Fabrice Midal - The French Art of Not Giving a F*ck: The Simple Secret to True Happiness, the French Way

First published in Australia and New Zealand by Allen & Unwin in 2018

First published in France under the title Foutez-vous la paix! by Flammarion/Versilio in 2017

Copyright Flammarion/Versilio 2017

Translation Susanna Lea Associates 2017

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Biblical quotations taken from the 21st Century King James Version, copyright 1994.

Used by permission of Deuel Enterprises, Inc., Gary, SD 57237. All rights reserved.

Excerpt from Rene Char, Les Matinaux Editions Gallimard, Paris, 1950.

Excerpt from Henri Michaux, Poteaux dangle Editions Gallimard, Paris, 1981.

Excerpt from Georges Braque, Le Jour et la Nuit. Cahier 1917-1952 Editions Gallimard, Paris, 1952.

Excerpt from The Letters of Emily Dickinson, edited by Thomas H. Johnson, Associate Editor, Theodora Ward, Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Copyright 1958 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright renewed 1986 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright 1914, 1924, 1932, 1942 by Martha Dickinson Bianchi. Copyright 1952 by Alfred Leete Hampson. Copyright 1960 by Mary L. Hampson.

Excerpt from Sonnets to Orpheus by Rainer Marie Rilke. Translation and Introduction 1987 by David Young. Published by Wesleyan University Press. Used by permission.

Excerpts from The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupery. Copyright 1943 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, renewed 1972 by Consuelo de Saint Exupery, English translation copyright 2000 by Richard Howard. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing. All rights reserved.

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Contents

I have been hosting conferences and seminars in schools, businesses, and hospitals for many years now, and I always inevitably come away with the same conclusion: We spend all day tormenting ourselves.

We torment ourselves into adopting norms, rules, and models that dont necessarily work for us. We torment ourselves because we want to do better, but we feel as if we never actually achieve the best result. We torment ourselves because were sure that other people know how to do better than us. We torment ourselves often even without anything being asked of us.

We are caught up in frenetic activity that completely blinds us. Gripped by the need to do, we no longer see that in reality were doing nothing; after getting all worked up, we forget whats truly important. We forget how to live.

So, its time to stop giving a fuck! My experience has taught me that there is no better way to rediscover our potential and the forgotten possibilities that lie within us. Just stop! Its time to break free from unnecessary protocols and procedures, to take a leave from self-imposed stresses. And when you do, you will discover a well of energy enabling you to go that extra mile.

You dont need to escape to the top of a mountain or the depths of a cave to think: Stay right where you are and stop forcing yourself to think so hard. Give yourself a break; its the best way to get by in a world full of suffering, misery, and inhumanity. We need to make a change now. You can start today, by not giving a fuck

Fabrice Midal

Do nothing

Never ask your way from someone who knows it. You might fail to get lost.

Rabbi Nachman of Bretslov

Do I meditate? This is something I occasionally think about when I see the avalanche of books and conferences that all exhort us to practise meditation, endeavour to teach us its techniques, and glibly reel off its benefits.

Do I meditate? No, not as such. I never force myself to do so, and when I dont feel like meditating, I do something else.

I dont use a specific technique, nor do I rely on any set of instructions. I meditate to free myself from all forms of command.

And my aim is not to become wise, or calm, or patient. I have no aim, no objective, not even the idea of starting or finishing the day in any particular state of mind.

Ive been meditating for more than twenty-five years, and I have been teaching the practice for almost fifteen, but I have no techniques to hand over or empty promises to make. When I started teaching, many people actually predicted that I would fail. What could I possibly teach when the groundwork for my practice is that meditation is unproductive, that it doesnt make you more efficient, it doesnt make you wiser, and that, deep down, it has no purpose, in the common sense of the term? But in fact, its precisely because meditation frees us from being enslaved to the modern demands of usefulness and profitability that we are lucky it exists.

Over the years, Ive seen this obsession with performance turn toxic in the world around me. Profitability and usefulness have become the worlds mantraand meditation is in no way exempt. I have witnessed countless new manuals and exercises guaranteeing results after ten or twenty sessions of mindful meditation, almost to the point of prescribing a proper dosage. We are told that meditation should be used in companies to improve profitability, in schools to heighten students concentration and efficacy, and at home to feel less stressed.

I see beginning meditators confused, then disgusted, because their apprenticeship has failed: They havent been transformed, nor do they even feel less stressed. Presumably, they tell me, they havent concentrated hard enough, or they have failed to detach themselves from their thoughts. Theyve been distracted, they havent been sitting properlyor maybe their chosen technique, which was in fact quite difficult, wasnt the right one for them. In fact, theyve worked themselves up to a state of nervous anticipation, as if they were about to take an oral exam. But as we all know, the tenser you are, the more you focus on the need to succeed, the greater the risk of showing up with a knotted throat and sweaty hands. You experience more fear than enjoyment, and thus you have a higher chance of failing.

This type of meditation is not mine. Meditation, as I see it, is not a technique or an exercise, and theres nothing mysterious about it: It is an art of living. The art of not giving a fuck. I prescribe nothing, I guarantee nothing, I provide no tricks or tips. I dont suggest you observe your thoughts as they pass by without lingering over them, like clouds that end up fading away. This kind of technique is not inherently wrong, but in practice it quickly turns out to be tedious and downright boring. And when youre bored, youre no longer alive. I have no desire to torture myself over some idea that I need to meditate. Im more interested in the intelligence and humanity of those around me. I know that what I have to say will raise some eyebrows, but I deeply believe its true.