Geography of presence
Our presence to ourselves varies depending on context. The concept of a “geography of presence” explains how our inner states transform, intertwine, and influence our choices, forming a complex mapping of our presence in the world—beyond an overly simplistic psychologizing view.
Contextuality of Our Presence
Our presence to ourselves is not of the same nature depending on the contexts in which we find ourselves. At the heart of a noisy protest crowd, or strolling through a quiet spring forest, or sitting at a desk in an open-plan office, or alone in a restroom, or swimming in a public pool, or seated in a movie theater, or at a wedding, or at the funeral of a loved one, or with someone I love during a candlelit dinner, or with someone I despise in a terrible argument… my presence to myself and to the world can be extremely different.
What is this presence to oneself and to the world? It is what is activated within me: perception, a capacity for openness—more or less pronounced—to certain or all facets of who I am and how I am. In my relationship with my surroundings, am I calm, am I beside myself, am I contributing to a purpose in which I feel useful? Am I joyful? Do I feel like I’m living a moment essential to me? Or do I feel like I’m wasting my time? Or that I’m not where I’d like to be? And so on.
Geography of Presence
I propose the concept of a geography of presence, because what I describe here—these completely different experiences of oneself and these facets of oneself that might sometimes feel opposed, depending on the situation—are articulated within a geography, meaning a movement, a circulation between these different places and moments of presence, like a form of cartography of our presence.
If I reunite with someone I love after being in a situation of conflict or extreme tension, I will not be in the same presence with that person as I would if, before seeing them, I had been in a moment of great creative satisfaction, for example. This is why I envision our presence to ourselves and the world in the form of a geography.
I propose this vision because, in my view, it allows us to move beyond an often excessive psychologization of our qualities of presence, which can feel like an over-responsibilization of ourselves for our lived experiences in situations. Taking into account the geography of our inner journeys in relation to external environments and others provides, it seems to me, a more solid foundation for understanding what happens to us.
This almost aligns with common sense. We know, for example, that we need a transition space after an exhausting workday before entering the intimacy of our home with our family. But even this view seems overly simplistic to me. It would assume a form of impermeability and an ability to separate the different spaces of the geography of presence that we traverse.
A geography also has layers. The geography of a territory can be considered from various angles. Maps, for instance, may or may not represent altitudes. Perhaps we’ve all experienced this at some point—back when paper road maps were used for travel—seeing a flat map with routes that seemed fairly short and easy, only to discover while driving that they were actually steep climbs and that the little winding roads were terrifying cliffside paths for long minutes, representing a vital risk that we didn’t perceive at all on the map, where the geography appeared simple because it was viewed through only a single layer.
Reinvesting Our Intentions in Our Geography
I am not saying there are no distinct spaces from one another, but if I propose this concept of a geography of presence, it is in the hope of inviting us to more precise life gestures regarding how we bring together the conditions for our emancipations and our most desirable possible existences. These conditions to assemble—over which we have real capacity for action—are linked to highly varied geographical elements that we propose to ourselves: an impulsive walk down an unexpected path, a reorganization of our living space, a decision to tidy up objects or welcome new ones, the choice (or not) to attend that party with friends.
How can we sense the best way to act upon our geography of presence? How can we be sure that this incongruous and perhaps almost incoherent choice we make—to do one thing rather than another—how can we determine what is good for us from what is not? In short, how do we listen to ourselves in making lucid, conscious, free, and beneficial choices? What criteria should we apply? And how do we perceive these criteria in the moment?
There is obviously no ready-made answer to this question because it is fully contextual. And within the same context, two inspirations can be equally good even if they produce perfectly opposite consequences. But we can also, at times, make choices that are clearly not beneficial for us.
To progress in lucidity on this subject, I believe that if we envision our presence in a geographical form, it can only nourish a more just and open engagement with the world.
Presence as the fundamental grounding of our being in the world
Presence constitutes this fundamental grounding that connects us to ourselves and to the world, this quality of attention that transforms lived experience into inhabited consciousness. To be present is to resist the centrifugal forces that disperse us - the imminence that projects us into urgency, the denial that cuts us off from reality, the social injunctions that distance us from our interiority. Presence is neither withdrawal into oneself nor fusion with the exterior, but this creative tension between inner grounding and openness to the world. It is cultivated through paradoxical adaptation that requires sometimes absenting oneself to better find oneself again, through the complex geography of our inner states that vary according to contexts, through resonance with the waves that pass through us. Faced with drama that fractures, submission that empties existence, old age that isolates, presence becomes resistance and reconstruction. It is what allows us to transform the unexpected into opportunity, to maintain our integrity in turmoil, to create connection where solitude reigns. Cultivating one’s presence ultimately means offering oneself the present of the present moment, the source of all authentic transformation.
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Vocal presence
A typology of voices at a distance and the kinds of presence they shape.
Making a phone call, leaving a voice message, joining a video call, listening to a podcast, watching a live stream, talking with a voice AI: six (…) -
What is Philosophy Today?
Crafting concepts from presence and lived life.
Every person carries a philosophy without knowing it, inherited from their culture. I try here to say what it is, for me, to do philosophy today, (…) -
Presence and memorisation
When silence becomes the founding act of knowledge.
A recent discovery in cognitive science reveals that ten seconds of silence after learning triples memory retention. This is not a mnemonic tip. (…) -
Presence and Comparison
Or how the quest for superiority diverts us from the essential.
I postulate that our obsession with comparison distances us from the only authentic way of existing: presence to oneself. This presence is not a (…) -
Presence and anxiety
A Dialectic of transformation.
For years, I have observed within myself the movements of anxiety, this tenacious companion that seemed to structure my relationship with the (…) -
Absence at the Blockage Point
Why our frozen identities prevent us from liberating ourselves.
We all carry impossibilities that define us. Every existence is traversed by aspirations that remain perpetually out of reach. And what if the (…) -
Presence and Isolation
On essential solitude as a condition of authentic thought.
Presence to oneself is born paradoxically from isolation. This fundamental solitude, far from being a withdrawal, constitutes the breeding ground (…) -
Presence and Drama
From absence as a stage to transformed presence.
How do we inhabit the drama that fractures us? Between salvific denial and transformative presence, I bear witness here to my path of identity (…) -
Presence and Tolerance
The art of accompanying without imposing, toward mutual emancipation.
How do we accompany those who seem frozen in their certainties? Authentic tolerance, allied with respectful presence, builds a space of trust (…) -
Social Presence and Physiological Health
What is the true elixir of youth?
Beyond diets, miracle remedies and “scientific progress,” the key to longevity lies in the depth of our connection to community. Lessons from the (…) -
Presence in the Unexpected
The art of grafting the unexpected.
Faced with the unexpected that thwarts the best-laid plans, should we resist or open ourselves? Perhaps the issue is not so much in this question. (…) -
Presence and adaptation
For an ethics of transformation.
Between active presence and constrained adaptation, cultivating an “adaptive presence”: an ethics of creative resistance in the face of (…) -
Leaving the house in the presence
Reflections on collective presence after lockdowns.
The lockdowns of 2020 and 2021 ultimately revealed our vital need to go out and share collective moments. This experience questions the meaning of (…) -
Presence and totality
When antagonisms reveal their synergy.
Presence, openness to the unexpected, seemingly opposes organized totality. Yet, an authentic presence to oneself and others can generate a living (…) -
Presence and value
To multiply human capacities.
Our presence in the world is guided by values whose roots are contingent and anecdotal. Becoming aware of this makes us more flexible in exploring (…) -
Adapting to presence
To be present is paradoxically to transform oneself, through absence from oneself.
To be more present, to oneself and to the world, one must adapt their presence—it is an act of will. And this leads to a paradox: being fully (…) -
Presence and sound waves
Our power to act on the waves that make us.
We exist in a vibrational universe. Our presence in the world is of a wave-like nature, and we can influence the quality of our presence through (…) -
Geography of presence
Life as a layered journey.
Our presence to ourselves varies depending on context. The concept of a “geography of presence” explains how our inner states transform, (…) -
Presence and earth
A short introduction to critical thinking on the eco-capitalist doxa.
We are present on Earth, nourished by it, yet we exploit it without coherence. Our so-called ecological awareness is accompanied by a blindness to (…) -
Presence and power of the spirit
For a politics of non-conformism.
The mind defines humanity and the uniqueness of each person, beyond the physiological. This singular essence allows us to enrich others while (…) -
Presence and suicide
Typology of presence before/after the radical choice of absence.
Suicide paradoxically transforms absence into an overwhelming presence. Grief involves symbolically constructing this absence to rediscover one’s (…) -
Presence and old age
For a neuro-social therapy.
The loneliness of old age could be combated by the creation of objects, allowing the elderly to preserve their presence for themselves and others, (…) -
Presence and submission
Temporal hypothesis of self-failure.
To be present to oneself is to offer oneself the present time, the source of integrity. Submission denies this presence, stealing our vital (…) -
Presence and time
Practical hypothesis of power over time.
We each have extremely varied experiences of time, depending on our general modality of presence in time, and our specific intentionalities at (…)
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Body Calligrams
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Pills Calligrams
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Adapting to presence To be present is paradoxically to transform oneself, through absence from oneself.
To be more present, to oneself and to the world, one must adapt their presence—it is an act of will. And this leads to a paradox: being fully (…) -
Presence within Entanglement Presence when a third party holds the trace.
Artificial intelligences write in our place and retain what we no longer retain. The transformation is now ordinary, present even in the everyday (…) -
Choice of words Collective film (7’22s, 2017).
Words dance to make racism and discrimination vanish.
