“When it comes to freedom of thought, there is a great deal of truth in saying that without it, there is no thought. But it is even truer to say that when thought does not exist, it is not free either. There had been a great deal of freedom of thought in recent years, but there had been no thought. It is much the same situation as a child who, having no meat, asks for salt to season it.”

Simone Weil — The Need for Roots - 1943

Some people have no respect.

They show up with their ideas and completely mess with your head. You think you’ve found a little stability in your thinking and BAM!

Right in the face.

Or rather, they hand you a new way of seeing things, and you have to get used to it. It’s a bit like going from Mario Kart on the Nintendo 64 to Mario Kart on the Switch.

Same but different.

At the start of the year, Simone Weil’s thinking hit me square in the head.

Philosopher, mystic, resistance fighter, political activist, Simone Weil is one of the defining figures of 20th-century France. Her life and work are, in my view, among those that come closest to the word “greatness.”

I have read three of her texts:

• On the Abolition of All Political Parties

• The Need for Roots

• Grace and Beauty

I’m not going to cover everything here. Frankly, I couldn’t.

We’re going to focus on one part of The Need for Roots: the needs of the soul. In it, she presents the 14 elements essential to a dignified and fulfilling life for every human being. All the quotes are from this text.

(For those thinking about politics and how we live together, I’d recommend a thousand times over reading the first text. The Need for Roots is a much bigger undertaking. In Grace and Beauty, we encounter a different side of Simone Weil, more mystical.)

Obligation as a Foundation

Simone Weil’s thinking rests on the distinction she draws between rights (which govern our society today) and obligations.

An obligation concerns all human beings and applies to all of them; without any specific criteria, legal precedent, or custom. Obligations don’t rest on conventions and are unconditional. According to Weil, this was the great mistake of French revolution in 1789: the existence of a universal truth went unacknowledged, and a confusion was introduced between what is immutable and what depends on circumstances.

These are needs we cannot be separated from.

They are indispensable.

Sometimes we find ourselves having to choose between two obligations; and that tension is a perfect indicator of a society’s health:

Of course!

Simone Weil begins with “physical” needs:

• Protection from violence

• Housing

• Hygiene

• Warmth

• Care in case of illness

Simple to define and identify, these should be the norm in any society governed in a healthy and reasonable way.

Then come the needs tied to moral life:

Those “which deprive man of a certain nourishment necessary to the life of the soul.” For example, we owe respect to a field of wheat that feeds us, and to the community we live in.

We have three good reasons to respect communities:

1. Each one is unique. Unlike a sack of wheat, which is identical to the one next to it. The mental nourishment a community provides to its members is specific to that community.

2. A community reaches into the future. It nourishes those alive today and will go on nourishing future generations through its culture, know-how, and history.

3. A community has roots in the past. It is a vessel for preserving the spiritual treasures accumulated over time — a link between the dead and the living.

These communities matter, but that doesn’t place them above judgement. Depending on the context, we may be called to take strong actions regarding them.

• To save them: “Because of all this, it may sometimes be necessary for the obligation to a community in danger to go as far as total sacrifice. But it does not follow that the community is superior to the human being. It sometimes happens, too, that the obligation to go to the help of a human being in distress must go as far as total sacrifice, without this implying any superiority on the part of the one who is helped.”

• To save their members: “Certain collectivities, instead of serving as food, actually devour souls. In such cases, there is social disease, and the primary obligation is to attempt a cure; in certain circumstances, surgical methods may be necessary.”

With that said, let’s dive into those famous needs of the soul.

The needs of the soul

They are different from vices, whims, and fancies.

This is one of our main problems.

With governments marked by emptiness, a lack of philosophical awareness, and a culture of domination at any cost; it becomes impossible to make meaningful progress toward a healthier, more joyful life.

Order

A society where order reigns is one that minimises situations in which we are forced to choose between two obligations.

Since obligations are tied to our needs, and our needs are finite, they can be met. They sit on the middle ground between two extremes: being on the street and owning five houses, doing nothing and working yourself to death, forcing someone to act or being subjected to another’s will.

“The first characteristic which distinguishes needs from desires, fancies, or vices, and nourishments from gourmandise or poisons, is that needs are limited, as are the nourishments corresponding to them. A miser never has enough gold, but there comes a point at which any man, given bread in abundance, will have had enough.”

Liberty

Liberty exists within a framework of common rules. These rules must:

• Be reasonable and simple enough for people to understand their usefulness and necessity

• Come from an authority that is loved and respected

• Be stable and few in number, so that they become second nature and don’t require deliberation before acting

If there are so many choices that people get lost in them, that too can harm society.

Hmm... When you look at the results of decades of unchecked capitalism, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that an overdose of choices is not synonymous with wellbeing and justice.

"Under these conditions, the liberty of men of good will, though limited in fact, is complete in their consciousness. For the rules having incorporated themselves into their very being, the forbidden possibilities do not present themselves to their minds and do not have to be rejected. In the same way, the habit, instilled by upbringing, of not eating disgusting or dangerous things is not felt by a normal adult as a limitation on his freedom in the matter of food. Only children feel the limitation. Those who lack good will, or who remain childish, are never free in any state of society."

Obedience

This one I didn’t see coming.

But I changed my mind.

For Simone Weil, we need to obey rules and a leader. This obedience must be chosen, oriented toward a happy and harmonious society.

A word of caution, though. Several essential conditions apply:

• If obedience is obtained by force and constraint, there is neither liberty nor true obedience.

• If it is obtained by the promise of financial reward, there is no real obedience as individualism takes over.

It requires a “once and for all” form of consent, and the leader must be accountable. They are not exempt from judgment, and in the event of wrongdoing, the conscience of the community must revolt.

"It must also be known that those who command are themselves obeying; and the whole hierarchy must be oriented toward a goal whose value and even greatness is felt by all, from top to bottom."

I have serious doubts that any member of the French government over the past decade has ever read this section.

How about politics in your country ? 🤔

Responsibility

Here, the idea is that every human being should:

• Feel useful and necessary

• Understand the big picture and take ownership of the collective project (self-determination)

• Be called upon by others and engage in causes beyond their own personal wellbeing

We are not machines. We need to belong, to feel useful, to feel capable of making decisions that have an impact. This becomes obvious when you look at what makes small human-scale groups succeed : a football team, a band. It’s the combination of “I”s that creates a powerful “we”: not their dissolution.

"The satisfaction of this need demands that a man should often have to take decisions in matters, great or small, affecting interests that are not his own, but in which he feels a genuine concern."

Equality

According to Simone Weil, there are two types of inequality:

• Stable - think monarchy and authoritarianism

• Mobile and fluid - think capitalism fuelling individualism

"If anyone can rise to the social rank corresponding to the function they are capable of filling, and if education is sufficiently widespread for no one to be deprived of any capacity solely by reason of birth, hope is the same for all children. (...) But this combination, when it operates alone and not as one factor among others, does not constitute an equilibrium and contains great dangers."

The direction to follow would be a difference in the nature of social roles rather than their ranking. This implies a question of proportion. We wouldn’t be above or below, we’d be alongside. Duties and consequences would differ. The higher the responsibility, the heavier the penalty.

(With Simone as president, there would be no second presidential term for those who tried a coup d’état).

Another lever to pull: stop putting money at the centre of our relationships. Money makes everything quantifiable and distorts our ability to reason about the different natures of things. If everything can be converted into money and money is the central value of society, then we end up ranking everything according to it.

Hierarchy

It must be a symbol.

Nothing more.

It encourages every human being to take their moral role in society seriously.

A bit like the King of England today, though I do think that’s far too many privileges for something that’s supposed to be purely symbolic.

Honour

We all need to be recognised by our peers and by society.

Applauding healthcare workers during lockdown was a beautiful example of social recognition. Too symbolic, though — since the government didn’t see fit to actually improve the working conditions those same people were operating in.

Today, the honour pay scale (yes, that’s a new expression, not bad, right?) captures the absurdity of our society perfectly: how can we place footballers and pop stars so far above the people who save lives?

Everyone should have access to honour.

"Only crime should place the person who committed it outside of social consideration, and punishment should reinstate them within it."

Punishment

Ha! 🤨 (One eyebrow raised in the direction of our government)

Unlike what we currently do, punishment should be a tool for reintegrating the person who has done wrong.

It must have three characteristics:

• It is a form of redemption

• Its intensity is proportional, linked to the obligation violated and to the offender’s position in the social hierarchy

• It erases shame, educates, and brings justice into the person

"By his crime a man has placed himself outside the network of eternal obligations that binds every human being to every other. He can only be reinstated in it by punishment — fully so if he consents to it, imperfectly otherwise. Just as the only way of showing respect to someone suffering from hunger is to give them food, so the only way of showing respect to someone who has placed himself outside the law is to reinstate him within the law by subjecting him to the punishment it prescribes."

Freedom of Opinion

I read this chapter several times.

It makes me want to start a revolution and reorganise everything. I’ve done my best to break it down, but honestly, I’m still riding the emotional wave.

Freedom of Expression

Simone Weil argues that total and unlimited freedom of expression for all opinions is an absolute necessity for the intellect. That said, this freedom comes with a framework and limits.

Exactly.

For her, there are three modes of using intelligence:

1. To solve a technical problem (intelligence as a servant)

2. To choose a direction, a matter of will (potentially destructive if oriented toward harm)

3. For purely theoretical speculation (must have total freedom when operating alone)

We should have a type of publication that collects all available information and arguments on every topic.

Even the most harmful ones.

These publications would not commit their authors to any position. It would be publicly understood that they are not models to follow, but a place for “a complete and accurate enumeration of the data relating to each problem.”

That would not be the case for publications intended to influence opinion and conduct. Those should contain no statements (explicit or implicit) that go against our obligations.

Difficult to put into legal terms, but actually quite straightforward to judge:

• The press and journals are designed to influence opinion.

• So is literature. Weil even takes aim at the writers of her era: “writers have an inadmissible habit of playing both sides at once. Never in any other period have they claimed so much the role of directors of conscience, and never have they exercised it so widely.” Don’t even play the “separating the man from the artist” card with her 😡

• If I write a book of speculation but it becomes a source of influence, it’s easy enough to ask me to clarify: “that’s not my position.” If I refuse, I can be punished and dishonoured.

• A writer who occupies a social role of influence can no longer claim to be in the third category.

Whatever reactionaries and fans of FoxNews might think:

"The very need for freedom, so essential to the mind, requires protection against suggestion, propaganda, and influence through obsession."

Weil extends this reasoning to advertising, which must be regulated: it

"must be strictly forbidden to ever touch on subjects belonging to the domain of thought."

This passage hits particularly close to home today. On the street, in our pockets, in the middle of a YouTube video, we are constantly bombarded by ads promising freedom, health, or happiness in exchange for a purchase.

We can see just how effective they are on us, simple Homo sapiens with brains wired to seek social recognition and comfort. No matter our culture or education, we are susceptible to these messages. Our critical thinking can’t filter everything out.

On associations that express ideas

Simone Weil highlights the distinction between freedom of opinion and freedom of associations.

"What has been called freedom of association has in fact been, up to the present, the freedom of associations. But associations have no business being free; they are instruments and must be put to use. Freedom is only appropriate for human beings."

Associations should be prohibited from expressing opinions as a body, and for an obvious reason:

• This is the starting point for imposing an opinion on a party’s members.

• Failing to comply with one of these collective positions often leads to exclusion from the group.

• This places the individual in front of a terrible choice: their belonging to the group or their intellectual integrity.

• Since exclusion from a group is one of the deepest pains wired into us, the majority choose silence over authenticity.

This mechanism is the foundation of totalitarian states and censorship.

"Experience having shown that totalitarian states are established by totalitarian parties, and totalitarian parties are built up by means of exclusion for crimes of opinion."

I’ve done my best to summarise without writing three pages, but if you’re curious, go read On the Abolition of All Political Parties!

For a group of ideas to legitimately exist, it must meet two conditions:

• No excommunications

• A genuine circulation of ideas — visible diversity of opinion within the group. Too much uniformity should be considered suspicious.

My takeaway: freedom of opinion and expression must be total, while remaining within the framework of obligations. It applies to every individual, but not to associations, which are subject to different rules so as not to endanger the individual freedom of their members.

Security

Security means that the soul is not weighed down by fear or terror, except as the result of accidental circumstances, and only rarely and briefly.

It can stem from several sources, and the community must enable each person to escape most of them most of the time: unemployment, police repression, foreign conquest, inability to feed oneself, and so on.

The Egyptians said that a just man must be able to say “I have caused fear to no one”. Sounds like a catchphrase from a children’s manga, but we’d do well to make it our own.

Risk

We need to take risks in order to practice courage, build our resistance to fear, and avoid stagnation. The risks we take must be chosen, and must not exceed our capacities or a certain threshold of fear.

I can choose to spend three months on a farm with strangers but if I’m sent by force to work in a labour camp in the countryside, that’s a very different song.

Private Property

We all need to feel a connection and an extension of ourselves in the things that surround us: a home, a patch of land, and if possible the tools we use for work. This principle is violated when a farmworker tills land that belongs to a boss.

"Every man is inevitably drawn to appropriate by thought everything he has made long and continuous use of for work, pleasure, or the necessities of life (...) But where the sense of ownership does not coincide with legal ownership, the man is continually threatened with very painful uprootings."

Collective Property

It is “a state of mind more than a legal arrangement.” It means taking pride in what belongs to the community (ceremonies, gardens, monuments) and being able to enjoy them.

It feels to me like we’re losing this sense.

Policies that favour inequality create such a wide gap between different parts of the population that they make it difficult to find common ground around shared things.

In Brazil, for example, the Bolsonaro camp appropriated the symbol of the national football jersey and now I’m over here crying because I’m can’t wear my Ronaldinho shirt 😥

Truth

Journalists and those who inform have an ENORMOUS responsibility. They must share what is true.

True.

We judge, and we must develop critical thinking.

However, if each person is individually responsible for determining the truth on every subject, we all end up getting things wrong, and perceiving such different realities that we lose the common thread between us.

Simone Weil proposes two measures to offer the greatest possible access to truth for every human being:

Specialised courts to punish any avoidable error.

In the event of a mistake, every media outlet should be required to make the error public, alongside the journalist’s response. Anyone would be able to bring a case before the tribunal.

The challenge seems even more complex in an era when anyone can take the floor and build an audience on social media, but the difficulty of a task should not stop us from attempting it.

We walked on the moon and sent probes to Mars. We can make a little effort here, right?

Ban all propaganda through the press and broadcasters.

This one stings when you look at the current situation. We’re actually going to have quarters instead of halfs at the football World cup so they could ad more ads.

Simone Weil advocates for a press held accountable not only for its lies but also for its omissions. For media that circulates ideas, the publication rhythm would be at most weekly.

"Groups in which ideas circulate and which wish to make them known would only be entitled to weekly, bi-monthly, or monthly publications. There is absolutely no need for a higher frequency if the intention is to make people think rather than to stupefy them."

Bam.

Right in the your, FoxNews.

An outlet could be shut down but its journalists would be free to start a new one, with their reputation on the line.

"In all this there would not be the slightest infringement of public freedoms. There would be satisfaction of the most sacred need of the human soul: the need for protection against suggestion and error."

A Final Word

Quite a lot to think about, right?

I hope I’ve done justice to the heart of Simone Weil’s message without corrupting it or overwhelming you. Tell me what resonated with you and what you enjoyed about this episode.

A short message from you means a great deal to me. 🥰

See you in two weeks and until then, take care of yourselves!

I’m in primary school, maybe early secondary school, and my dad often travels to Australia and South Africa for work. One day he asks my brother and me:

👨 “Would you like to live abroad for a while?”

Immediate answer:

👦 NOOOO!! Never! I want to stay here forever!

Lol.

Young Hugo really had vision.

That kid would never have gone to live on a farm with strangers.

Older Hugo absolutely loved it.

I arrived with curiosity, wanting to experiment with another way of living and demystify rural life. The whole speech about peace, nature, serenity, healthy food blah blah blah sounds great, but what’s actually behind it?

What would start to annoy me? What would I think about when I got bored? What new habits would emerge?

Here are the lessons and reflections from those three months, the good moments and the harder ones.

Enjoy 🌳

The cats 🐈

I had forgotten how much I love cats.

The calm they bring. The entertainment. Their quiet presence and that strange sense of connection beyond language.

I spent hours with them.

Brushing Ragnar and napping next to him. Watching Maia roll around in the fallen leaves. Letting her purr on my chest in front of the fireplace.

After a while you start suspecting they might actually be the ones running the place.

I’ll let you decide.

A new rhythm 🚶‍♂️

Life is slower.

You’re less overwhelmed by choice. No more evenings choosing between a birthday party, a gig and drinks with friends. Gone too are the billboards, the traffic, the sirens, the restaurant smells and perfume shops.

I wake up to Zé crowing. I feed the chickens and ducks before breakfast. We meet at 9am to plan the day. Cooking. Harvesting fruit and vegetables. Painting a wall. Writing the newsletter.

Leaving your phone in your room. Sitting by the fire watching the flames dance while leaves fall outside. Walking straight into the forest the moment you step out. I also spent most of the time without drinking alcohol, much to the disappointment of Mario, the neighbour, who kept inviting us for drinks at 11 in the morning.

A calmer and slower lifestyle.

Fewer choices.

Indeed !

After a while I felt the need to spend weekends in town. To step outside my bubble. To see new faces and new places.

I needed to feel the buzz around me.

And it helped.

Cities chaos recharge me in a way. They bring energy and inspiration.

🎓 This quiet life is good for me, but not enough on its own. I need to balance it with more intense moments that expose me to novelty and surprise.

To speak Portuguese or not to speak Portuguese 💬

I completely underestimated how hard it would be to live 100% in Portuguese.

I love the language and I can get by, but it was exhausting to follow everything and find the right words. Especially when trying to express complex thoughts or feelings. Even more so in the evenings, after a full day.

I could have withdrawn a bit, but I remembered the tarot cards I had drawn with Vera before arriving at the farm. They spoke about balance between solitude and openness, about finding the right equilibrium to stay happy.

So I made an effort in Portuguese. And I did something else too: I made more phone calls than ever before. To my grandparents, my parents, friends, my brother.

I gave them virtual tours of the farm. We caught up. I shared doubts and questions with the people who know me best. When everything around me was new, I had a lot to say.

🎓 I always came away from those conversations feeling energised and grounded. It’s a habit I’ve tried to keep since leaving the farm.

Social dynamics 🪴

The buddy

Do you have a work buddy?

I always did.

Since secondary school, I’ve always had that person who brightens my days. Someone you click with easily. Someone you laugh with. Sometimes they become close friends. Sometimes they don’t, and that’s fine.

I think of Paul, Léah, Bruno, Samy, Louis, Thomas (three different ones), Valère, Iris, Victor, Adèle.

Everything feels easier with a buddy. I see things more clearly. I have more energy. It’s like being amplified by another person.

🎓 Despite the great people I met here, I never formed that kind of connection. And I realised how much that affects my daily life. Meeting someone you instantly click with is a real luxury !

Living in community

At seven years old I was already asking myself endless questions about people and social dynamics.

Why do I want to hang out with different groups? Why does she behave differently with me than she does in a group? How do you become friends with someone?

And I never really stopped asking.

What is my role in a group? Are we playing roles or are we being ourselves? Are there several versions of ourselves living side by side?

Living in a small community, with the same people, in the same place, for both work and free time, that was a real challenge.

There were Inês and Simone, the two pillars of the project, there from the beginning and setting the tone. Then came Saar and Aliana, two volunteers in September. Then Ana and Joaquina from early October. And a constant flow of visitors: Soraria, Manu, Tiago, Annabell, Sara, Andreia, Carlos, Lara, and of course the neighbours.

The people I connected with most were those in transition.

People going through changes in their lives. We shared our doubts. We laughed about our experiences. We played games. And uncertainty felt less lonely when shared.

Through these encounters, my trust in human beings has grown enormously.

So many people want to live differently. So many refuse the model handed to us. So many are actively trying to build another way of life.

🎓 It’s easier to live with uncertainties when it’s shared. Experiencing that firsthand felt incredibly encouraging !

Some personalities are easy to connect with.

Others are harder.

You find fewer points of connection. You notice behaviours that irritate you. You struggle to overlook them. You struggle to find the words to move things forward. It ties in with that whole idea of shadow and ego but the fact is I’m uncomfortable with people who constantly draw attention to themselves.

So I become more critical & less nuanced.

They talk and talk and talk. They ask a question only to open a new topic where they can talk some more. After a while, I lose interest. My brain switches off the moment they start again. I experienced that at the farm, and it made me reflect. I wrote pages about it. I discussed it with friends : Why does it bother me so much?

🎓 Talking things through with people you trust is always a good idea. It helps me land on honest answers, the kind where I allow myself to be vulnerable.

In this case, I realised something simple: It makes me feel invisible & useless.

It touches fears that run deep in me.

Which explains the strong emotions that follow.

I haven’t solved it yet.

Work in progress.

The Quinta da Carvalheira project 🏡

This whole story is slightly absurd.

I met Inês by accident.

I texted the wrong number after a farewell party.

Six months later, I joined her at Carvalheira, a farm lost in the hills in the middle of Portugal.

We had three main goals:

• Continue renovating the house

• Maintain and expand the vegetable gardens

• Welcome the first colivers

I loved working with the soil. Planting things. Building a new vegetable garden.

I wish I had done even more of it, more time learning and practising permaculture. No offence to painting walls though, that was fun too.

For three months I felt like a child again.

We depended heavily on Inês for decisions. I came to help, and that was fine, but I like understanding the bigger picture. I like feeling capable of making decisions. After five and a half years working, I had forgotten what it feels like to be a beginner.

I see a clear link with my tendency to analyse everything.

One of my goals for 2026 is to find a better balance between living and analysing.

At the same time, I took ownership of the farm’s newsletter project and I’m still writing it now. There, I felt more confident. More on equal footing with Inês.

And that felt good.

Same with the website, I worked on the content and had solid reference points.

🎓 I love writing. And I want to keep doing it. More.

Verdict 🧑‍⚖️

I felt incredibly good there.

I wanted to demystify rural life and make the idea of moving to the countryside more concrete.

Mission accomplished.

I built connections with people whose lives are taking very different paths from mine. I learned practical skills. I now bake excellent fig tarts. And I touched on questions that are still not entirely clear in my mind.

I don’t know when I’ll go back, or how but I’m certain that I will.

Without a doubt.

I went there looking for answers & I mostly came back with better questions.

Final thoughts 💭

If there’s one lesson in all this, it’s simple:

Go.

Don’t stay safely inside the safe little bubble you’ve built for yourself. Especially when you’re going through a transition !

Those moments when you’re somewhere between who you were and who you’re becoming are uncomfortable. Full of uncertainty.

And yes, a bit frightening.

But if you have the privilege of going through a period like this without being in survival mode, then use it.

Go towards the things that scare you.

At worst, you discover it’s not for you. Now you know and you move on.

At best, you discover a new piece of the puzzle.

Great if you’re a cow. Not so great if you’re a human.

I’m using “ruminating” to describe all those moments when your mind goes in circles around a topic. A past situation you wish had gone differently, one whose consequences you’re dreading. An upcoming situation where you’re not sure how to act. It applies to emotionally heavy stuff (work, relationships) just as much as to the small annoyances of daily life (what am I having for dinner tonight? what should I wear?).

I’m no expert on cows, but they don’t seem to have these issues with menus or toxic bosses.

Back to humans.

Our brain can’t tell the difference between a problem happening in real life and one we’re imagining. Every time we replay the scene, we inflict on ourselves an equally real dose of stress. It’s like an infinite loop, Izanami vibes for the Naruto fans out there. That stress raises our heart rate and our cortisol levels.

Not good.

Not for our physical health, not for our mental health. Not for our cognitive abilities either.

We’re wired to respond to intense, acute stress but not to endure this kind of endless loop.

It drains us.

This rumination phase can be linked to the brain’s autopilot mode, what neuroscientists call the “Default Mode Network” (DMN). It’s a set of brain regions we activate when we’re not focused on the outside world, when the brain is at rest but still running. You know the feeling? For me, it happens a lot on public transport, when I’m running on empty after a rough night, or when I’m staring at a task I’d really rather put off.

We sink into the DMN like quicksand: the longer we stay, the harder it gets to pull ourselves out.

Great question.

To break the loop, all it takes is some physical stimulation: go for a walk, expose yourself to cold, do a breathing exercise. Focus on a specific task and, just like that, you activate different neural networks.

Concretely, you’re signalling to your brain that you’re no longer in danger. It relaxes, and your body follows. Have you ever noticed how much you decompress once you start walking after an intense moment? You’re back in a state where you can think clearly and start steering your thoughts toward a solution.

True.

And as I’ve said a thousand times here, I don’t have a magic formula. That said, neuroscience and philosophy offer two more steps to set yourself up for success:

1. Get the thought out of your head. Write it down or record a voice note. It makes the problem more tangible, takes you out of pure emotion. You become capable of thinking toward a solution and actually acting on it.

2. Define one first action to move away from the danger. Taking action reassures your brain — you enter a phase where you feel some control. Stress gradually drops, your cognitive abilities come back online, and you’re better equipped to solve the problem.

Ever since I read Tiny Experiment last year, I’ve had a bit of a crush on neuroscience. I find it fascinating to discover how it confirms ideas that thinkers like the Stoics, the Buddhists, and Spinoza have been sharing for thousands of years.

I’ve actually started taking online courses, but that’s a story for another time.

Take care of yourselves.

And take care of me by leaving a like or sharing this article.

And remember to snap out of the rumination when you catch yourself activating your inner cow brain. 🐄

Apparently, it’s dangerous.

That’s true if you’re seven years old, the guy’s wearing an Inspector Gadget–style trench coat and offering you candy or a ride in his van.

But honestly: who has ever actually met that guy?

Because yes, it’s almost always a guy who plays the role of the creepy predator in these stories… but let’s move on.

The risk of running into a madman will always exist. But at what level? And how much do we want to let that tiny percentage dictate the rest of our behaviour?

There are contexts where we feel safer starting a conversation, and we’d probably benefit from doing it more often.

Yes we should! 💬

Talking to strangers means overcoming our fear of others and our fear of uncertainty. It teaches us to live with the unknown. It develops our ability to create connections. It exposes us to difference, and therefore to learning.

That doesn’t mean we’ll become best friends with everyone we meet. But it sets an example. We learn that listening doesn’t mean agreeing. We show that people can meet, step outside their comfort zones, and not come out diminished.

Quite the opposite.

Talking to strangers can actually be… pleasant.

It creates a dynamic of connection instead of separation.

And sometimes you even run the risk of making beautiful encounters and forming unlikely bonds.

Friendship in a bus 🚌

I’m not saying this randomly.

This morning I found myself thinking again about the day I met Vanessa.

I get on a bus, walk to my seat and almost shed a tear: I’m not by the window.

Next to me sits a woman roughly my age, devouring a sandwich. I wish her bon appétit, and the next thing we know we’ve spent five hours sharing our thoughts.

Our doubts about what to do with our lives and how to do it. Our past relationships and what we learned from them. Family dynamics.

It feels incredible to feel connected to someone you’ve literally just met. The boost of faith in humanity is enormous.

We met a few more times before she flew back to Argentina, and we still keep in touch.

The role we play : going beyond small talk 🦜

Beyond talking to strangers, there’s the question of what we actually talk about.

It’s no coincidence that I still think about Vanessa and not the guy we spent the whole evening talking football with.

We live in a society of appearances. The image we project matters, so we play a role: to seduce, to hold a position at work, to land a job. We learn to pitch our lives in a way that makes them look desirable. Only the failures we’ve ‘successfully grown from’ (the kind that look good in a LinkedIn post) make it into the story.

We slowly lock ourselves into a character, especially within long-standing friend groups: the funny one, the mom friend, the organizer, the little eco-warrior.

These roles leave no room for uncertainty.

And that’s a terrible mistake.

Showing vulnerability is the most powerful way to bring us closer to each other.

Instead of meeting in performance, which implies comparison and an endless individual race to the top, we meet somewhere else. We meet in the things that are at the root of our behaviours and our ambitions. We meet where all humans recognise each other.

Are we capable of sharing childhood traumas?

Our contradictions?

Our doubts?

The weaknesses we refuse to show?

These things bring us closer. And have you noticed, how much better you feel after letting out what’s been sitting on your chest, and being met by someone who listens and opens up in return?

What you need 🎒

You don’t need a master’s degree in public speaking to start a conversation.

Wish someone a good meal. Say hello. Ask for directions. Give a compliment.

If the other person is open to it, almost any opener will do.

It works in cafés, in parks, after a theatre show, and I’m not even mentioning the absolute cheat code of people who walk their dogs.

You’ve had an exhausting week. You’re finally on the weekend, or on holiday, and the very first thing you do is… start looking for things to do.

Go see an exhibition. Grab a drink. Tidy your room.

None of that is actually restful. You’ll go back to work even more exhausted.

And I’m not even talking about the hardcore planners who organise their holidays down to the hour with spreadsheets and colour-coded schedules and all that. (I’m not making this up. These people exist, and I would hate to travel with them.)

Anyway.

Why do we always feel the need to do something?

Why is it only children and slightly stoned adults who take the time to watch the clouds?

I know a real flâneur. He’s the one who asked me that question, and here’s an attempt at an answer.

The gaze of others 👀

It seems to me that one obstacle lies in the gaze of others. Or rather, in what we imagine their gaze to be.

Our society values productivity. We’re supposed to act, to produce, to be useful. The whole hustle culture has no time for the benefits of rest and slowing down. And yet there’s no shortage of scientific research showing how powerful those pauses actually are.

If we imagine that others see us as lazy, and if we care about that judgement, then of course we’ll avoid idleness as much as possible. We’ll hide it. Day after day, we quietly bury the art of wandering.

There’s also this need to prove what we’re worth.

The race for recognition is amplified by social media, where everyone tries to present a life full of adventure, achievements and exciting encounters. We highlight the moments that show our curiosity, our performance, our incredible social lives.

But what do we do with slow Sunday evenings and lazy days?

We hide them.

Because we assume they aren’t worth showing.

So the gaze of others and the way we interpret it pulls us away from idleness.

The inner duel 🥊

There’s also an inner conflict.

When we do nothing, we end up alone with our thoughts.

We replay past scenes, especially the ones we’re not proud of. Or the ones whose consequences for our future still feel uncertain. We project ourselves into the future, imagining every possible danger that might await us, every uncertain situation we might have to face.

The truth is that this mental work, reflecting on the past and questioning the future, is useful. It helps us avoid repeating the same mistakes. It prepares us for certain situations and allows us to respond in ways that feel right to us.

But like many things, it should be taken in moderation.

Our negativity bias pushes us to focus on what hurts us, and we end up giving ourselves real doses of stress and sadness. (Our brains can’t easily distinguish between a real threat and an imagined one.)

In this duel, we have every interest in making peace with our thoughts.

They are not us.

They are simply information passing through our minds in a more or less continuous flow.

We can choose to give them our attention. Or we can choose to watch that dinosaur-shaped cloud slowly turn into a witch with a chicken on her head.

Not a trivial obstacle 🌊

These obstacles are not trivial.

They touch on something extremely fragile in human beings: our uncertainty about our place in society, the meaning of our lives, and our fear of being rejected or judged.

We won’t free ourselves from that fragility in a single weekend.

Instead, we need to learn to live with this uncertainty, to accept it as a companion on the road.

Beyond the question of doing or not doing, it seems to me that the key point lies elsewhere.

The real difference is between doing something because we feel obliged to and doing something because we genuinely want to.

Of course we can’t control everything. But in the space that exists outside of work and obligations, we can learn to use our time in ways that do us good, and do good around us.

Whether that means taking a nap or starting a new project.

Whether or not it meets anyone else’s expectations.

Three ways to wander more 🧚‍♀️

• The morning off: Choose one morning during the week and make it your wandering time. No social media when you wake up. Maybe a shower (or not), breakfast, a walk. Or listening to your favourite album while lying on the sofa. Take two hours and let it become a moment of drifting — without the internet and without social obligations.

• A walk like we used to: Find a partner and go out together without your phones. It could be a hike in the woods, a walk in a park, or even getting lost in the streets of Paris. The important thing is to disconnect from notifications.

• Cloud watching: Alone or with others. Find a place where you can lie down comfortably and watch the clouds. And watch the clouds. Do I really need to say more?

Being happy.

You feel light. You’re smiling. You trust life. You want to act, to explore, to discover. You feel ready to overcome anything.

It happens on vacation, during a workout, or at dinner with friends. Until the magic fades.

You’re back home, and that inner drive, the one that made you feel powerful and exactly where you were supposed to be, is gone. I’ve noticed that before unhappiness even sets in, it’s the fading of happiness that unsettles us. You feel like you’ve lost something, even though you did nothing to deserve it. You find yourself alone, facing emptiness. And it’s terrifying.

So what then?

Are we condemned to simply endure the ups and downs of this phenomenon?

Couldn’t we somehow capture it?

No.

We will always be subject to fluctuations in energy, to fatigue, to external events. If everything is ephemeral, then happiness and unhappiness are too.

There’s no escaping that.

What the Stoic say 📚

The Stoics advise us to reduce our sensitivity to events that don’t depend on us. If we are less affected by them, we become less vulnerable to life’s surprises and our level of happiness becomes more stable.

The fall is smaller and so is the impact.

It’s no longer a skydive. Armbands on, and in you go!

They also tell us to learn how to appreciate what we already have.

We could, somehow, capture happiness if we successfully appreciate what we have, without being mad or sad about losing something and without feeling the lack of what we don’t have.

But embracing Stoic philosophy takes a life long effort. There are ups and downs, you have to invest real attention and energy into it. I dove into this philosophy four years ago, and while I feel how much it helps me, I’m still far from living 100% in line with it. The little voice that judges me against those ideals sounds a lot more like your worst high school teacher than a kind friend.

I’m not even sure i want to match 100% of the stoic philosophy of life.

Let’s get back to our happiness challenge. We can’t capture it. But we can do something else.

We can summon it like a Pokémon.

What i think 🐝

Our actions and our emotions are connected. I have very little control over when emotions show up, but I have much more control over my actions. So if I’m aware of the actions that make me happy and do me good, I can call them out of their Pokéball whenever I need them.

• A breathing exercise.

• Calling a friend.

• Doing some sport.

• Telling a joke.

• Cooking.

• Writing.

• Reminding yourself that everything is okay.

It doesn’t really matter.

Everyone has their own recipe 😉

Why do we work? 🤔

For most people, it’s an obligation.

We have a job, more or less chosen from the options available to us, mainly so we can earn enough money to live with dignity. Many people don’t have the luxury of questioning it much further.

As we move up the scale of comfort, work can also be a way to contribute to something bigger than ourselves. We become part of a collective that connects us to others, offers inspiration, and provides a stimulating environment.

Depending on the organisation, we may find several of the conditions that Simone Weil considered essential to the well-being of the soul: responsibility, hierarchy, obedience, risk, and freedom of opinion.

For some fortunate people, work even becomes a place of fulfilment.

They get to spend their time doing tasks they genuinely enjoy. They find the right balance between feeling useful, facing challenges, and believing they are capable of overcoming them.

This state leads them into what psychologists call a “harmonious passion”, the scientific term for an activity we consciously devote ourselves to. Acting no longer requires effort. We value our role enough that it becomes part of our identity. Completing our tasks becomes something we genuinely want to do.

The difference in comfort and psychological well-being is enormous depending on where you fall along this spectrum.

🧑‍🔬 And yet, in recent years we’ve discovered that many of our jobs are quietly harming us, regardless of how fulfilling they feel.

We need movement

A growing body of research highlights the dangers of sedentary lifestyles for both our physical and mental health:

• Higher risks of cardiovascular disease

• Chronic fatigue

• Obesity

• Type 2 diabetes

In extreme cases, this sedentary life leads some people to barely leave their homes at all. In Japan, this phenomenon even has a name: Hikikomori, a term used for people who have remained isolated in their rooms for at least six months. There are believed to be around one million such cases in the country.

But let’s return to sedentary life and its effects on us.

Our bodies are almost identical to those of our hunter-gatherer ancestors, yet we use them very differently.

While they walked around 15 kilometres a day in search of food and shelter, today the average is closer to 4 kilometres. Many of us spend four, five, six, even seven hours in a row sitting down, and the consequences are dramatic.

At times, you almost find yourself envying smokers: at least they step outside regularly and stretch their legs.

Beyond occasional intense workouts, our bodies need regular movement.

Think of it as a form of hygiene, just like brushing your teeth: it would make no sense to brush them once a week for thirty minutes. The same applies here. Going to the gym five times a week doesn’t solve the problem if you sit for the rest of the day. Researchers even use the term “sedentary athletes.”

Regular movement keeps our muscles and joints functioning properly. It also triggers the release of endorphins, those famous “feel-good” hormones. Movement also gets us outside, exposing us to sunlight, giving us our dose of vitamin D, and reconnecting us with nature. All of these elements are key ingredients of a happy life and long-term well-being.

It’s time to rethink the way we work and put movement back at the centre of our daily lives.

3 ways to bring movement back into your workday 🤸‍♂️

• Walk or cycle to work. If you take public transport, get off one or two stops earlier and walk the rest.

• Hold walking meetings: whether pacing around a room or, even better, outside.

• Take breaks Even 30 seconds to stand up, stretch your back and legs, and move the parts of your body that have been still. I used to have a glass of water on my desk, i was taking a break as soon as it was empty.

Bonus : if you can, alternate between sitting and standing posture !

Strength, agility, action.

Wisdom, intelligence, reflection.

The footballer versus the philosopher. Running versus reading. Weights versus writing.

No suspense: this debate is pointless.

The two work together and we’d be wise to take care of both. And yet, as a symbol of our lack of nuance, we love putting people into boxes: “manual” or “intellectual.”

Ask Guillaume Martin, a professional cyclist, how the media reacted when he published his first philosophy book (Plato vs Platoch).

(Spoiler: not great. About as well as a rapper showing up on a highbrow talk show.)

We’re always surprised when an athlete thinks beyond winning and physical performance. At the same time, we mock some athletes for their supposed “lack” of intellect, conveniently forgetting the path they took to reach that level of excellence — as if practicing a sport somehow prevented you from training your brain.

Anyway.

Today, the wheel is turning.

Sports as a Microcosm of Society 🐜

With its ultra-competitive environment, driven by the desire to dominate others, sports offer a miniature version of our society.

• Money sits at the heart of the system.

• Short-term gains outweigh long-term vision.

• Inequalities grow.

• Racism and homophobia remain widespread.

• Media overexposure turns everything into an endless reality show.

We’re flooded with fragmented, low-value content, designed more to grab attention than to encourage thought.

As I write this, I’m reminded of Simone Weil’s words:

Point to Simone Weil.

She saw it coming.

There are a lot of parallels between sports and the current model of humanity. And considering the thousands of hours I’ve spent watching and playing sports, you’re entitled to ask:

And my answer would be something like:

Wow. Great question.

I spent 20 years living sports without any distance. Back then, I had nothing interesting to say: Win. And be the best. Period.

Then life happens. Disappointments, encounters and suddenly: click. The narrative shifts.

• What makes a team succeed?

• How do emotions affect performance?

• Why don’t the “best” teams always win?

There’s a little scientist in me that loves these questions.

I know so many stories and details that I now enjoy rereading sports history with fresh eyes. My own practice has changed too. The sore loser, the scrappy competitor? That’s not me anymore. Now, I play to have fun. I focus on creating connections. I pay attention to what’s happening around me and what the group needs.

Every year, my friends and I organize our own “Olympics”: a full weekend together with competitions on Saturday. Since this mindset shift, I’ve participated twice and won twice.

Not scientific proof… but a nice coincidence 😉

The Whole Is Greater Than the Sum of Its Parts 🤓

PSG: Stacking Talent Isn’t Enough 🥀

This lesson cost the Qatari owners of Paris Saint-Germain over one billion euros.

The peak of this strategy came in 2021, when PSG signed five players to join a team already led by Mbappé and Neymar, a duo that had reached a Champions League final together.

• Gianluigi Donnarumma, recently named the world’s best goalkeeper

• Achraf Hakimi, coming off a huge season with Inter Milan

• Georginio Wijnaldum, a key player in Klopp’s Liverpool

• Sergio Ramos, legendary but aging, five-time Champions League winner

• Lionel Messi, the greatest player of all time, forced to leave his boyhood club

Five signings. Five expected starters.

On paper? Possibly the best team in the world.

In reality?

No.

This isn’t a video game. It’s real life.

You need chemistry. Relationships. Social balance. Defined roles. Complementarity on the field.

The project failed spectacularly.

History is full of “super teams” that collapsed mid-flight: the 2004 Lakers, England in the 2000s, Brazil 2006, the Brooklyn Nets of the early 2020s.

Same recipe every time: Stars + no chemistry = failure.

And as the cherry on top of the moral lesson, PSG finally won their first Champions League after letting go of their three megastars. The 2025 team struggled early but grew together relentlessly. The collective shined. Seven PSG players made the world’s top 15 — compared to zero the year before.

What Does a Group Need? 🤔

A group allows each “I” to expand through the “we.”

Trust leads to courage and a better ability to take risks. Weaknesses are covered. Strengths are amplified. It also creates the conditions for “flow”, those moments where everything feels automatic, fluid, almost magical.

From experience and reading, I’ve identified key ingredients for collective success:

• A shared goal

• Rituals

• Shared values (rather than rigid methods)

• The ability to disagree

• A sense of usefulness for every member

• Acceptance of roles

• Shared joy

• Mutual trust

• Diversity of profiles (to avoid intellectual inbreeding)

• Connectors : the vibe-setters who hold the group together

  (Shoutout to Maestro Presnel Kimpembe 🎶)

In a world obsessed with metrics, performance, and efficiency, the human factor is often forgotten.

That’s a serious mistake.

A Quick Bridge to Living Together 💡

If we apply these principles to society, it’s clear we’re far from collective success.

A shared goal? Political elites are disconnected from people’s needs. Power games have replaced truth, justice, and the common good.

Shared values? Our society is fractured. Dialogue is replaced by shouting. Social media and hyper-competitive education systems don’t help.

Shared joy? Collective rituals are shrinking. Even a World Cup title, powerful unifier in 1998, failed to truly reconnect us in 2018.

Ironically, we’re great at diversity, of backgrounds and cultures, but terrible at reflecting that diversity in positions of power.

We need to rebuild a framework for living together. To my opinion, there are 3 values we must use as our main drivers :

• Truth.

• Justice.

• The common good.

And time.

Because nothing meaningful is built overnight.

Which brings us to the second lesson: long-term thinking vs short-term obsession.

Long-Term > Short-Term 📅

This logic is even more powerful in a team.

Shared experience builds trust, automatisms, and deep understanding. That’s why all great champions share long histories together.

The French National Team (2012–2022) 🏆

In 2010, the French national team collapsed. Ego wars, poor results, broken trust between players and manager, political interference, a players’ strike during the World Cup, and a first-round exit.

A total implosion.

Everything had to be rebuilt.

Didier Deschamps took over in 2012. He inherited a team fresh out of crisis but still fragile. Fourteen years later, he remains in charge of a France side that has just enjoyed the most successful decade in its history.

How did he do that ?!

Deschamps has never chased headlines. He believes in stability and collective balance. As a former player, he understands something many overlook: teams win because of human bonds, not narratives.

From day one, he made choices that were often criticised as dull or conservative. He wasn’t here to impress commentators.

One of his first decisions was to stick with Karim Benzema despite a 15-match goal drought. Over his first two years, Deschamps focused on building a base, with one clear objective in mind: the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. France arrived with a squad in transition: experienced leaders (Evra, Koscielny, Landreau), players in their prime (Lloris, Giroud, Matuidi), and a hungry new generation (Griezmann, Varane, Digne, Pogba). They were eliminated by the eventual champions, Germany. But something far more important had emerged: a team. And the country believed again.

Euro 2016, hosted in France, was the next step. The tournament started badly, then momentum grew. Belief peaked after a semi-final win against Germany. The final ended in heartbreak. Portugal won 1–0. It hurt, deeply. But the group didn’t fracture. The loss became part of the learning curve.

In 2018, the project reached maturity. France won the World Cup. The core of the squad (Griezmann, Pogba, Varane, Matuidi, Kanté, Lloris, Giroud) had lived through 2016, and often 2014 as well. They survived turning points where elimination loomed, from a wild match against Argentina to a tactical battle with Belgium. Deschamps stayed loyal to his principles, keeping Giroud as his number nine despite zero goals in the tournament. The collective mattered more than the stat line.

In 2022, France returned to the World Cup with ten players from the 2018 squad. Griezmann was struggling for confidence? Deschamps adjusted his role, dropping him deeper. Griezmann ran the tournament, while Giroud scored four goals in seven matches. France reached another final, this time losing to Messi’s Argentina: a team built on the same long-term logic.

In a sport this competitive, reaching three finals out of four tournaments in six years is extraordinary. It’s also a reminder: sustainable success isn’t built against others. It’s built for something, over time.

A Quick Bridge to Living Together 💡

How can we imagine that a system built around GDP (an annual indicator largely devoid of meaning) and based on the decisions of a tiny group of humans with oversized egos, incapable of cooperating, could foster human flourishing while taking into account the rest of the living world and its limits?

🙋‍♂️ Beyond the players themselves, it is the rules of the game that trap us in a dominant/dominated dynamic.

Have you ever seen a game of Monopoly end without some players being completely crushed by another?

If we want to create a long-term dynamic of progress, we need a clearly identified final objective and a set of core values on which to base our decisions. Experience shows that values like justice, truth, and public usefulness deliver the best results.

Unlike a rigid, fully pre-written plan, or systems built around other values, this approach allows us to adapt to the unexpected while preserving the group’s reason for being.

It also implies that we build for a “self,” rather than against an “other.”

Building For vs Building Against 💊

In my view, when we build something, we always face the same choice: build for or build against.

Building for means focusing on ourselves. Acknowledging our strengths and weaknesses, defining areas for improvement, and agreeing on a shared direction. Ideally, we set goals that depend on us (playing really well while respecting the systems designed in training) rather than goals we don’t fully control (winning the championship).

This approach relies on a positive energy of shared learning and collective growth. It gives meaning to everyone’s role.

Building against, on the other hand, means focusing on others. We aim to break their systems, to oppose what they do. Winning remains the objective, but instead of building something durable in the medium or long term, we adopt a short-term strategy designed to prevent others from moving forward.

In politics — which is nothing more than the art of living together — the parallel is obvious.

• Building for means considering the entire population and asking: who needs help the most? Who is furthest from “living well,” and what can we put in place for them? This includes policies like progressive wealth taxation, universal healthcare, the right to housing, marriage equality, and support for the most vulnerable.

• Building against means preventing others from accessing what we already have. Equity becomes the enemy. This translates into legal and fiscal impunity for the powerful, racism and nationalist preference laws, the dismantling of social safety nets, gender pay inequality, and more.

Looking at history, it seems clear to me that if we’re seeking stability, collective well-being, and a fulfilling life, we all benefit from building for.

I have zero counterexamples.

Guardiola vs Mourinho 🥊

This is the most legendary coaching duel in football history: for its intensity, the level of play involved, and the ideological clash it represents.

Pep Guardiola is an apostle of beautiful football. He wants his teams to control the rhythm of the match, string passes together, and use movement to destabilize opponents. Dogmatic early on, he has refined his principles over time and continues to collect trophies. He fundamentally changed the way football is played today.

José Mourinho is a pragmatist. A specialist in tactical coups and one-off exploits, his approach is primarily about disrupting the opposition and capitalizing on their mistakes. Defensive rigor, aggression, and effort are the pillars of his philosophy.

From 2008 to 2010, Guardiola’s FC Barcelona terrorized Spain and Europe. They delivered breathtaking football and stacked trophies: Champions League, La Liga, Copa del Rey, Spanish Super Cup, European Super Cup, and Club World Cup.

In 2010, Barcelona won the league again but were eliminated in the Champions League semifinals by the eventual winners: Mourinho’s Inter Milan and its ultra-defensive tactics.

Immediately after, Real Madrid decided to hire Mourinho in the summer of 2010. The goal was clear: regain control against Barcelona, who had dominated them mercilessly for two years. What followed would enter football legend.

2010–2012 🥇

Barcelona and Real Madrid were the two best teams in Europe. They had the two best coaches and the two best players: Messi for Barcelona, Ronaldo for Madrid. Dominant on every level, they faced each other 13 times in two seasons.

The Mourinho era started badly: a crushing 5–0 defeat in his first Clásico.

Traumatized?

Maybe. Mourinho tried to play attacking football and his team was humiliated.

After that, the seductive game plan was scrapped. Real Madrid adopted an ultra-defensive, aggressive approach. In 12 matches, they received six red cards.

During this period, Barcelona won six times, with four draws and three Real Madrid victories. Trophy-wise, Real won three, Barcelona eight. The symbol of this dominance? Lionel Messi won the Ballon d’Or in 2010, 2011, and 2012.

In 2012, Guardiola stepped away from coaching, exhausted after four intense years. The football world assumed the path was clear for Mourinho.

The opposite happened.

Barcelona delivered a historic season: 100 out of 114 possible points, 115 goals scored in 38 matches.

Real Madrid finished 15 points behind — but more worrying was the state of the locker room. As often with Mourinho, his teams ended up mentally and physically drained. Living in constant opposition is exhausting. In 25 years of coaching, he has never stayed more than three years at a club.

Legacy and Comparison 🪞

After Mourinho’s departure, Real Madrid entered an unprecedented golden age. Under Carlo Ancelotti and then Zinedine Zidane, two coaches firmly in the “building for” and “long-term” category, Real won four Champions Leagues in five years, something unseen since the 1950s.

During this period, their number 7, Cristiano Ronaldo, made history by winning four Ballons d’Or.

If Guardiola’s Barcelona is remembered as a revolutionary team with silky football, this Real Madrid side stands as the most dominant team the sport has ever seen.

Fifteen years later, the Guardiola vs Mourinho debate no longer exists.

Guardiola reshaped football’s fundamentals and continues to stack trophies in Manchester with some of the most attractive football played since 2017. Mourinho moves from club to club, sometimes succeeding, but without continuity. One is a man of exploits. The other, a relentless builder.

Not So Fast ⛔

The story could end here, but my conscience (and my Real Madrid–supporting friend) won’t let it.

When judging a person’s achievements, we must consider the context they operate in and the cards they were dealt.

When Guardiola arrived at FC Barcelona, he already knew the house. He had played there for 12 years and coached the B team since 2007. After two disappointing seasons, the club chose to part ways with its coach and several key players. The goal: rebuild a Barcelona-style team while limiting spending.

Perfect timing. Barça is famous for its academy, whose teams all play a 4–3–3 system: ideal for developing automatisms. In his first season, Guardiola relied on six starters trained at La Masia: Puyol, Piqué, Busquets, Xavi, Iniesta, and Messi. Add Eto’o and Henry, and the football world eagerly awaited the result.

Mourinho, by contrast, arrived at Real Madrid: the ultimate star-system club. No time to waste here: win or get out. The club relied on established stars to compete immediately. Over two summers, the squad was completely reshaped. At the start of the 2010–11 season, only 5 of the 30 players from 2008–09 remained.

One coach was asked to capitalize on years of groundwork. The other was expected to perform miracles with unfamiliar players under immense pressure.

Despite this, Mourinho and Real achieved a remarkable feat in 2012, winning the league with 100 points and setting records that still stand:

• 121 goals scored

• 32 wins out of 38

Given the context, Mourinho’s achievements were exceptional. Still, they remain inferior to Barcelona’s, and that difference is precisely the point.

🙋‍♂️No matter who’s in charge, building for proves to be a more durable path to success than building against.

The pitch confirms that “for” aligns naturally with long-term thinking and collective growth — once again making it the stronger answer.

Final thoughts 💭

The more I write about sports, the more I realize how deeply they can inspire us to rethink how we live together.

Living together requires curiosity, about ourselves and others. It requires the luxury of time: time to try, fail, and reflect. It requires physical and psychological safety to treat mistakes as learning rather than as grounds for rejection. It requires trust, to debate, to disagree, to grow. We need to feel that we’re heading in the same direction, and that we can act against those who threaten that goal. We need to distinguish what truly nourishes us from what is merely distraction or vice. We need activities that feed our soul, make us feel useful, and bring joy.

And we need truth, the beating heart of any human collaboration.

These conditions sit between two worlds. Organizations, whether football clubs, families, or states, are responsible for creating environments where people can thrive. Individuals are responsible too: to stay informed, think critically, remain open, love, learn, and take part in collective life.

Unfortunately, we’re living in a time when organizational dynamics scare me. Truth is losing its footing. Political models have been hollowed out. There is no real counterpower to those at the top. Stripped of truth and security, individuals slide along with them.

Let’s be conscious of that and vote for people who actually fight for it.

I move at a very unhurried pace. Until POOF !

An idea suddenly pops into my head and triggers a burst of energy.

I MUST go to the bakery and grab a croissant.

I MUST write a sharp piece about that Jorge Amado quote.

That burst of energy that pulls you towards something: that’s dopamine at work.

Dopamine switches on our “let’s get moving” signal in anticipation of a reward, which is why it is the engine of everything we achieve. That said, it offers absolutely no guarantee that the thing we end up doing or getting will actually bring us any sense of wellbeing or satisfaction.

It’s a process that can be tweaked, exploited, and actively manipulated, turning it into a proper motorway to hell.

A filterless reward system 🥇

Our brain’s reward system reacts to stimuli that create those urges to do:

• having a gift to unwrap

• going on a date

• preparing a surprise for someone

It anticipates the pleasure we’ll get from it, giving us sensations and energy to move forward.

Originally, this system was designed to seek out three things:

• food

• friends / social connection

• safety (shelter)

But that operating system is now obsolete.

We live in a society shaped by the overabundance of all three. Our social lives have expanded massively: we’re “in touch” with far more people than before (often at the cost of interaction quality). Food is everywhere, available at the store downstairs, even delivered to your door (though it’s often ultra-processed and nutritionally poor). Most of us don’t fear for our lives when stepping outside; we live in relative safety (that’s a good thing).

This phenomenon is amplified by social media, whose mechanics drive us crazy, and I mean that literally. Their design relies on a random reward system, the same one theorized by Skinner (and his famous box), the same one used by slot machines.

That inconsistency in rewards (likes, comments, new followers) makes us impulsive and pushes us to act irrationally. Repetition increases both the quantity and intensity needed to satisfy the craving. It’s an endless race we’re destined to lose.

The more we get disappointed, the more we come back !

Kind of stupid, right?

Deeply human.

Over time, the brain learns that in response to certain states (boredom, stress, anger, etc.), the solution lives here. Results don’t matter. What counts is the dopamine hit that pushes us forward without caring about the finish line.

The good news is that once you’re aware of it, you can rewire yourself differently. You can build new habits by working with your reward system. You can break out of that vicious loop.

Building a reward system consciously 🧱

• Identify your existing reward loops: what makes you reach for your phone? Stress? Anger? Fatigue? Boredom? Notice when your brain misdirects your attention and energy.

• Replace unhealthy rewards: try micro-learning apps while waiting in line (instead of scrolling social media). Call a friend or talk to your roommate if you usually scroll when you’re anxious.

  To make it easier, reuse existing pathways! (It’s easier to switch from social media to a phone call than from scrolling to going for a run.)

• Impulsive and curious brain modes are surprisingly similar: you can deliberately redirect impulsive behavior toward something positive. The same circuit that makes you compulsively open Instagram can also help you learn new things every day. It takes time, there’s no magic switch.

  It starts the next time you realize you’re entering a dopamine loop. Hit pause and ask yourself what would actually do you more good than 30 minutes on Instagram.

Being a kid is wild.

You play marbles, eat dirt, pull your friend’s hair, taste cookie dough before it’s baked. You’re always moving, always experimenting, always learning: socially, physically, emotionally, cognitively. Not everything works, but within 15 seconds you’re already onto the next thing.

Then, at some point, everything shifts.

We lose that carefree sense of exploration and replace it with performance. We’re expected to meet expectations, to “make something” of our lives, to be able to explain our choices in a coherent, impressive narrative.

We learn less and we get less excited about learning. Novelty stops being something we’re curious about and becomes something we’re anxious about, as I mentioned here.

🙋‍♂️ One of the biggest drivers of that shift is how we think about goals.

The problem with linear goals 📏

We set goals as if life was a straight line.

As if every project had a clear starting point, a precise plan, and a well-defined finish line.

That approach works reasonably well for a recipe (and even then…), but it falls apart when applied to real life projects: writing a book, organizing a festival, changing careers, quitting smoking.

💪 And yet, in the moment, we feel so confident! Our inner control freak takes over. We picture ourselves as disciplined, consistent, relentless. Finally becoming the person who meets his goals. We imagine a desirable future version of ourselves; the pride, relief, and joy we’ll feel once we get there. We also imagine the external rewards: recognition, money, validation.

Then life does what it does best.

Our willpower and energy are limited. And all our projects, whether we’re aware of them or not, are competing for the same resources: social life, relationships, work, health, laziness, Dry January, sports, the new season of your favorite show.

You can’t pause your entire life to focus on one goal. So you try to move forward on multiple fronts at once, and most of the time… it kind of works. Kind of.

Linear goals have three major downsides:

• They generate fear. Fear of not knowing where to start, of failing, of not having “enough” of whatever it takes.

• They promote toxic productivity. You convince yourself you should be doing more, pushing harder, optimizing everything and you beat yourself up when you fall short.

• They reinforce individualism. If success is a ladder, then others are competitors. Collaboration becomes secondary. (You can see this clearly in global politics—imagine if countries focused less on beating their neighbors’ GDP and more on improving quality of life.)

John Maynard Keynes once wrote:

Children don’t learn linearly. They learn in loops.

They try something, learn from it, try again with new information. It’s closer to rehearsal than execution.

I’m trying to adopt that mindset myself, and it comes with a few shifts:

• Caring more about the process than the outcome.

• Accepting uncertainty instead of trying to eliminate it.

• Unlearning a whole set of deeply ingrained life scripts: repeating what already worked, acting to meet others’ expectations, “finding your dream job.” (Yet another linear goal.)

Quitting smoking (as a loop, not a finish line) 🎢

For years now, the rational part of my brain has been sending me little pings : “Hey! What if we quit smoking so we don’t get cancer and can run longer during soccer games?”

In theory, I agree.

But if breaking an addiction were easy, we wouldn’t call it an addiction.

I’m 29 and I still smoke. If my 25-year-old self saw this, he’d be furious. Four years. 1,460 days. A lot of smoke.

And yet, this isn’t failure.

Because over those four years, things have changed.

I smoke less. I fully stopped cigarettes. There are longer and longer periods where I don’t smoke at all. Fewer moments of regret, too. If I’m going to do something bad for my health, I’d rather at least be conscious of it and enjoy it in the moment.

I haven’t reached the “I don’t smoke anymore” milestone, but I’ve moved much closer. My relationship with smoking is evolving, and overall, the trend is positive, even accounting for setbacks.

That’s what progress looks like when you stop thinking in straight lines.

Final thoughts 🍰

Making peace with yourself feels incredibly freeing. You don’t realize how much pressure you’re under until you finally name it and suddenly, everything loosens.

This is an invitation to reconnect with a more childlike way of approaching life.

• Which linear goals are you currently chasing?

• How would your progress look if you evaluated it through a child’s lens?

• How could you turn this project into a series of loops instead of a straight line?

If you’re curious, I 100% recommend reading Tiny Experiments enough. It’s an excellent companion for anyone who wants to start changing, without pretending to have it all figured out.

Come on, let’s take a picture!! It’ll be a memory 🥰

The camera was invented in the first half of the 19th century.

1928 marked the first truly decent results, and 1939 brought a more “user-friendly” version. Yeah, it took 11 years just to reduce exposure times that could initially last several days!

This invention marked a major turning point for humanity.

Photography allows us to create fake moments that feel real 🤖

We step out of the moment we’re actually living to project it into a hypothetical future. Photography opens the door to manipulating our future memories. Supercharged by AI, it’s becoming a terrifying machine, but that’s not today’s topic.

What I want to talk about is the photo of a “real” moment.

The one where we stop living in order to stage ourselves for a future version of us, or for someone else, who will look at it later.

This tool has been pushed to its extreme by smartphones and social media. It has never been easier to take a photo, and it has become a source of social validation, a way to artificially satisfy a very real human need.

This phenomenon destroys the magic of a place. It also destroys real walks and real travel, the kind that unfolds moment by moment through what we see and through our interactions with other humans. Instead of waiting for someone to move so we can get the best angle, we could talk.

• What brought you here?

• You know that mountain in the distance? Have you ever climbed it?

• What do you feel when you look at this landscape?

• I’m hungry, want to grab something to eat?

People will reply that photos help us remember moments, see the face of someone who’s gone, that they are powerful memories. And that’s true. Photography has its benefits. But it is not a need. It is a luxury that has become banal, a useful fantasy for which some people develop an insatiable appetite.

Let’s learn to store memories in our minds 🧠

I’m thinking about a moment in late 2016, on the beach of Jericoacoara in Brazil. It was the end of my study semester there. I was with Smaël and Mehdi, sitting in front of a setting sun, joint in hand, when Smaël said:

“This is a moment I’ll remember forever.”

He was right.

Simply paying attention to the moment, consciously deciding to remember it, and letting yourself sink into it for a few seconds, without thinking, without speaking, beats any photo. There’s no need to scroll through your camera roll (who actually does that?) or buy more cloud storage. It’s there, available forever: the colors, the emotions, the faces, the smells.

So let’s cultivate memories rather than photos.

And yes, okay. Let’s take a picture once in a while. Let’s materially immortalize a moment or a meeting. Ideally without “posing,” but by capturing something that is happening because it is happening, not because we’re staging it for later.

Taking photos is like learning not to eat that one extra piece of cheese at a raclette.

Let’s remember the meaning of the gesture and its true nature: it’s only a means among others, not an end in itself.

🙆‍♂️ On one hand, you could say I’m heading in the right direction: I make decisions that match my curiosity (quitting my job, going to live on a farm), my relationships are evolving and bringing me more (satisfaction, stimulation, comfort, serenity), and I’m learning to add nuance to my positions (though I still haven’t passed the Christmas lunch test).

🤦‍♂️ On the other hand… not really. I still let myself be carried away by my emotions and impulses, like a kid. I ate so much chocolate over Christmas that I was sick as hell on the 26th!

I’ll spare you the details.

To move forward, I have role models. Close ones, strangers, or “celebrities” whose existence I discover and whose way of living I admire. Still, it’s not easy to find a perfect role model. There’s always something to criticize! Just ask someone who’s been betrayed by a friend, Brigitte Bardot fans, or admirers of Abbé Pierre. (Sorry friends, very french exemples but more details in 20 seconds ⬇️)

So today’s question is:

Do we need perfect role models? 🧑‍🏫

If yes, we’re screwed because no one is perfect.

If no (and that’s my view), then we need to learn nuance and critical thinking.

We can admire Brigitte Bardot commitment to animal welfare while condemning her openly racist views. We can thank Abbé Pierre for the help he gave to the homeless and still wish him hell for the rapes he committed.

🤔 Does reading this make you uncomfortable?

And yet, we already have this ability to separate things! We accept the good and the bad in our friends, we love a movie but not that actor, we drink alcohol while knowing it’s poison and that tomorrow will be tough.

This really echoes what I was saying about the ego/shadow balance!

It also raises the question of why.

Why do we look for a perfect role model? 🤨

Nietzsche said that the disappearance of Catholicism and the loss of our fundamental values confronted us with the challenge of creating new ones. Failing to realize this or to succeed at it, maybe we fall back into a familiar pattern: that of the perfect Being, the solution to all our problems. Maybe our disappointment with the values dominating our society pushes us back toward this pattern. Or maybe it’s tied to our fear of being wrong on our own?

🙋‍♂️ Either way, searching for a perfect role model is the best way to hurt yourself.

We’ll always disagree with our models on something. Every time a perfect image falls apart, disappointment and anger follow. We end up alone again. Without a guide. Then we repeat the same pattern endlessly.

By refusing to accept imperfect role models, we make it harder to accept our own imperfections.

Finding more sustainable role models, being disappointed less often, and having better self-esteem: three good reasons to choose imperfect role models.

It also makes the whole exercise far more useful and complete!

3 keys to building your human role model

• 🫵 Identify one quality, then look for people who embody it well.

• Define the scope of your admiration: I admire X for this, but meh about that.

• 🐛 Stay open to change: we evolve, social norms evolve, and so does the context in which we “evaluate” others. The virtues we attribute to them evolve too!

Bonus: If possible, tell them.

What a joy it is to receive a message recognizing one of your qualities,to know that someone is looking at you with the desire to learn from you!

Even a short message is a great excuse to say thank you, to nurture that person’s self-esteem and your relationship. 😉

I’m not.

I haven’t even done a proper wrap-up yet, even though this year was the most WTF one since the year I moved up to middle school. Changing classrooms every hour, having different teachers, carrying 1,000 kilos of books, going from king of the playground to the smallest kid there, tech classes, blowguns made out of erasers.

You remember?

I do. But back to the point.

I quit my job, took some time off, wrote (a lot), read (even more), organized my first event around joy, started translating The Way into English. I began a collection of vintage football jerseys, spent three months on a farm lost in the Portuguese countryside. There I learned how to build a vegetable garden and how to cook the best fig tart in the world. I also discovered communal living, far away from the pace of big cities.

That’s a lot to digest before projecting myself into 2026 and answering the thousand questions swirling in my head:

• What projects do I commit to?

• What do I want to learn?

• Who do I want to spend time with?

• Where do I want to live?

• Do I keep exploring or settle down somewhere?

• How do I make money?

• Which philosophers should I read?

• Which events shouldn’t I miss?

• How can I improve my fig tart recipe?

I’ll spare you the underlying questions—you’ve probably understood the fog I’m in. I do have a few certainties, especially my desire to write a book and to keep organizing events, but that’s about it.

I’m writing these lines and I’m not even sure what the message of this text is.

Maybe it’s an invitation to pause for a moment, take a breath, and look back at 2025 and everything you accomplished (or didn’t). One more year—what did you do with it? And what spices would you like to add to 2026 to feel like you’re moving in the right direction?

But instead, I’ll just say that what really matters is life.

Questioning life is great, but it only makes sense if you actually live it!

• Let’s have routines, but accept the chaos of the unexpected and the emotions that sometimes sweep us away.

• Let’s question friendship, but accept the imperfections of our relationships and our need to balance light with shadow.

• Let’s cultivate a critical view of society and current dynamics, but also nurture our ability to see things from the brighter side.

• Let’s identify values and projects to hold on to, but also accept smashing a big McDonald’s at 7 a.m. on the way home. (Not every weekend though.)

This message feels especially resonant during this holiday season, with all the paradoxes each of us encounters then.

Let’s do our best to turn it into a good memory !

I still have one last mission before going back to Paris! With Finn, we’re hosting an event in Lisbon on Monday evening. It’s like a real-life version of this newsletter: creating a moment to take time to dive deep into topics like love, sadness, joy, or consciousness.

It was his idea, and he brought me into the project. Perfect! I love this kind of co-pilot role, and I know it well. I’ve often had it in past adventures: in football, in associations, or at work. It’s a role where the mental load is less heavy but I still get to contribute to creating and decision-making.

In our case, being two also means team work when it comes to public speaking. Even though I’ve done it many times, I still get that little knot in my stomach, and I’m glad we’re doing it together.

Yes… but no.

The plan? What plan? 🧐

⏰ Monday morning, 7:30am. I wake up to a message from Finn: his flight has been canceled. He’s stuck in New York and won’t make it. I’m so sad for him and then I realize I’m now in charge of everything!

Yes, we could have planned to arrive earlier than that, but you have to admit this is bad luck.

No Finn, and I’m still packing my bags at the Quinta. Logical reaction after a stressful situation (not): I head to the kitchen to bake cookies. (Who is this guy? 😂 Message me if you want the recipe.)

Inês, Simone & Quentin dropped me off at the train station. Here I am. Two hours watching the landscapes pass by and letting my mind wander. I needed this peaceful moment.

I arrive in Lisbon around noon, drop my stuff, and I have to:

• Prepare an intro pitch

• Print and laminate the cards we designed

• Meet Teresa (the manager of the place we’re using) to discuss logistics

• Take a nap

• Eat

Bouncing back from the unexpected: the cookie technique 🍪

I eat a good lunch and mentally prepare myself for everything ahead. Apparently food is relaxing, because I decide to take a detour to buy a cookie (can we call this an addiction?) and go have coffee at Vera’s.

Bingo!

Vera is the kind of friend I wish everyone had. She’s always full of energy and curiosity, she’s done a thousand things, we can talk about everything together, and we support each other in our respective adventures. She’s already run workshops, and I needed to talk about it. The famous magical power of conversation that opens new paths in our brain. We talked about games, structure, rules, dynamics that shape an event. Little by little, everything becomes clearer.

New plan.

I’m not going to print the cards, but I will need paper for participants to write on. I know exactly where I’m going with this, and I’ve found the right words to present it.

I’m so calm that I allow myself a nap on the couch.

⏳ 8pm – Put it On.

Three liters of hot chocolate and two apple strudels are sitting on the bar. I’m just curious to see what will happen in a few minutes. Who will show up? What discussions? What anecdotes? What insights?

I just got off the phone with my friend Lucca. It’s wild how talking with my friends helps me put this fear of being judged badly into perspective. Because in my case, I’m pretty sure that’s what causes my pre-event stress.

Vera arrives first—a rare enough occurrence to highlight how truly amazing she is. Clutch.

⌛ 10pm – Put it On

I’ve got a smile on my face and a belly full of hot chocolate. It was amazing.

We explored joy through three questions:

• Why is joy important?

• What brings us joy?

• How can we bring more joy into our lives?

Everyone took time to reflect and share with the group. The conversation flowed naturally, with a beautiful dynamic, voices bouncing off each other, references to things said earlier. No one monopolized the discussion (my biggest fear).

What did we say about joy? 🙆

It turns out that joy gives us the energy to act and to accept the surrounding chaos. It helps us step out of our comfort zone, and it’s an emotion that feeds a more stable state of happiness. Just like negative emotions such as sadness, it’s a signal that we’re alive!

Several things create this feeling of joy. The ability to experience awe. Being aware of our own joy creates a snowball effect where joy feeds on itself. We find joy in our connections with others, when we feel heard, useful, or part of a group. We find it in creation, through art, cooking, or a project. That feeling of giving life to something propels us forward! Physical movement and proximity to nature are also ingredients for a life rich in joy.

As for what pulls us away from it, the impact other humans have on us is the biggest challenge. How do we maintain enthusiasm and a joyful attitude when faced with opposite emotions?

We discovered a surprising joy in noticing obvious things: working out makes us feel good, going to bed early leaves us feeling great, drinking water is better than any other drink. It feels like touching the difference between knowing and understanding.

Oh! And I almost forgot: we all find a lot of joy in interacting with babies and making them smile.

Final word 🍰

I already have a thousand ideas about what to do differently next time and how to make the moment even better. But don’t count on me to forget to celebrate this first one!

It was already amazing, and it’ll be one of the highlights of my year.

It’s also a reminder: having a plan is great, but knowing how to adapt is at least as important. When the unexpected happens, we can panic at the amount of work suddenly at risk. Or we can reconnect with the heart of the project : why we’re doing this, and find a way to make the most of it, with what we have, where we are.

Let’s be water.

It was a ridiculous idea to want to write a book about happiness. Who even cares about what I have to say? And how do you write something that long without getting lost? And getting published? Self-publishing? And imagine if it actually works??

I’m out.

The line between doubts and impostor syndrome is thin. We don’t want to be judged, and we don’t want to bother anyone either. We crank the dial all the way up to seeking other people’s approval and poof—

We forget ourselves.

Specialized in “Oh no it’s nothing aha, I can do that in 10 minutes,” or “Don’t say that, it’s normal, anyone would do the same,” or “Damn, I should’ve known that, she’s so much better,” our inner impostor is not helping.

It’s not useful at work, and it’s not useful in our personal lives either. The worst part is that some idiots out there don’t have the syndrome at all! A show-off here, an opportunist there, and suddenly you’ve got incompetent people in key positions. You have to admit, there is something attractive about people who seem so sure of themselves. At least until the whole façade collapses.

According to neuroscientist Anne-Laure Le Cunff, there are five patterns behind impostor syndrome, and just as many ways to fight back against this mental self-flagellation we put ourselves through.

Enjoy the read 🍉

PS: Have you noticed how it’s always easier to give advice to others? For each pattern, I’ve added a character to illustrate it and help you picture it 😉

The 5 Masks of the Impostor 🎭

The Perfectionist 💠

You only set extremely high goals. Only achievement and peak performance counts. And if you don’t reach the summit? It’s terrible—a nearly unmentionable failure and a reason to question all your abilities.

You’re Hermione Granger, and no one will reject you for not getting a perfect score.

The Expert 🧑‍🚀

You want to know everything before speaking, no half-baked or half-informed opinions allowed. You don’t trust your intuition or experience. You equate your skills with what you know. You need to dive deep into a topic before doing anything with it—but we want your opinion before you finish your PhD in barbecue ignition science!

You’re Sheldon Cooper, and the world will survive if you change your mind after digging deeper.

The Soloist 🥷

Asking for help? No way. It’s a sign of weakness, and you don’t want to bother anyone. You have to do it alone to move forward and be seen positively by others.

You’re Harvey Specter—and life will probably be more fun if you surround yourself with other humans.

The Genius 🧞‍♂️

It’s easy for you; everyone always told you you pick things up fast. And it’s true! But not this time. You struggle, it’s complicated, it’s unclear. So you tell yourself it’s not for you, you’re not cut out for this—too bad.

You’re Tony Stark, and it’s totally normal that learning takes effort.

Superwoman 🦸‍♀️

You work harder than everyone else! Average? No thanks. You go above and beyond to crush it and prove you’re capable, even more than others. Overcommitting like this puts you at risk—and that’s a no.

You’re Simone Biles (congrats on the medals!), but maybe try 35-hour workweeks and vacations.

5 Ways to Break Free from These Traps 🥷

Celebrate wins, even the small ones 🎉

Big victories are just the sum of lots of unnoticed small wins. Spotting and celebrating them is like a cyclist watching the kilometers fly by, knowing they’re getting closer to victory—it warms the heart!

To keep the wins rolling, take a moment after celebrating and look back: How did I get here? What worked well? What would I do differently next time?

Go from “I don’t know” to “I’m learning.” ↩️

Yes, it sounds cheesy, but it’s a fantastic way to rewire your brain! You shift from a mindset of defeat to curiosity, activating the neural networks linked to reward—much more effective when it comes to making progress, having energy, and staying motivated.

Our brains are full of biases; let’s use them to our advantage!

Just-in-time learning: you can’t be an expert at everything. ⌚

Accept that we can never master the infinite knowledge humans have accumulated. Focus on learning what you need to move forward right now, and prioritize topics where you want practical, transferable expertise.

“Remember that expertise is a mirage; the closer you get, the more illusory it seems”

Ask for help: no shame in that, quite the opposite! 🙋‍♂️

It helps everyone! How many times have you felt reassured when someone asked the question you didn’t dare? Whether in a meeting or at your first surf class, asking questions lets you grow, connect with others, and give someone else a chance to feel useful.

Think of the satisfaction you feel when you help someone solve a problem!

Experimental thinking: turn a big problem into small experiments. 🧑‍🔬

I struggled with my thesis. Writing 120 pages with all the methodology and academic codes? Nightmare.

But what if, instead of a 120-page thesis, I just had to find 5 sources on my topic? Then formulate a question to push the thinking further. Then sketch a plan to answer it. Then outline 3 key ideas per section. Then write one section. And so on.

Much better.

Too late for my thesis but we always have new big challenges in front of us.

This perspective shift reduces fear of failure and the paralysis that comes with it. Instead, curiosity and small victories drive you—your brain loves it!

Final Word 🍰

We wear different masks depending on the context and the story we tell ourselves. Being aware of it is the first step.

This text is above all a call to be gentler with ourselves. Take the time to observe everything we do. Evolution is what matters, and it’s not linear—so let’s accept the lows too!

It’s also a call to do it together. Our brains are crazy for habits, but dialogue opens new ways of functioning, letting us disrupt old patterns. Feedback from kind (but honest) people helps balance our inner “angry teacher” voice. Balance is key, once again!

And it’s not easy to get rid of them.

You can meditate, write, run, go on a retreat in a Buddhist temple in India — doesn’t matter. You’re human. Your brain relies on behaviors it’s been refining for hundreds of thousands of years, with all its good and bad biases. You’re not gonna reverse that curve overnight.

The question goes even deeper — it’s cultural. As we grow up, depending on the environment we’re raised in and the codes we follow, we sort values and behaviors into two boxes: “good” and “bad.”

• ✅ Good is what we want to be, and how we want to be perceived. We want to be clean and polite, interesting and funny, the kind of person who can bake amazing cakes.

• ❌ Bad is the opposite. We don’t want to be angry, stupid, or impulsive. We don’t want to eat McDonald’s every day or smoke cigarettes.

That’s how we build our ego (good) and our shadow (bad).

When we’re unaware of the shadow we’re building. By giving it no space to express itself, we expose ourselves to sudden outbursts — far from the behavior we’d like to embody.

We also tend to project our shadows onto others. We criticize those who haven’t silenced theirs — sometimes harshly, even violently. The pattern shows up individually (parents to children, coworkers to coworkers) and collectively (think of scapegoats: Jews, witches, immigrants — depending on the time and place). This shadow can even be where are hiding some amazing qualities we didn’t dare give a chance.

🔑 Our real challenge is to bring our ego and shadow together to form a harmonious whole.

That’s the idea Robert A. Johnson presents in his book “Owning Your Own Shadow”, and it’s been my biggest lesson of 2025.

🙋‍♂️ It’s better to give our shadows a (reasonable) spot in the sunlight than to let them grow in the dark and wreak havoc when they finally come out.

Happy reading 🍉

Opening your eyes to your shadow 👀

🦀 I’ve been buying very few things for the past four years — especially clothes. My mom complains about seeing me in the same outfits all the time, and I complain about her complaining. Classic.

She laughed pretty hard when I told her what I’m about to tell you.

It’s not that I don’t like clothes. I see cool stuff I’d love to wear! But it stresses me out to own more than what fits in my suitcase and a hiking bag. Over time, my brain has added a little filter: whenever it spots something cool, it asks if I already own something with the same purpose, and if the excitement of buying it is really worth the ecological and social impact.

Most of the time, the answer is no.

And yet, I still get that urge to buy. You don’t erase thousands of years of Homo sapiens chasing social validation in just four years.

🙋‍♂️ I made the link between my relationship with clothes and my shadow: the part of me that wants to look stylish.

It hit me on a hike with my friend Finn. I was telling him about what I’d understood from Aristotle, and he followed up with this theory about shadows. He said he uses sports and games to express his competitive, dominant side — so he can be a calmer, more generous human outside of it.

We kept walking, and I let the idea simmer.

Building your shadow’s house 🏡

At first, I linked it to my relationship with parties and how I’ve changed that in recent years. I wrote about it before (text in french) — it was about bringing meaning and nuance back, not turning parties into a black hole for every emotion I couldn’t process.

It took me longer to realize the same thing applied to clothes. I had silenced that shadow that wants to own things and look good. I kind of despised it, but it’s just as real as all the others.

You know my admiration for philosophers who preach reason and balance — so I tried to apply it to myself.

Defining a framework

First step: how much space do I give that shadow?

• 🤩 A framework that sparks joy: I want to allow those little dopamine peaks to be satisfied.

• 🐘 Not too big: I don’t want this behavior to take center stage in my habits.

• 🐜 Not too small either: I want it to last, but keep enough energy for other things.

Around that time, I was starting to write about my passion for football — another shadow I’d kind of ghosted over the years, and ideas started to merge in my mind. (one more text in french)

I’ve always loved getting new jerseys, wearing them in the city or on the pitch.

I love second-hand pieces, I like wearing things nobody else has, and I prefer when the brand isn’t too visible. I’m not against a nice Nintendo sponsor, but don’t expect me in a giant Qatar Airways shirt, even if it’s my favorite team.

The jersey also has to mean something — a player or a team that carries some emotional value to me. That counts as much as the design!

So here we are.

I’m officially excited to start my football jersey collection. (That’s where my mom cracked up 🫠)

But not just any jerseys, and not just any way. I’ll go for vintage jerseys.

• ♻️ They’re second-hand, and sponsors were much rarer back then.

• 🦚 With their loose fits and textured patterns, jerseys from the ’90s and 2000s are way cooler than today’s.

🤷‍♂️ If I were rich, I’d already have dozens, but my bank account has its reasons, and reason understands them very well.

So I’ll have to make choices.

Setting the rules of the game

I’ve got a few questions in mind.

💰 Should I make it financial?

Meaning: resell jerseys later on. So wear them less, or even buy new ones that will become vintage in a few years.

But that drifts away from my original idea — and a few ideological principles too.

Maybe I’ll only buy if there’s an amazing deal.

⛔ What are the limits?

Should I have a maximum budget? Per year? Per jersey? Based on what? Or a limit on total pieces?

It’s still a work in progress, but I’ve got an idea for 2026: combine my 2024 party budget with this one.

So I get X€ per month for jerseys — but it decreases every time I go out partying (or the other way around). Should help keep things under control!

😑 How do I make sure I’m not buying impulsively?

That one’s easy: I always wait a few days between wanting something and actually getting it. It’s my filtering method.

But with jerseys, I risk missing out — they could sell out, or I might pass on a gem while traveling. Exceptions are bound to happen… luckily I’ve got the rule above!

Six months later

I totally underestimated how fun it would be to start a project like this!

I love finding vintage shops everywhere I go, and digging through the internet for specialized sites. I even made a Notion page with a whole library of dream jerseys — links, prices, photos, everything.

It brings back that “discovery and organization” energy I had when I first started this newsletter — time just flies, and it gives me a real boost!

Not to mention how much I enjoy talking vintage football shirts with other people who love it — or even gifting them to friends.

At the same time, I still need to clarify my limits on budget and types of jerseys. I’m happy I came up with the shared-budget idea; now I just need to test it next year!

It’d also be nice to find a steady income stream for 2026 — but one thing at a time. Future problem.

The final word 🍰

⚖️ I’m getting closer to balance with this slightly snobbish shadow. After swinging hard from one extreme to the other, I’m slowly finding my center again.

It’s a good reminder of how essential it is to explore both sides — how else could we ever find the middle ground?

🔦 It’s also a call to shine a light on our tendency to exaggerate and lean toward extremes. Let’s bring back some nuance to our judgments and actions!

Just because we realize something is “bad” doesn’t mean we have to sweep it under the rug.

🤗 Accepting your shadow is also a first step toward greater empathy — and I think we could all use a bit more of that.