Towards autonomy

Strain!

This is the order I give myself at a constant pace, day after day, hour after hour, both sailor and captain on board my skiff.

The channel is not very wide. Even the most knowledgeable and understanding people can hardly imagine how little room there is for manoeuvre for the convoy that a project like this represents. Attraction parks.

I am not saying this to be maudlin, nor to be pitied, which would be of no real use to me, not even as a poultice for the soul. A conscientious massage would be more efficient, the concrete gratification being, most of the time, much more regenerating than a vague movement of compassion.

Far be it from me to identify my boat with a galley. Being caught in the natural turmoil of the elements has nothing to do with the accident. A sailor does not consider himself in trouble by having chosen to embark on a transatlantic race. However, this is not a cruise and it is essential to remember this and to comment regularly on this point, above all for oneself, so as not to be forgotten and become an identified but negligible floating object on the ocean.

I don't know why - probably because of our narrowness of vision and the very limited scope of our individual concerns - but all of us, as many as we are, very easily forget what drives others. It's not that we don't care, but we prefer not to know too much about the daily life of others; that it doesn't become so familiar. This, in my opinion, largely explains the success of social networks such as Facebook or Twitter, both of which allow us to regularly throw 5 ml bottles into the sea, just to let people know that the other person, the colleague, the friend, has not been shipwrecked, has not been submerged and drowned in the swell. It is rarely on these platforms that someone expresses that they are in distress, which objectively is not my case.

A diary is nevertheless also meant to bear witness to the realities as we go through them. It is not really therapeutic and is not an alternative to psychoanalysis; it is more of a scientific nature. The diary allows, besides the relationship of the journey and the description of the discoveries, an account of the evolution of its position, the temperature, the hygrometry, the strength and the direction of the wind, measured on a daily basis. Coincidentally, or with a distant etymological logic, it is interesting to note that the second meaning of the French word 'relation' in the sense of human relationship, translates into 'relationship' in English, where ship means status or qualityIt is the poetic mysteries of language which, even if the connections between the terms prove to be abusive, constitute solid bridges for the imagination and the crystallisation of a world of the spirit. These are the poetic mysteries of language which, even if the connections between the terms turn out to be abusive, constitute solid bridges for the imagination and the crystallisation of a world of the spirit. All the creative power of wordplay bears witness to this.

So to avoid the risk of failure, they had to be very precise. I remember being very impressed, watching television, by the precision, the degree of collaboration and the method that the lock-keepers of the Panama Canal had to demonstrate every day, thanks to the use of small locomotives, to haul in and keep in line liners or container ships weighing more than 100,000 tonnes, skimming along the edges of the canal, with their hulls only a few centimetres away from the concrete. I don't claim to be doing a comparable Titan's job on my own, but I do claim the accuracy of juggling in all its forms, so that each projectile passes at high speed - time being of the essence - through an orifice barely larger than it is, without ever grazing the perimeter. It is a pity that in project production, no setting is valid once and for all and that one has to recalculate one's angle of fire to adapt it each time to new situations. There is no shortage of such situations, and all of them are unique in the forms they take.

I realised the importance of managing all factors, without exception, when I stopped working with companies. Not that they were models of tactical sophistication; far from it. The emptiness and deficiencies in all positions made these buildings highly fragile. Only the miracle of collective energy welded into a single axis enabled us to break through many a barrier and more or less achieve our goals. The only real problem was the same each time; a problem, in my opinion, of an artistic nature: to escape from the cabotage (not to be confused with the hamming it upAll of them are excellent performers; those with the least experience make up for it with their personal advantages put at the service of good stage intelligence).

To leave the coast, but to go where? The open sea, the human adventure where the desire to embark together would supplant the need for security, both emotional and material, sought elsewhere. Autarky and buccaneering were my deepest aspirations and my watchwords at the time. One day I felt that the machine seized up, tightened up so to speak, in reaction to my speeches and I decided to abandon the ship. As valiant as she looked, she was now, in my eyes, already being eaten away by termites. No one in particular was the cause, simply our paths were diverging due to differing ambitions.

Since then I have known - and knew from those moments - that my desire for theatre, which was perceived at that time, I believe, as communicative and open, would henceforth be perceived as severe and intolerant towards those who, although accepting to take part in it, would refuse certain aspects of my vision of things. I had accustomed my comrades to a much broader view. Everyone is free, of course, but I'm sorry if today, in answer to the question, "Why choose us?", I answer "Why be part of it?

Whether it was a fundamental misunderstanding or a damaging misunderstanding, I did not leave a friendly quay overlooking the open sea at that moment, but a desire for expansion that found its limit in playing with a miniature sailboat in the Luxembourg garden basin. I preferred to reserve these thrilling adventures for my future days of bedridden regression.

This apparent turnaround was, however, only superficial.

I have never had more than one quest, to get what I want in the way I want it. If I am forced to compromise, I cast off for other skies, sad but consistent with my desire for autonomy.

I have recently learned about personal development, that autonomy differed from independenceThis was because it involved the expression of the need for help from others, whereas the second was simply an attempt to free oneself from one's chains. This interesting remark made me think a lot. The result of this reflection is that I currently enjoy neither. Not enjoying them does not mean that one does not have access to them. In fact, it is the exact opposite. If I had no ambition for artistic 'overflow', I would be, as much as anyone can be in the context of modern life, both independent and autonomous. Only a desire outside the box, aiming precisely at the acquisition of absolute of these states, forces one to put one's winnings back on the table. A foolish hope of hitting the jackpot and breaking the bank, but hope all the same, which in my opinion is better than having no hope at all, apart from managing one's little business of affects and material goods.

I am well aware of the risks involved in such challenges. We are far too accustomed to identifying art by the rare examples, in the eyes of history, who have escaped unscathed and even sometimes fortunate. The majority never experience this glorious outcome. Isolation and relative homelessness are the common lot of the actors in the sector in question. Illusions in this area are harmful.

So, "at the price it costs", as the other guy would say, well yes, I demand, (the ugly capricious verb, complement of its noble noun, "requirement", thus composing one of the most ambivalent binomial, is launched) not that one appropriates my path as a faithful, but that one gives oneself the means to understand the ins and outs, other than in the light of one's own personal prism, if one wants to help me. I ask for nothing more than the unfeigned effort of this understanding. This is the content of my desire for autonomy; it is to this extent that I ask for help. Afterwards, each person will do according to his or her heart if the nature of what he or she has understood of my approach resonates within him or herself, a certain echo to his or her own life and desire for art.

To be continued...