The old digital alarm clock placed at the edge of the bed once again indicates the time that will have to be spent horizontally in our lives. From these figures, as square as they will become again every minute to come, he spits out the bittersweet crackle of the radio. After being torn away for about ten additional minutes, the singing of the routine will resume, inviting us to recover everything that is beyond us in order to fit it into predefined spaces, with interfaces as smooth as they are effective. To these old figures from the past century, will be added, as the day passes, a myriad of sound and light reminders emerging from our interactive, digital, shared calendars, always using these words which never invite relaxation. : alarm, urgent, priority, etc.
And right next to true passion, the one that never hesitates to activate itself to burn with its eternally renewed fire, there will also sometimes be the wear and tear of time, that specific to our era which no longer knows how to protect a way to live which would beat a rhythm other than that of “planning”.
Organic time is no longer free. It requires those who must honor it to first pay the price of their symptoms, then that of all social marginalization. It re-invites itself through the back door of our failed actions, our professional burnout, our ADD and other illnesses, which force us to give up the race.
Wasting time, refusing organization, thinking about everything and nothing at the same time, no longer defining ourselves by what we give back to the world, getting lost in space, wandering, abandoning ourselves to existence instead of ” manage” will have gradually become suspect, or permitted only to those who brandish the passport of diagnosis, illness or parenting of an infant, and then again.
For exorbitant entry prices, we will be able, on the sidelines of our “crazy weeks”, collectively, to throw ourselves into cardboard settings which attempt to recreate Iceland, with its steaming baths, white bathrobes and other silences. imposed. Calm will be required here, for those who have the means. We can also run, leave work on time, have the children looked after to offer us meditation or yoga sessions, if we have been able to plan, organize ourselves, predict what we would need or want, on Mondays at 6 p.m. 30, from January to April, for $400. We will therefore install new applications, full of notifications: relaxation, breathing exercise, positive thinking!
If I am thus gently amused by our quests for calm, which have also become commodified, like so many parts of our existence, I am otherwise desolate when I discover, beneath our contemporary psychological suffering, this simple desire to return to oneself, nakedly. , as close as possible to “a time that would not be money, no”.
The first week I returned to work, I bought a second pair of tickets to see Asaf Avidan, having forgotten the first purchase, which was from November. I posted books by making a mistake in the dedications, sending to Colette, the book by Gilles and to Gilles, the book dedicated to Colette. I forgot a business meeting, my keys at home and my water bottle at university. I switched messages in a desire to respond quickly to emails that sent me cries of alarm.
Psychoanalysis likes to read beneath our forgetfulness, our escaped words and all these actions which turn away from wanting, the expression of repressed desires, of sometimes shameful impulses, which act instead of being said.
Personally, I also like to read in my failed actions the joyful expression of my tireless desire to live outside of this tiny square that the world draws around me. I like to find something of that child in me, who spent delicious hours dreaming of worlds beneath the surface of her boredom. I am amused by my desire to see Asaf Avidan so ardently with his Labyrinth Song which, with its tunes somewhat reminiscent of Cohen, acts in me like a delicious Ariadne’s thread, leading me to the heart of my much-loved melancholy. I then celebrate my joy in offering the second tickets, my pleasure in the gift, in this gratuity which arises more and more rarely in our lives, defying what my credit card also demands, with its urgent reminders, priority, anxiety-provoking.
I like the sweetness of a certain irresponsibility, which invites itself into my very serious life, its thoughtlessness, the great laughter that it provokes in me and in others, all the life that it generates, like outpourings of true, behind my shame, beyond my sincere apologies. Colette and Gilles have already forgiven me anyway, and we were able to laugh at ourselves, and find ourselves in a situation of permission not to be blameless.
I often smile to myself at being able to fit so many successful appointments into my week, punctuality honored, deliverables delivered on time. I congratulate the dreamer child in me, who so needed to escape the norms, who was allowed her creativity. I congratulate her because I know what it costs her to no longer be able to transform her days into strolls as essential as the rest.
And to friends who need me to know three months in advance what I want to do on a Friday at 5 p.m., I often ask forgiveness for not yet being able to wrest from the altar of organic time a single minute of more. On Fridays, I do not yet know what will come to me, and I will take full responsibility for what my freedom demands of me. I claim as much of August 32 on earth as possible and, when I no longer do so, my failed actions take care of it for me.
To those who see a lack of commitment, respect or friendship, I say that the entire society is organized according to their relationship to the world, and that we should leave a little space for this idleness. mother of philosophy”, thus designated by Hobbes, to dream of a world that they would also like to inhabit.