Every day, a personality invites herself into the world of Élodie Suigo. Monday March 20, 2023, on the occasion of the International Day of Happiness, the philosopher and writer Fabrice Midal. He has just published with Éditions Flammarion, “Everything that prevents us from being happy and what you need to know to be so”.
Fabrice Midal is a philosopher, writer and is considered one of the main teachers of meditation in France. Meditation is his credo, in any case, that’s what he likes to pass on. He founded a school based on meditation with a view to speaking of a Buddhism that has no religious head. His books are a kind of gateway, especially for those interested in Buddhism, happiness and meditation. Her job is to help others get better.
Monday, March 20, is the International Day of Happiness, a day that has existed since 2013, decided by the United Nations (UN). He just published Everything that prevents us from being happy and what you need to know to be at Editions Flammarion.
franceinfo: What is happiness?
Fabrice Midal: I was very bothered by the question of happiness for a long time because I had the idea right away that happiness was a state of perfection, a little heavenly in which everything would be fine. We would be by the pool, the weather would be fine, no one would have any problem, which is not our life. And so, basically, asking the question of happiness, and I also believe that this is why there is the day of happiness, is rather to say to oneself: “But what makes me happy?“This is really what was the great thought of the Greek philosophers. To ask this question is already to set oneself in motion in a positive way. So we could say to all the listeners for the day of happiness to ask themselves: “What makes me happy? What’s stopping me from being happy today?” It is already setting in motion and it is already taking a considerable step.
Does this mean that we learn to be happy?
Ah yes, it is an art. Basically, we are not happy like a fixed state, but it is an art that we have to learn every day. And it is by doing this movement that all of a sudden, you learn to be a little happier. Since finally, I deconstruct, many people who read my books say to me: “Ah, I realize that I was happy without having seen it until then“.
“Basically, to be happy, you have to deconstruct a myth of an unattainable happiness and you just have to see how we can take a small step aside from many of our daily problems.”
Fabrice Midalat franceinfo
What is surprising is that this book is a bit like your journey, that is to say that at the very beginning, you say it, you did not like school.
I was a hypersensitive child, completely apart, feeling a bit like the ugly duckling or some kind of UFO. I felt that there was really no place for me in this world. I understood absolutely nothing and therefore I felt very, very isolated. I spoke to almost no one until I was 17.
And you have encountered philosophy.
I met philosophy, which was an important moment. I also encountered literature, poetry and that started to change everything. I started to see that there was another world than the one, that’s just to understand, to be effective, to be efficient, that there was something else. But afterwards, it was a long journey to try to see that it’s not because I had a really difficult childhood and this extreme hypersensitivity that it was impossible for me to be happy.
“It is by accepting to be a little singular that I ended up finding a way to be happy by simply and in a completely limited way, simply what I am.”
Fabrice Midalat franceinfo
So there were obviously meetings around this philosophy. There were also more spiritual encounters, such as Buddhism for example. And it’s really the combination of the two that made you want to move forward, to better understand what was going on inside us.
When I was 21, I met a Chilean neuroscientist named Francisco Varela, who was passionate about meditation and found it to be a way of exploring our minds that was exciting for a Westerner. I was very close to him and that really played an important role. As far as philosophy is concerned, I was lucky enough to be a student of François Fédier, which was really important for me. Yes, there have been many encounters that have marked my career.
So much so that the child who didn’t like school became a doctor of philosophy!
Yes, it’s amazing. It’s incredible and it’s also a teacher I had who said to me one day: “You don’t like school, you’re afraid of exams. In my course, for one month, you are exempt from control. Make a file on the subject” and that fascinated me. Maybe I write books thanks to him because it fascinated me to immerse myself like that, to search, to take an encyclopedia, at my own pace, in my own way. And I find that this is often also what gives hope, it is that you can find your way when you get to know the instructions a little better.
The first thing you indicate is to say: “I”, to assume the “I”.
This is the beginning of what seems to me to be the quest for happiness, it is to dare to say “I”. In any context, the baker, the doctor if he starts saying “I”, he starts talking to you, then he also talks to you as to a human being and I find that to be a good way to try to be happy, to assume that we are human beings.
How do you define yourself?
Like a guy who lives in his library, who loves to think, to question himself, to question. Reading new things, inventing new ways of speaking, trying to discern where one is prevented from living. I find it fascinating to try to understand what prevents us from being happy in our society.