Carte blanche to Émilie Bibeau | Shared solitudes

With their unique pen and their own sensitivity, artists present their vision of the world to us. This week, we give carte blanche to Émilie Bibeau.

Yes, once again, the year ends and here we are, tongue on the ground as they say, exhausted from mental load, stress and the end of the world.

Nothing new under the sun, alas, here we are burned stiff and desperately needing to relax between the ox and the gray donkey.

Glass of bubbles, Christmas stockings and sleep. Nothing else on the agenda.

Forgetting that the flowers still bloomed in November, that it rained ashes in summer, that we learned nothing and that humans kill others for nothing in terrible wars or in a four and a half where the neighbor didn’t suspect anything.

Again and again.

That we can go to a new planet or create software that perfectly reproduces Tom Hanks’ voice, but that we can’t cure your favorite aunt’s pancreatic cancer or repair a tendon that has caused you despair for six years …

“Come on, hop!, a little sincerity, the world is in tears! », sang Jean Leloup.

Enough to make you want to live a recluse for the rest of your days, alone and far from all this desolate masquerade!

However, the real tragedy would be there, in isolation…

During one of the many telephone conversations I have with my parents, my father says to me one day:

“Did you see that, Kiki [affectueux surnom] ? They created a Ministry of Loneliness in Japan… It’s special, huh?

— A Ministry of Solitude? But what exactly does he do? »

And it doesn’t take much for me to discover that this ministry does indeed exist, that it was born following a wave of immense and serious distress, all intensified, among other things, by an excessive valuation of work, but also by a solitude that many impose on themselves by cutting themselves off from the outside world, glued to their screens.

In Japan, these people who live in their room without ever going out are called hikikomori. Without social contacts, without any interest in work, they hardly speak to anyone, and this can last for several years.

Concretely, the Ministry of Solitude will work to establish laws to counter this isolation and, for example, legislate so that working hours are less busy. “Let’s be human and less bureaucratic,” he said.

Guillaume Piedboeuf, in a very beautiful text on the Radio-Canada website, explains that people in Japan are ashamed to ask for help and Koki Ozora, who campaigned for a Ministry of Solitude, states: “I think that the feeling of loneliness is the root of all their problems. »^⁠1

Even if they have their own issues, it would be dishonest to associate this phenomenon only with Japan and not question ourselves.

At a time when talking on the phone makes us anxious, where a person smiling at us in the street worries us… Where we are in constant contact with a screen which gives us the illusion of the presence of the other; where sometimes, despite ourselves, we tend to be approved by “likes”, by the number of “views” which gratify our brain as if our definition of ourselves were amassed rewards leading to a higher table validated by the others, I especially remember this shame of admitting our weakness, of going badly. The shame of exposing our flaws, for fear of rejection, the shame of expressing a fundamental need for love and connection.

The pride of perfection that takes up too much space.

We must believe that it is still frowned upon, even dishonorable, in 2023, to show one’s flaws.

And yet, despite our fear, our life must have meaning, it is fundamental. And we find this meaning with others. I am convinced of it. Because it is through real contact with others that we reveal ourselves and rise. As Albert Jacquard said so well: “I am the links that I weave with others”.

I recently reread, in a copy of Philosophy Magazine, a reflection on a clever fundraising campaign from the Abbé Pierre foundation which says: “Hell is oneself cut off from others”, in opposition to Sartre’s quote “hell is is the others.” Interesting reflections where we have to decide whether hell can be both ourselves and others.

Even Simone de Beauvoir, Sartre’s famous companion, pleaded for the necessity of the other: “I cannot walk towards the future alone. I would get lost in a desert where all my steps would be indifferent. »

Because a little solitude on a daily basis is necessary, but great solitude, the real one, the one that we do not choose, is an insidious monster that can lead the most fragile astray. And the mistake would be to think that the most fragile are the others.

Because the abandoned, the unlucky, the damaged, the self-conscious, the poorly “equipped”… it’s a bit like all of us at one time or another. And while the world burns, as they say, we have this left: to be together, whether we suffer or not, in silence or not, to embrace each other, understand each other, look for a little light somewhere and find that We’re not so alone after all.

Strong, solid, loving, nuanced and unifying bonds are what I wish for us as the holidays approach.

Sincerely.