THE GAZE OF OTHERS

Every morning when I wake up I go to the kitchen to make my coffee…with one of those new coffee machines… I hate it! I have to turn on the machine, I have to add water in the tank, I have to find a pod of coffee in the closet, I have to place the pod in the right place, I have to put a cup under the beak of the machine, and then I have to press a button, the one indicating medium, and I wait…. A few seconds later the coffee comes out…. If I want another cup, I have to do ALL OF IT, over again instead of just pouring from the coffee pot…who invented this nonsense?

On my way to my favorite morning chair, I pass in front of a mirror, and it reflects the image of a man that sometimes I do not recognize, and depending upon the morning, it fills me with surprise, astonishment, pleasure, anxiety, pride, disdain, pain, joy or sorrow, with ….anything that comes to mind.

Looking at myself is a truly adventurous experience as I am sure it is for everybody… Do I see in the mirror what others see? This image in the mirror is it really me or only an appearance of me? Who really am I and what do I really project on people?

I feel like saying all the time, you believe I am like this but in reality I am not, I am more this or that, and the this or that depends on the hour, on the day, on the time in my life.

What impressions do I make on people? And do I project the same kind of person to different people? Does my personality change if someone looks at me in a different way, projecting what he wants to see or what he wants not to see?

I have heard many different and even contradictory comments about me, about my personality, my life, my temper, my behavior…Is it because I was changing according to whom I was talking, or is it because people project on us who they are?
Or even may be because they do not care that much!!! I have been called rude when I was, according to me, just honest, and it seems that sometimes you have to be careful about everything you say because it can be understood by others in a complete different way or even taken as something you had no intention to have happen….

Am I the product of what others want me to be? Am I funny sometimes because people are expecting me to be funny? Am I pontificating sometimes because the situation set by others demands my pontification?

As a stage director, do I change my ways, do I dress differently, do I speak with a different voice on purpose and become fake, OR do I find a different MOI within myself?

How many times we look at couples and we wonder what she/he can find in the other? Or we look at leaders in every area of life and we wonder WHY?

Are we all multiple personalities, multiple possibilities of being and every different situation dictates how different we should be?

How can we have honest relationships with anybody if we are most of the time called to answer their expectations? How can we stay real and ourselves if at so many moments we have to change who we are because of the decision or the need from others?

Does” THE EYES OF OTHERS” influence us so much that we can be like a chameleon and mutate according to the situation?

And who are the OTHERS? Do we need their absolution? Do we need their comments? Do we need their friendship? Do we need to be understood by them?

And is it so important to be able to change according to whoever is in front of us?

Some professions are based on this possibility, this sometimes unconscious attitude, this perpetual bet on finding for every situation the most rewarding (and in some cases the least rewarding) answer to challenges!                                                                                                                                         When I arrive in a classy restaurant, before I enter, I look thru the doors and the employees of the restaurant are apparently joking, laughing, with elbows on tables and totally themselves as human beings… Then a customer comes in, and everything changes, they become waiters, sommelier, Maître D with all the gestures, the attitudes that we are expecting and created by THE GAZE OF OTHERS.

People in performing art professions are probably those who are most confronted to this situation!!! They have to become somebody else and a character in their work and in the same time they have to be submitted by the perpetual judgment and gaze from others!                                                        AND
in rehearsal it is even a harder situation, they are the creation of THE GAZE OF OTHERS as a person trying to become somebody else!!!!!!!!
How can they deal with that? How can they be at the same time, somebody trying to become somebody else under the eyes of others turning them into what they want to be!!!!

And we wonder why sometimes they can be temperamental?                                                              Or the opposite, cold and indifferent?

I know people who never bend or accept THE GAZE OF OTHERS, they apparently stay themselves, or what they believe is themselves, all the time, and deal very little with others! They protect themselves by ignoring the need to please or to refute, they enclose themselves in an armor of artificial strength, and travel through life like astronauts in space! It must be a very lonely life, but for some, success can be achieved faster by just concentrating on ignoring others and by making no concessions…

Is that way of leading your life actually the key for great success and leadership?

Do we have to murder the truth in order to survive THE GAZE OF OTHERS? Or should we try to reconstruct the truth? But the truth? The truth of what? The truth of the lies created by our imagination? Or the imagination of others? The truth of unfinished fantasies?

Hopefully when we reach a certain age, wisdom can take possession of us, but does wisdom leaves an after taste of bitterness on the apparent truth at times?
Can we disappear in the fog of life, in the path of what we called existence, forgetting who we really are and what we really want, dismissing our aspirations and be recreated only by THE GAZE OF OTHERS?

Do we have the right to be lost because others look at us, projecting their own uncertainty? They always want to know: is all this truth? Is your life is it truth? Is It the Truth? Truth? What does that mean? Everything is truth and all is invented…There is only one truth, the one we chose and THE GAZE OF OTHERS is only a possible comment on a possible moment and should never determine who we are and what we do or what we want to do.

We have to continue to have a mind that tries to understand the meaning of all this, the aim of life lost in the eternity of life… We have to learn how to absorb others and their GAZE, we have to learn how to stay strong and complete, and to continue to live trying to understand, trying to live.

Too many people believe that life is life… we should not believe in a controlling fate, we should believe in the idea that we can change other people’s opinions about us, we should believe that we can remodel the world around us by looking at it in a different way and have people looking at us in a different way. We have to stay one, and not become a wave of changes in the perpetual violence of an ocean full of rage.

THE GAZE OF OTHERS should become a weapon to advance, a tool for knowledge…

And what about OUR GAZE ON OTHERS? Should we be more generous, more understandable? And be willing to forgive?

In an ideal world, THE GAZE OF OTHERS should be only constructive, generous, understanding, helping, giving, affectionate and even full of love… AM I DREAMING ABOUT A BEAUTIFUL WORLD????

Let’s work on it…

FAUST MEMORIES

Recently in Detroit I was directing Faust… 33 years ago I was there directing the same opera and I have since directed Faust 15 times and I still love this opera.

So many memories were invading me every day and these memories were trying to take possession of my mind, my mood and my feelings.…

Not only memories of the first Faust directed in 1982 when I was a young man full of appetite for life and full of ideas and dreams to be, to achieve and to become someone …

This time in Detroit it became a trigger to so many of memories and an incredible long list of moments of joy and pain, sorrows and happiness of the past 33 years. Actually I can even say of the past 60 years of my life.

Life has gone by so fast, and goes even faster every year, it seems that the clock is trying to jump the hours and the days… I met so many men and women during that time, had so many experiences, so many images and feelings… 

So many people who have forged the person I became…Many great moments, many regrets, sometimes even remorse. 

But we cannot take back what we have done, we cannot undo the past, but we can learn from it. All the countries I lived in, all this travel all over the world from all Europe to the Far East, to all of Africa and very often hitchhiking at the time … 

Every moment was a discovery, every minute was an experience and I learned so much from it… 

Now I remember it, and using it is another great experience. So many objects, trinkets and sometimes real pieces of art were accumulated! Just to remember?

But are objects the true carriers of our past? Or should we use them as a trigger?

When we reach a certain age is it our fate to remember more and more the events of the past and to uncontrollably be attacked by all these intense moments, all the people we knew and loved and admired and despised and sometimes hated…?

Or is it because I was working on Faust….

 A man who reaches the end of his life and believes he has achieved nothing pertinent, nothing useful, and nothing valid. He is wondering about the purpose of all of it. So he decides to try one more time by becoming young again and achieve other aims,possibly new adventures?

I was all day trying to bring present reality into my life, in my work, my relation with colleagues, by trying to be funny, judgmental, and temperamental or whatever possible in order to be present, to be alive… 

Trying to avoid showing everyone that I was drowning in memories and every day was more difficult because every day was a catalog of the past…

Every word said in rehearsals conjured memories, every moment triggered images of my past experiences, my past lives.

I was able to overcome that state of mind because I know we must use our memories, and our experiences in everyday life in order to find new things, new adventures, new ways of looking at the world and even sometimes find peace… 

 I know, I am saying that enough to performers, that memories are the basic of a performance full of truth, full of life, full of intensity…

Yes, in everyday life, and on stage, we have to use these memories to find new facets of ourselves, new ways of functioning, new realities by confronting them to the present, by adding them to the new knowledge, by coloring the new picture of life with it.

Yes, we have to use these memories and not bury them in the deepest of our soul, in order to become better, a better man, a better artist... 

But is it dangerous to let the memories resurface and perhaps take possession of us? 

No, actually by letting them coming out of the abyss and the forgotten territory, we tame them, we own them and we can use them. 

Will the memories at one point become the possible balance we are searching for? 

Do we have to reach a certain level of peace, a certain amount of acceptance to deal with all these memories? Or do digested memories actually bring us peace and acceptance?

Why do we have painful memories most of the time alone and happy memories while we are with others?
Why do we share funny moments of our life, happy recollections or joyous experiences with others, and when we are alone we relive the difficult memories, we rarely share them… 

 Sometimes we do with some chosen people or one individual in a moment of abandon.

Is it modesty? The result of education? Our way of being discreet? 

 Or simply fear that by sharing the painful moments we could be weakened and used?

 Or worse be called a looser, a neurotic mind, or even a deranged soul. 

 We should realize that painful memories become much less painful if we look at them, assume them, and dominate them. 

Memories should be present all the time, not necessary exposed, but at our disposal to recall them when we need them, without fear, without disturbance.

We certainly do not want to share all these memories with everybody, at all moments…but these memories are the stuff of who we are, who we want to be, and how we function.

We become the result of our past, we become an entity sculpted by time, the present and all we dream about what our future could be and should be.

We live in a time when it is more and more difficult to exchange opinions, ideas, or feelings with anybody directly. Everything is private, every opinion is taboo, every moment or every word can be insulting to somebody, we must respect everything, we have to believe in everything…

AND AT THE SAME TIME, everybody believes that he has the right to expose the superficial side of his life, some of his silly tastes under the cover of social media…
Everybody believes he has the right to attack people, to tell stories about them under the cover of a social media…
But very few have the courage to expose their personal memories, their real SELF, with the reason or the excuse that it is too private and nobody business…

Every day during the Faust, I was thinking about my youth in Tunis, my young adulthood in France, my maturity in Montreal and the United states... 

 I recalled with tenderness my family that disappeared a long time ago and at the beginning of my life and this absence which was a heavy burden for so long is now a strength because it is now part of the digested memories.
I recalled the start of my new life with Diana and our first adventures and achievements and Vanessa my daughter when she was a child and when she became this incredible young adult full of energy and talent...

I recalled my friends from school or universities that I have not seen in 30, 40 or 50 years and who are still present in my life...

Images, vivid images of happy moments and difficult ones, words pronounced by others, moments of panic when the world was not generous to us or others. NO I AM NOT DEPRESSED, on the contrary, I feel full of strength and passion and life, and ready for the next twenty years…

 And I owe that to my memories always present in my life... 

I think that during my work in Detroit, I was always attentive to my colleagues, always present, always passionate… I was cherishing some short happy moments with the kids of the show, some discussions with the cast, some jokes and stories shared with the staff and technicians, some great creative moments with artists, and pure real feelings of sincerity and abandon...

It does not happen to me often at all, it came because of the memories overtaking me, I learned how to love them, to respect them, to make them part of my future. Memories make me a better man and not a bitter man.        

TO DREAM THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAMS

Recently I was invited to an event to celebrate a good friend of mine and she delivered the following words in her acceptance speech:

“For a singer, every performance is an audition and every audition is a performance. No one really likes to audition, but it is a necessary evil. As I tell singers who are nervous about auditions, those of us who sit through hours and hours of auditions always hope that the next singer who walks into the room, or onto the stage will be wonderful. That’s the good news, the bad news is that there are a lot of them, and only so many jobs or prizes to give.

Whenever I speak with young singers, at schools or contests or in young artists programs, someone will variably ask” what is the one thing you are looking for?

Please believe me when I say and I am not doing the question-but that is the wrong question. It’s never just “one thing”. Each time a singer makes a sound, the god given voice, the technique, and the expressivity are inextricably intertwined.

Some people have more voice than technique, some have more expressivity than voice. The ratio of each element to the other determines the kind of career one can have. And then there’s looks. And heath. And resilience. And tenacity. And luck.

In the literally thousands of auditions I've done over the years, I have heard some sensational new voices-first rate, world class voices; the kind of voices an audience will pay money to hear.

And a few years later, they have disappeared.

And then I hear people with far less vocal talent, who go on to have major careers. Careers are not determined by what kind of voice the person has, but by what kind of person has the voice.

The single-mindedness is not the “one thing” WE are looking for; but rather, it is the “one thing” a young singer must find WITHIN.

If you approach this career with the idea of “well, if I don’t make it I can always fall back on…”-then you won’t make it.

Successful singers are not necessarily practical people. They are-at best- hard working dreamers. They are fortunate if they have practical, knowledgeable, honest people around them. ….. Who are helping those dreamers to come a bit closer to realizing their dreams.”

THANK YOU LENORE ROSENBERG FOR THESE WORDS…

All this was very true and going to the real question… SHOULD WE DREAM THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAMS?

I think it is the same road and the same questions in every profession…AND NOT ONLY IN THE ARTS!!!

Are dreams really pure fantasies, the result of a too fertile imagination or real inclinations to do something specific? 

Are we predestined to take a specific road in our lifetime?

Are we the result of genes, education, family surroundings, proper rearing etc… It seems that sometimes what we have achieved or have not achieved is only due to Fate, and may be because of decisions made by others!

What role dreams play in our progression through the years? Sometimes we wonder if we should continue to dream impossible dreams, if we should carry the sorrow of life leaving us or betraying us, or if we should burn with a wild fever and go where nobody goes in order to continue to be, in order to see in a mirror year after year a new image, a new person, a new fantasy.

How much can we share it with others? Are they ready to understand it or even ready to listen to it? Who will REALLY be ready to accept our dreams, and sometimes to share them by just being present?

It seems that we spend our life chasing the dreams of childhood or on the contrary fighting off those dreams… But are they really dreams?

Sometimes others say that our dreams are only the product of a fantasy and a waste of our time and even of their time, but for us they are reality and they have to become reality in order to be. They are part of who we are, they are us.

After a painful youth, my dream was to become an actor and I realized it…To become an actor was the only way to overcome that wounded youth, but was it a dream or a necessity?  I left France my adopted country to come to the American dream and I bless that decision every day, but was it a dream or a burning need?  I went from an acting career and directing Straight Theater to the dream of directing the absolute definition of theater: Opera and do not regret it, but was it a dream or a compelling need?   I wanted to have artistic freedom and I wanted to be in charge of a company and my dream was realized, but was it a dream or a necessity? 

And I could go on…  

                                                                                             

I heard all my life and still do: “how can you even dream of doing this, or becoming that, or trying this road or that one?” It seems that while around us we are called dreamers, only dreamers make their way in life, create something, and reinvent themselves perpetually and there is nothing to prevent them to make progress, to achieve, and grow.

Where would society be without the dreamers? Don’t you think that all achievements in Politics, Science and every aspect of life are truly the result of Dreams?

Throughout our life we sometimes dream to love the new adventure until we are torn apart and sometimes we love it too much and badly…Sure sometimes we can be burned and wounded and we try without protection to reach the hidden and the inaccessible, but we live a full life.

Should it be our duty to follow this road, even if the world around us denies our chances of success? But is it really that important if some are in denial? And at the end of the road is it, was it important if success escapes us and if we fail?

Should we fight and struggle for achievement without rest, without peace?

Can we have questions about the legitimacy of this road to dreams?

Can we take the risk of being sacrificed for the possibility of success, and only a slight possibility of achievement?

Can we be this hero looking to realize these dreams?

Yes we can and we should… Dreamers make the world a better place, a place where we can find appeasement or pain but a full more complete place… A brighter world full of lights…with always the possible danger of the dream becoming a nightmare, and waking up after years of unachieved dreams in a lonely desert or even a sewer.

We can wake up alone with no dreams left and a vacuum around us, but was the risk legitimate?

Most of people do not have this need for dreams or even function without it, are they luckier and happier? I do not know… 

The world is not and cannot be entirely populated by dreamers.

And are we reaching a certain age or after some achievements able to function without dreams?  

YES, but then the time comes to help with other people’s dreams, to guide them, to protect them, and try to help them make them real.                                                                                                     Yes, we have this duty…and actually even at the beginning of the road if we are not part of the chosen, the dreamers, we have the obligation to understand them and  the duty to help them.                                                                                                                             The world and life without the dreamers will be a sea with no color, no depth, no waves, and no advancement…How boring!  The world without the dreamers will be a Neanderthal world!                                                                                                                                                                                       

Dreams of Friendship? Dreams of Knowledge? Dreams of Career? Dreams of Love? Dreams of Talent? Dreams of Truth? Dreams of Eternity?

Dreams of…of…of…

Successful people are not necessarily practical people. They are-at best- hard working dreamers. They are fortunate if they have practical, knowledgeable, honest people around them. ….. Who are helping those dreamers to come a bit closer to realizing their dreams.

RIEN ...!!!!!! NOTHING...!!!!!!!

They know that I know that they know nothing!!!!!!

 That was the famous answer that a friend, actually a very close friend, gave me a few years ago when I asked him why he suddenly was not being considered for an important position anymore, or for a new job, or for even for a guest appearance just when he was reaching his highest level of competence, the total control of his potential.

He added: We live in a world where nobody knows anything or even tries to learn anything… It seems that knowledgeable people are looked at with distrust, with contempt and almost with hatred….
Some people turn their backs when they see them, or ignore them ,or act sometimes as though they don’t recognize them or even know them…
They are disturbing the new order of things, they are preventing the world from functioning according to new rules they have set up, they are pushed away from all possible important decisions…
It seems that today to get ahead in the new society, in politics, in business, or in the arts, you must know NOTHING for the terrible reason that you should not and will not bring with you an old world, old methods, or an old style.
They believe that the less you know, the more inventive you can be, the more creative and the more adequate you are in order to fit in with the surrounding mediocrity and that then you will bring new ways.

My friend may have been bitter or dissatisfied by the turn of events in his life or couldn't admit that a time comes when we have to accept to put our weapons on the table, look at the changing world with a smile of tenderness or with a wink meaning ” I know, I was there before”.

But recently his statement came back to me very vigorously, and I am asking the same questions because the world we are living in seems to be more and more in realm of his thoughts…

 Or perhaps because I am becoming like him.

NOTHING!!!!

It seems that today to know or to have references based on history is obscene and against the new world…
We find individuals in key positions with no experience, no culture, no background, no desire to improve and they believe this is inventive, and that by acting this way, the followers, the ordinary men and women will feel safe and will accept their so called great ideas to reinvent the world and will even protect them.

I remember the time when someone who was a real leader in ANYTHING was the one who had the gift to surround himself with people who knew more in their department than he did. The leader knew enough about every aspect of his work to be able to discuss with his associates….and then the leader could make the final decision, have the last word and under his guidance everyone would go ahead in the right constructive direction…

It seems that now, too often, things function the opposite way, everything is filled by a crowd of people who know nothing led by somebody who knows even less, and everybody navigates floating in the mirage of appearance. 

And these people with no experience or background or knowledge and worse without the desire to learn, lead other people…

This system has created the so-called new way of looking at things. We no longer try to understand human feelings, human souls, human hearts, social dramas and joys, relationships, we just disguise all this by a so-called new approach attempting to reveal a new way of understanding.

In my profession, this situation may be the worst…I sometimes find myself guilty of falling in this trap… and we see more and more, actually almost as a rule, some truly unbelievably silly things…
The child of Butterfly in the Puccini opera is a puppet, Scarpia is Mussolini or a Maffia boss from the suburbs of Palermo, the chorus of Manon is a bunch of people dressed in tuxedo instead of the popular crowd of Paris, the men in Rigoletto are disguised and made up as lady bugs and I have seen some operas set in toilets or in a subway or anywhere except where the story dictates … and the list is infinite…

In order not to be “passé”, in order not to be considered as a “routine”, they have to become irrelevant and even silly.

When we go to the Louvres Museum in Paris, do they distribute special glasses at the entrance, so we can see the painting of LA GIOCONDA in red and blue, or in three dimensions?
Is The THINKER by RODIN dressed in a military costume in order to make him relevant to our times?
What if we were projecting on a Rubens painting the images of the red Sea?
What if we were translating a novel by Goethe in the strongest English slang?
What if we were listening to a Beethoven Symphony performed by some rappers?
What if pasta was cooked on a grill?
What if cars had 3 wheels?

A friend sent to me recently a copy of this letter sent by Beckett in 1973


Beckett was not always the genius we believe he was…
While he was my god, my inspiration and my intellectual guide in the sixties, I met him in 1967 in Paris, and it turned out being the most incredibly disappointing experience of my life.

I spent 2 hours with him and another friend, the actor Lucien Raimbourg who created the part of Estragon in Waiting for Godot….
I have related this encounter in my book “The Shattered Sky”. It was indeed a low moment, but life taught me later that Beckett was just a man and should not be put on a pedestal, there is Beckett the writer of genius and Beckett the man.

The following words are screamed by Faust before he called Satan…

RIEN… EN VAIN J’INTERROGE EN MON ARDENTE VEILLE LA NATURE ET LE CREATEUR, PAS UNE VOIX NE GLISSE EN MON OREILLE UN MOT CONSOLATEUR.

NOTHING…

IN VAIN I QUESTION IN MY SLEEPNESS NIGHTS NATURE AND THE CREATOR, NOT ONE VOICE WHISPERS IN MY EAR A COMFORTING WORD.

And He adds: “Nothing…I see nothing, I know nothing, nothing, nothing.”

He tried all the good ways and the purity of asking questions, he tried the innocence of Knowledge, and he tried to be respectful of his culture and his belief...

 and the result was… HIM screaming:” nothing “

So, he turned the other way, and called in the devil…

Can we say that we are living in a similar period? We have to try Satan in order to continue to exist?

But of course we will use a new way of calling Satan …reinvent everything, recast the basics of our world, recreate human relations, political order, artistic values?
And should we believe that the silly and dangerous period we are living is only a moment, hopefully a transition?
And soon, we will be ourselves again….I don’t know what anymore.

But we need to try to live in these surroundings and with these new laws of our society.

THEY KNOW THAT I KNOW THAT THEY KNOW NOTHING…

Do we have to lie? 

 Do we have to fake? 

 Do we have to disguise ourselves in order not to be transparent and then play the games?

Can we be transparent and show what we know and be ignored and lose all opportunities of making progress in our profession or in life? 

Can we spend our entire life denying the changes, negative for us, to protect ourselves? 

Until when are we going to ask questions about this and that because we do not understand the mechanism of the new society?
Will we perpetually wonder why this one or that one is more successful when we believe we are better, we know more, we are more talented, more dedicated, more anything and everything?

How can we deal with those who are pushing us aside because we know?
What choice do we have?
Should we lie to ourselves?

Should we decide that we know nothing!
Should we melt in the surrounding mediocrity and when we are in a position of power or when we reach the desired point of our life, be back to ourselves and show THAT WE KNOW??????

By doing that taking the risks of losing other possibilities of achieving more or even continuing in our successes?

Or should we persist in our truth and become a Pariah?


I LET YOU DECIDE.

La parole est d’argent mais le silence est d’or..... Words are silver, but silence is golden…

This line of another time means nothing today!!!

It seems that yesterday I was still walking in the streets of Philadelphia or Antananarivo or Paris or Dakar or Taipei …I don’t like to walk in cities anymore, and when I was younger I loved that so much… There is nothing left to discover, to see, only the surrounding mediocrity, the poverty… and  people wandering without knowing where they are going, who they are or what they really want … 

What happened to the dreams of happiness and the dreams of an equal society full of purpose and aspirations?

Words are silver, but silence is golden

In today’s world, it is accepted, no actually it is the only way to function: close your eyes, your ears and shove your tongue in your throat in order NOT to say what you believe could be the wrong choice, the wrong decision, the wrong behavior… 

BUT WRONG ACCORDING TO WHAT??? I don’t even know, it seems that no criteria is in order anymore.

SILENCE IS GOLDEN: Let people choose perpetually the wrong individuals for different responsibilities in order to obey today OBLIGATIONS, all based on what they believe is to be fair…. Fair to what? Fair to whom?

I cannot believe that some regimes 50 or 60 years ago were considered as PUBLIC ENEMIES,  and today  we do worse… we base our decisions for employing , casting, hiring on everything except work ethics, real talent,  knowledge or devotion.

Enough with that!!!!!

We are now afraid to offend anybody and everybody by having opinions or expressing judgments….The world around us does not want US to be able to think, to create, to exist… 

All is happening as we should be dead…Or we should be sitting in an armchair in a retirement home or community and look through the window at the emptiness around us…

We should look at the nonsense of life, we should contemplate what has not existed for a long time in order to justify everybody’s opinion and behavior or we should respect with no opinions the youth of some, their ambition to be, even though they still do not know enough…

 Finally we should stop existing by being Silent and understanding of everybody.

We should be able to live in denial, we should be like them and sometimes worry about the disease or the death of somebody, in order to prove that we have feelings, we have a soul, and we know how to be a good person.

But most do not know or actually refuse to see that the world should not and cannot enclose us in the silence of the semi-death. The silence of acceptance, sometimes the silence of old age, the silence of the false peace of the soul….

We always have the strength to tame life, we should always  have a creative knowledge and the desire to act… 

We were and still are even if the majority is not and will not be…We cannot be satisfied by letting life leading us by the nose, no, not even life, but the irrelevant events of life …

Those who want to make us live in the silence have the nerve, the effrontery, and the blinding attitude to believe that they are superior and in charge of our destiny…

 If we try to be, we become UN EMMERDEUR DE PREMIERE CLASSE, A ROYAL PAIN IN THE ASS, preventing them from dictating as they look at us with impatience, trying to find a weakness, expecting a misstep and ready to send us to the doldrums…

They want us in bed at night, content to still be alive, happy to have good leaders and they force us to be attentive to the small problems of everybody around us in order to justify our humanity…

Today it’s snowing…I have seen snow very often…I do not like it…It creates a false impression of purity all this immaculate white, a false impression of quietude, of unexpected silence, a piece of white velvet protecting our wounds.

 Julien (Julien was the main character in my novel “The shattered sky”) walked often in the snow, and for the past 45 years he has been walking on the white velvet extending on his wounds trying to redo what was not… he is still walking since the sky was vaguely glued by all these years trying to finalize what never started.

The shattered sky has changed sky…I look at Julien and I forgive him… He is no longer that child full of anger…He doesn't want any more to assassinate the truth any more, he wants to reinvent the truth.

 The truth? The truth of what? Of the lies of imagination? The Truth of the unfinished fantasies? Forty five years since the corner of a blue sky in Paris…

Forty five years??? Did wisdom take over my self-destruction? Does wisdom leave some bitterness on the truth? Is that the reason why some people like the snow? Because snow covers the bitterness of the truth?

Julien you are now far, lost in the uncertain memories, in the memory of the lost senses, but I keep for you a tenderness full of bewilderment… Surprised to see that you are no longer, you are someone else, built by life and shaped by others…You too have disappeared in the fog of life, in the path of life called existence…You have disappeared recreated by the look of others, you became someone else…

Julien are you still capable of reshaping the world? Can you rethink it? Or do you also accept the fact that it is impossible to be yourself? Are you finding refuge in the cocoon of silence?

LE SILENCE EST D’ARGENT MAIS LA PAROLE EST D’OR

They always want to know: Is this all truth? Is your life true? Is it true? True? What does true mean? What is the TRUTH? Everything is the truth, and all is invented…There is only one truth, the one we want…

You have a tormented soul…A tormented soul? Not at all… Only a mind trying to understand the meaning of all this, the aim of life lost in the infinity of life…I am not tormented, the young Julien was not tormented, on the contrary, He knew how to tame adversity… he knew how to stay complete in his fragmentation, he was capable of staying strong and whole…

I love Julien, I admire him, I miss him…I miss his strength, his passion, his vision…Forty five years since my decision to start again from scratch, to turn the page, to go conquer a new world…Where did those years go…They went faster than the years spent to try to understand,  trying to live.

Too many people believe that life is what it is…We should not…Fatality, fate do not exist, we can change the world by looking at it in a different way, by interpreting it…Yes, sure, soon I am going to believe in Santa Klaus, should I just believe in the silence and let people continue to do whatever and never tell them anything?

 Everybody has good reasons for being what he is, to believe what he believes, to act according to his desires…

So, what should I expect anything from anybody? Why should I believe that what I know is more important? Why should I expect people to show some gratitude for what I did for them and give something back…

After all these years, I still have not understood that it means nothing…expect nothing from anyone, provoke nothing and no one…ask for nothing… BUT wait like an idiot that things happen and accept in SILENCE in order not to be difficult…

What a punishment, what a bore…

I just woke up sleeping in the plane, was this my last dream? Or a nightmare? Or both? Was I really asleep or just letting my mind ramble…

Can I be again a gypsy in Seville or a spy in Berlin…

It will never change…Life is a perpetual farce. 

Next to me in the plane a couple is exchanging words of love, they are cooing like two doves, they must be in their honeymoon…They are both extraordinarily ugly but they look at each other with eyes full of desire and admiration…They will build a life together, they will tell each other everything except the truth, they will take care of each other except for the big decisions, they will love each other with a quiet love, appeasing and silly…

NO…NO 

SILENCE IS SILVER BUT WORDS SHOULD BE GOLDEN

The me, me and...ME generation

I am a member of the baby boomer generation and was raised in a world where the idea that I had to think about my desires, my future, and my needs was the normal way to behave, was the right choice and the only approach to overcome all of life’s challenges.

ME had to be the center of my thoughts, of my preoccupations, of all my efforts to reach my goal in life: to become who I am.


Two weeks ago I celebrated or more exactly some people wanted me to celebrate what they call an important birthday, a stepping stone in life for all of us who reached that age…
Yes, last week I turned seventy.


My god or my devil, SEVENTY…I cannot believe it, where did life go? Where did my dreams, my fears, my wishes, my successes, my failures go?
Are they still around me, making me, sculpting me, changing me, making me happy or destroying me?
Did I fulfill the purpose of the ME generation? Did I find myself? Did I find peace?
Do I have answers about the eternal questions of life, love, friendship, career, and relationships?


I am now seventy with all that number means…
Wiser that I were at 20 or 30, but less strong that I was at 40… Full of stories and adventures to share but less of a desire to conquer the world like I had most of my life…
Still lots of energy but using it with discernment… is that being wise or cautious? Is it being wise or full of fears?
My imagination remains the primary power, but choosing the paths of possible realization instead of throwing myself into new adventures without giving any thought to its purpose.


In short, I am boring myself…and spend a lot of time thinking about the past, about some people, about who and what and why, but not thinking of the next step or the next adventure that much anymore …
Is that BECOMING OLD? Is that a definition of getting old? Or is it another moment in time when what is happening does not coincide with my reality?


Most of us reach the different steps of life, youth, maturity and then the AGE DE RAISON, thinking that it is forever, that nothing will or can stop us, that it is a perpetual story in the making… We just have to find the next chapter…


Yes it is the perpetual search of the ME generation…looking for answers and questions about ME and to want to be an artist is probably the most obvious search for…ME


AN ARTIST?
I am wondering more and more if the definition of the artist can even be expressed…what does ARTIST mean?
All my life I would hear from everyone around me, from friends and people met on social occasions, in a supermarket or in a meeting with lawyers, from my garbage collector or the head of the public library:
He’s an artist, how can you trust him?
Or
You know, he’s an artist, so you know…what can you expect from his kind of brain?
Or
He’s an artist, so deep, so intense, so intelligent, so creative…
Or
Really? Really? An artist? How does he make a living?
Or
An artist? What does he do for a living?


What does it really mean to be an artist?
To see the world in a different way?
To bring to the world a different vision of reality?
To accept the perpetual changes and be able to adapt to them by having a different attitude every day?
Do we completely lose control of whom we are by accepting to change according to different values, different fashions, different needs…and these changes happen faster and faster.


More simply is being an artist the ultimate attempt to look for…ME


I wonder sometimes if the path to be honest and dedicated in the artistic profession is an illusion and a leftover of childhood guilt or may be an open wound…It seems that false knowledge, the attempt to enter into a dream world, being an intellectual poseur can bring you to the heights, the pinnacle of success…
Years go by, and I am still trying to find some answers to all this, and sometimes chance, the unbeatable law of fate gives us some answers or more exactly some elements of answers. These possible answers push us to think and to try to be generous with others, understanding our enemies and protecting the ones we love…


Is reaching a certain age the beginning of the end of the perpetual search for ME?


Unfortunately it will become an even harder task for the new generation, The ME generation is now part of the oldies and has been replaced by the me, me and …ME generation…
And not only in the artistic profession but all over the map…it seems that it’s not a preoccupation anymore but the only way to live, the only guide for a good or successful life…


Social media have dictated a way of life…Every day we must tell the world what we think, what we feel, what we want, what we don’t want, what we hope, who we like, who we hate, who is intelligent, who is not, we have to share pictures with so called friends on line, pictures of our cousins, of our dinner out, of everything ME is doing…
I rarely have a conversation with anybody that doesn’t turn very quickly to his or her feelings, his or her next action, his or her next inaction, his or her next step or decision…
Nobody or almost nobody spends time reading Goethe or Descartes anymore, looking at Picasso’s painting evolution, or even reading Shakespeare and Gogol.
NO TIME FOR THAT, what is more important is to share real feelings and thoughts like posting pictures of the last drinking party…
People study their phones all day long, and I am sure they can find the real questions and answers about the purpose of life and human adventure right there.
I don’t understand the notion of personal or intimacy anymore, some people believe that to share ideas can be too personal and disturbing, but to expose all their life on Facebook is fine.
In a few words we believe that me, me and ME deserve the attention of all…We even sometimes write a blog…


The human voice has been replaced by MY voice to the Humans…
La voix humaine…
The human Voice? Almost ironic when most real voices have been silenced around me and have been replaced by the voice of ME to Me…
Will we find a balance between the perpetual contemplation of our navel and the attention that others deserve…sometimes?
Should we try to use our voice the way we should? Sharing ideas and moments without talking about ME???? And eliminate all the harsh words we have for others, all the condemning words and keep only the ones bringing joy?


I am wandering… My thoughts dictate what I am writing… Me is dictating to I what I think…Maybe I should use my voice on others before typing words and eliminate the senseless words invading a blank page…


Voltaire wrote in Candide “Il faut cultiver notre jardin” meaning “we must tend to our garden”… Did we go too far? Are we cultivating ONLY our garden?


How is the next generation, going to react in the next few years, to this new way of living, of thinking?
Today, most of us are torn between the need to be and the reality of non-belonging to any system…Too many people, who are not respected by others, in their artistic profession or the business or political world, in every profession, are now making decisions… we don’t believe in them or trust them but they do… I know it has been the same since the world was created, and the me generation tried to fight this in the sixties…so why are we surprised to see the turmoil and chaos all over the world when we live in the me, me and ME generation?


Is this a moment in time? But how much time is left? Life goes by very fast…
The me generation was trying to convince the non-believers to fight against the usurped power and to refuse to bow in front of the fakers…
The me, me and ME generation has to find its own struggle, and to put aside for a moment the self-attention…


I am sure they will.

CONTROL???

The sea is very quiet and very light blue, I can see the bottom and the sand... Not one wave, it is like an infinity of calm and peace.

I am in our summer home in Carthage, 13 miles from Tunis, I love to be alone daydreaming in the water and in peace…This place is full of history, some Romans or Carthaginians may have been right here where I am...

 I am floating on my back, my eyes are closed, and I am finally free and happy... There’s no one around, nobody to tell me anything, to tell me what to do.

I look at the sky, also very blue, and without clouds, not even one. 

I am so happy and at last I am in control of all my movements.

The sun is bright and warm, am I in Paradise? Time goes by, not a sound…

And then my entire family is around me, how strange I thought some of them did not know the others, but they are all around smiling at me, holding my hands.

I feel so good, I am in heaven, I am in the “Mediterranean sea” in Tunis, I am young, and I am in control of everything.

I feel something pulling my leg from under, very lightly, almost like a caress, I smile again, it must be a small fish teasing me, or the fingers of an imaginary whale.

The pulling is suddenly harder, like the hand of a giant grasping me,  I try to fight it with my feet, with no results… the hand of the giant is now holding both of my legs,  I change position and start to try swimming, but I cannot... All my efforts are useless, I am not advancing and the pulling is stronger and stronger, trying to sink me under water… I am losing control, I am not myself anymore… 

The sky becomes a mirror and I see the face of an older man, who is he? He looks like me but much older, and seems to be in a panic, his eyes are wide open and he is screaming but I can’t hear a sound...

I am not in the ocean anymore, I am in a crowd of people screaming at me, laughing, and playing cards and making speeches... Some are standing up talking with lots of gestures as if they were giving instructions, and I wonder what they are saying, I don’t understand, it’s a language I don’t know and cannot grasp, I can’t control anything… 

 I start to walk away, and fall in a huge hole in the ground, I fall and fall and fall, my head is hitting some rocks and my legs are trying to become wings.

I wake up…

Another bad dream, no actually another good dream, or maybe both.

I am thinking about it. Today is Thanksgiving Day, and I am thankful for life, to a few people in my life, and I am wondering. In that dream, I was in control and happy at first, and then suddenly I lost control and was losing everything else.

Why?

Lots of people say that I am a control freak, that I always want to be in control, that I tell everybody what to do and not to do, what to think, how to behave, what to dream and even to stop dreaming or even to stop hoping when it is no longer, possible, according to me, naturally.

I remember my youth, even at the young age of 10, I was sitting at my desk in school and the other kids would come to me and I was telling them what to do, who to like and who to dislike.

And they were listening.

Today, I would be called a bully, but a mind bully since I was frail.

CONTROL, CONTROL

Some people have control and some are followers because they do not like control or because they are not capable of it.

I wanted to be an actor but I quickly went in the direction of becoming a director, control?

I became a director but soon turned into a general director, control?

And that went on for most of my life, the need to be in control practically dictated all my life moves, and almost all my decisions.

We all know by now that this need to be in control comes from a youth trauma, which is most of the time untold or undiscovered...

The lack of the need to control, and the choice of being a follower have probably the same origin, in a youth trauma.

BUT some do not need control and stay independent and some find the balance between controlling and following… 

These people are happier most of the time and have a more balanced life, but they are rarely leaders, but again they do not need to lead.

Some others have found their way in life and in professional life by pleasing others and at the same time to impose their thoughts, to control through no obvious actions those they need to please in order to advance their personal aims.

It is amazing to see very often some of us taking on new responsibilities, new leadership... 

They advance quickly in their life, in their profession, and seem always to bounce back somewhere else if they fail, never totally defeated, never totally desperate, always finding new paths, new ways, and new adventures.

They learned how to impose their thoughts, to please individuals and a crowd, to show what they know and to hide carefully what they do not know…

They can talk about everything, they are specialists about everything, they immediately find our weaknesses and how to use them… They are great talkers and great seducers, using every tool or every trick, they know how to manipulate others, how to say exactly what we want to hear, how to make us feel important and deserving their attention.

THEY ARE THE REAL CONTROLLERS

They control our actions, our decisions, our future and too often our life, we look for their approval, and we feel better when they give us a little nod of recognition.

They take charge of big companies, large corporations, they become the new stars of Wall Street or the entertainment business.

We look at them, like them, despise them, respect them, fear them, we want to be chosen by them, hate them, envy them, and finally wonder about them.

Every day we wonder why this one or that one is in charge, why this one or that one is so successful… 

We know they do not know, we know that they do not deserve it, and when we make our knowledge about them too obvious, they try to eliminate us by ignoring or demeaning us.

We believe we are basically better, more talented, more knowledgeable but they are the chosen ones, why?

Yes, they are the chosen.

They were the gifted and they learned how to find the balance between CONTROL AND PLEASING; they have always the right word, they have the gift to say banalities and we believe it is pure genius, they have a solution for everything even when they have no idea of what the problem is.

Unfortunately, it can become a rule in our society, especially in the arts, and we have to be very aware of it, and very careful of what we say, what we do, what we think.

We have to learn, not how to become like them, but how to deal with them, to accept their control but keep the freedom to sometimes refuse it or deny it.

 I know that sometimes we don’t have a choice and must accept the decision of the CHOSEN, but our mind should always be free to question it and even to deny it.

We have to see or guess what is behind the facade, use what we find and then we will have a small possibility to have the opportunity to play their game. 

We are confronted with these CONTROLLERS in our professional life but also in our private life, and it has to become our task to deal with it, and manage it in order to stay who we are and obtain what we want and need… 

AN ABSOLUTE CONDITION TO BE OURSELVES.