue. It signifies effort, melancholy and is frequently in Christian paintings
Michaelango and melancholy scorn for life
Pg. 156: what the position says about shadows and anxious energy
Start from grace by starting in the open position of the body
You'll be able to refresh memory if you imagine it properly
Roustang: energy is neither tension or explosion, experiment with breath
The gods of the wind were most powerful
Phobias and problems are cured through comfort indirectly
Hypnosis - person acts it out instead of thinking
Each chapter deals with different ways to induce a state of hypnosis
Pg. 174: "To learn to speak a language, you have to speak, and act as though you already knew it. The same goes for dance: you learn not by watching but by doing. Not to say that you shouldn't take dance classes, but you can only correct a movement once you've started it. You can only correct a phrase if it has already been said. Desire, not scholarly obligation, is what teaches us to speak or to dance"
Helene Grimaud the pianist deals with stage fright not self-hypnosis, emptying lungs and doing belly breaths, mental projections [3 things in the same order, she chooses three things randomly, perhaps in her immediate environment]
Pg. 191: this is the exercise she likes
Pg. 192: Roustang's 3 exercises
François Roustang's special way of meditating: âTo suspend his thought entirely, Roustang uses three exercises: the first consists of fixing his gaze on a limited part of an object-for example, the point of a pencil, the handle of a cup, or the pattern of a cushion. The aim is to isolate what youâre looking at from its context, banishing everything else into the background haze. In the second exercise you transport yourself in your imagination to somewhere you love, in the country, or in the town, or the mountains, it doesnât matter where, as long as itâs a place you associate with pleasant feelings. In the third, you use language in a nonsensical way. This is the most unsettling exercise. âThis is a strange experience because itâs expressed in absurdities: âTake a path you donât know, to reach an unknown place, to do something youâre incapable of doing.â Phrases like this, though apparently meaningless and highly risky, once hard and put into practice open up a space of freedom and pleasure, where existence can be renewed.â Using language in this way means you canât visualize anything precise, and this is exactly the point of the exercise: to reestablish a sense of the possible. Not by having a very clear goal or image, but by accepting confusion and vaguenessâŚ.anyone who hopes to find a way to act and to reinvent themselves should not start by fixing clear goals, but rather should start in a floating, indeterminate state, in a fog, which will allow action to take shapeâ
Pg. 193: "....anyone who hopes to find a way to act and to reinvent themselves should not start by fixing clear goals, but rather should start in a floating, indeterminate state, in a fog, which will allow action to take shape"
To cure rumination, wear out thinking then you are ready to act
Roustang: Don't understand. By focusing on the problem, we reinforce the problem
Pg. 199: I DON'T UNDERSTAND! WHAT'S THIS HYPNOSIS THERAPY?
Trance "trans" point of action is point of passage?
Because hypnosis is a trance and point of action is a point of passage, why do you not need to self-examine?
Pg. 200: Wittgenstein says to not make an effort, a gaze is without tension
Phillips Petit, if he thinks on the wire, he falls. He also didn't have an answer for why he was on the Wire
Instead of thinking, you HAVE to do
Pg. 204: "Thinking is moving out of the moment to look at yourself acting, leaving the point of action and projecting yourself into the past or the future - and projecting yourself when you are on a rope means falling"
Re-flection prefix "re", in rut
207: How do you do thing? Appeal to body's position in a chair
Action in this light is not the result of a project or decision, notice yourself performing an action, not a project?? Go back to the physical state of indifferent action, an action consists of the present and is executing the "plan"
This is not really a plan since already underway. This is a confusing concept for me!!!
This physical state that Roustang outlines can be done instantly
Decision coincides with execution???
Connecting to the decision is connecting to the right frequency like a radio
Pg. 213: "I'm much more at ease when I don't know much about things. I don't explain them, they come of their own accord, without barriers, with no agenda" - Gerard Depardieu
Pg. 214: "When I act in a foreign language, I don't care if I don't understand the text of my character. The punctuation is more important to me than the words. I perform more like a musician than actor. When I read the part of Cyrano, I feel the music long before the words. In I Want to Go Home, by Alain Resnais, we were filming in English, and I didn't understand a word of what I was saying, I just acted out the situation, in the present moment"
Pg. 219: no point in goals, reach goal by forgetting it, when we give up we get it
Brahms shut himself up in his room and entered a hypnotic state to let himself find
We are in continuous state creation, no planning no willing
External solution forget problem
Roustang calls the mystique of the cafĂŠ waiter, not looking at the drinks he's carrying when he walks
Best def of "French Flair" phrase that originated in rugby
Allowing life to take control, trust in disorder
When there is nothing to lose because you've already adapted that all is lost, French rugby relies on intuition and the Anglo-Saxons on reason
Pierre Villepreux one of the principal upholders of French Flair
Situational intelligence, improvisation, like Jazz
Real inventor of French Flair was Descartes himself - put reason in its place
Inventor of modern rationalism
If you take aim, you already think you'll miss
Alain's "The Art of Attention" says you won't learn by taking notes
Nietzsche said that some goods can only be achieved indirectly, the less you think about your goal
Cyrano syndrome - Cyrano is superbly indifferent to success and because of that he gets what he wants, difficulty is from what's at stake, if he aims, then he fails
When completely caught up into something, most lovable
Make thought as light as possible
When we don't know what to do next, that's when we are really lost, not when we don't know where we are!
By not trying to achieve goals, we can easily reach them so there's no reason to be paralyzed by a goal
Real change - no point in thinking, MOVEMENT IS SUFFICIENT!
2 kinds of people:
- Aim for goal with any means necessary
- No thinking about goal
Technique vs. intuition/ Intention ---- action step ----action OR... marry intention & execution & action happens
Absorbed in action which makes you forget who you are
Pg. 257: "Choose a real person, or a made-up person in your head, and write to them to explain something. Imagine their objections and reply to them, construct a real dialogue...Philosophy is difficult when it's just ideas floating around; it's much easier when it's for someone"
When doing a thing first time, key is to do it as if you already know how
Put your body in the same position that you were in when you felt joy [when currently sad], walking fast, humming certain song for example
Play one passionate feeling against another - how you get rid of fear, get angry
Pg. 263: "So you just have to keep your mind busy with something else and stop it thinking about what it's afraid of. You need to find it something to do that's hard enough for it to have to pay attention - but not too hard. It has to be something you know how to do"
You can also just concentrate on your breathing in order to get rid of fear
Pg. 265: "Do you know where the word 'discipline' comes from? It has two meanings, which eventually became entangled with each other. TO start with, in classical Latin, the disciple in someone who learns - discern meaning 'to learn.' A discipline is a science, or a branch of knowledge. A few centuries later, in church Latin, the word acquired the meaning of correction, punishment, the monastic rule. Discipline was no longer something you learned, but the means of learning it, of getting it into your head, using a 'rule,' and where necessary a ruler, or a whip; the word 'discipline' ended up, in the Middle Ages, meaning the whip used for flagellation, and can even be used in the sense of 'carnage' or 'massacre,' the outcome of meting out justice"
The Ancient world's view - punishment for those that didn't work the Christian vision - punishment is the rule, the sole content of teaching because suffering is destiny
Pg. 267: "School is always organized on this assumption, and punishment, where it exists, usually consists of the imposition of extra work. Setting a task by way of punishment means recognizing the equivalence of work and punishment, and that school itself is just one long chastisement, fortunately punctuated with play breaks and holidays"
Pg. 267: "Whereas if you examine the words, 'educate,' from the Latin educare means literally ' to lead out of.' The French word 'connaĂŽtre,' to know, literally means to 'be born with' ('co' comes from cum in Latin - 'with': we grow thanks to what we learn). 'Apprendre,' to learn,' means to take from the outside, as in 'apprehend,' in English (Latin prefix ad, 'toward'). What is apparent in these words is the movement toward the exterior"
Exist 'ex-stare' or to stand outside oneself
For the Greeks and Aristotle, purpose of growth was potential to act. It was a natural movement, don't have to suffer to grow, suffering comes from its essence, from the inside, not like a rule from outside [like the Middle Ages ethos]
Pg. 271: "But the word 'work' has suffered the same fate as the word 'discipline.' According to a dubious but now commonly accepted etymology, 'travail,' which means 'work' in French, comes from the word trillium, an instrument of torture. Work means first of all the action of the executioner, whose job is to torture, to 'travail' the condemned man. In English too, to 'work someone over' is to attack or injure them. Work, whether you are the subject or the object, consists of inflicting or receiving pain. But there are other etymological explanations, far more convincing and less violent ones. In 'travail,' we find the prefix 'trans,' which means 'through' and suggests the idea of passage: 'travail' transforms, allows the passage from one form to another. In 'travail' we detect the English 'travel'; 'travail' rather than an effort in one place, stripped of its meaning and attached to its instrument of torture, describes an experience, a movement, a discovery: the forming of a new thing. 'Travail,' like a journey, forms by transforming, shapes the world as well as the person passing through it. The word 'travail,' heard correctly, ceases to be synonymous with suffering and penitence and promises instead fulfillment and pleasure"
The sea expresses the idea that forms are false and nature's fluidity rejects all our ideas
Pg. 281: "The sea tells us that you have to learn to relax into effort, just as oarsmen know how to rest between each stroke. If you truly wish to act you must learn not to be always acting: rest must be integrated into the action"
In this fluid state, nature rejects all ideas
Pg. 283: "Attention is a wave on which we must learn to surf"
Pg. 284: the 4 rules of the Cartesian method
See how long you can actually concentrate, everyone is unique, for Montaigne it was 10 minutes
Napoleon did warfare of maneuver instead of the popular "parallel warfare" [fought everything at the same time]. He attacked strategic points. Like acupuncture. In order to attack, simplify your vision
Pg. 291: "It's not that things are easy or difficult. It is the order you put them in that creates ease. Order, and the place where you attack"
Orpheus syndrome or law of inverted effort. If you try too hard, you strengthen the pain point
Pg. 301: Simone Weil - "Attention is an effort, the greatest effort of all, perhaps, but it is a negative effort. In itself it does not entail tiredness. When tiredness is felt attention is almost impossible unless you are well practiced; so then it is better to give in, look for some relaxation and begin again a bit later, letting yourself go and bringing yourself back, just as you breathe in and out"
Simone Weil - attention is negative effort because it costs nothing, doesn't make you tired, just pure gaze
Attention is like rhythm of the breath or the sea
Studying is so that you can pay attention more to people and to your surrounding environment, like a training ground
Sartre agrees with Alain and Simone Weil that attention should not be an effort. Again, the law of the inversion of misdirected effort. Sartre says its better to work in the noisy cafe
Pg. 307: "Some distracting activity can therefore actually make work easier. It enables you not to think of what you are doing and to be content with simply doing it"
Elegance is about economy and rationality
Sometimes solution though is to get into action and not to wait [it depends]
Pianist Glenn Gould put on radio and television at full blast so he couldn't hear himself play
Pg. 318: "The block would immediately disappear; perhaps the mind, too busy with the background noise and incapable of thinking of the difficulty that usually blocked it, could no longer be frightened by it"
The illegality of going out on the wire helped Phillipe Petit to not be afraid of going out on the wire and not think at all of what he was going to do
Pg. 322: "Nothing is more exciting than a problem to be solved"
Several solutions?? Choose simplest one!
Elegance is doing as little as possible. Phillips Petit always did the simplest method and saw obstacles as a leverage point
Preparation is not practicing?
Excessive practice can reduce desire and wear out concentration
No mechanical reps, doubt comes
Pg. 328: "It's better to take the time to intellectualize the gesture, to understand it and to imprint it once and for all on one's subconscious: it's explained to you, you test it, it's explained to you again if necessary, you test it again"
Reach your goal indirectly by concentrating attention on breathing
Visualize a wonderful place and executing the perfect gesture/action
Mastery of an action - from switching back and forth between imaginations and action, musicians and athletes both
Rousseau walked and that was his most pleasurable moments
Ideas come because we are open not because we pursue
Walking - no goal, just like reverie or meditation
Essential precondition of attention is rest
Finding a restful position means allowing gravity to act and body cannot sink lower
Like sea, not allowing ideas to form and you can do this by breathing
Alain Passard decided on the spot to give up cooking. He came back to it by only cooking vegetables since he still loved the feeling of fire
Pg. 346: "The dreamlike aspect of work is a necessary condition for the mental health of the worker"
Images are accelerators of the psyche
Alain Passard gave up cooking with meat and refreshed his imagination through becoming more in contact with earth and vegetables
Bachalard - dream before thinking because you do something in your imagination before acting it out
Pg. 381: "For a task that is fairly clear and of a certain duration, you should probably think before acting, but you must also dream a great deal before even beginning to think. In this way our most productive decisions are related to nocturnal dreams"
Pg. 388: "...get up and take a step. Without thinking. Without hesitating. Now"