Presence and power of the spirit
The mind defines humanity and the uniqueness of each person, beyond the physiological. This singular essence allows us to enrich others while resisting conformity. Cultivating one’s singular power is essential, even at the risk of social misunderstanding.
The mind is inherently nonconformist
What I call the mind is what defines humanity in its essence and what is unique to each person. The mind can be considered as something beyond the physiological, the chemical—it is the essence of the person. The mind is also what enables that person to enrich others, precisely through their uniquely singular mind.
The mind is given to us, offered to us. But human groups, in order to function, require commonality. And too often, commonality is confused with obedience to authority, when they are not at all the same thing. Commonality is also often mistaken for the absence of singular thought, when in fact, our language, for example, which is shared, certainly influences our way of thinking—but above all, it equips us with a means to express our singular thought, thanks to these shared words that we arrange in our own way.
The mind, therefore, is the opposite of conformism. The mind is the risk of one’s own presence, the risk of self-legitimacy. “Am I not saying nonsense?” It is also the social risk of not being heard, not being understood, of being judged simply for who we are—something impossible to change and yet the greatest wealth we have been given. Respect for our mind is at the heart of upholding human dignity.
In my view, the mind fully deserves that we cultivate its power, its singularity, its radicality! This is what great artists do—they search, dig deep, constantly take detours, seeking to develop the power of their minds through their creative acts, whether in resonance or dissonance with the minds of others.
Radical humanism for a truly democratic space
A humanist world (which, in my opinion, is what a democracy should be) must be tolerant of all minds. And every mind, even the most radical, must be capable of hearing other radical minds—even if they may never find agreement, they can each unfold in their own power, also thanks to disagreement, which acts like friction, heating and stoking the fire of each one’s thought. This is not about combat with the intent to conquer, but about cultivated, deepened, daring complementarities.
When a person is afraid, they retreat into mental conformism, thus losing their own mind. They “cling to branches” that reassure them—that is, to what is around them rather than within them. And in doing so, they lose themselves in their fear.
The fear of death, of stigmatization, and of social decline has caused immense damage in all societies. Fear is the absolute lack of presence to oneself, the refusal of self-risk. This fear is skillfully maintained by powers that prefer obedience to revolt and claim that such obedience is indispensable to social order, education, health, and work. They cleverly sow fear in various ways and on multiple levels—through threats, confusion, inconsistency, warlike and aggressive references, and ultimately through the creation of scapegoats and the dehumanization of a part of humanity. This infamous scapegoat is so well theorized by René Girard, whom I see as describing one of the most unfortunate regulatory mechanisms of human groups.
Thus, it is presence to oneself—the risk of disagreeing with the group—that is the greatest guarantee for developing the power of the human mind. That is, our minds as singular beings, which will thereby contribute all the more to the collective, without hierarchy, each and every one of them.
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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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. (…) -
The creative unconscious, a method for collective creation When letting go becomes method. For a Taoist approach to audiovisual creation.
How can we explain that a group of people can produce a coherent cinematographic work in a short time without a script? A method that shows the (…) -
Creation as the energy source of cultural mediation Moving beyond hierarchies to unleash the power of making together.
Cultural mediation is going through deep questioning about its professional identity. Beyond the legitimate claims for status recognition, I wish (…) -
Autumn Festival in Normandy Hybridations # 2 - New creative ways (web conference) Conferences
Roundtable / lectures on the issues of creation in the digital age.Rouen, 2 December 2014. I participated in the roundtable / lectures as an (…) -
By my window: Film what you see through a window in your home, and tell about an important memory. Video platform
On 1 April 2020, during the period of confinement in France, I opened the video contribution platform www.parmafenetre.fr..Following the (…)
