The French Art of Not Trying Too Hard

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Taking the first step: anxiety of all lovers, nightmare of all tightrope walkers. “I wouldn’t be able to walk on that wire if I wasn’t sure before taking the first step that I could do the last . . . It’s very close to religious faith.” Who’s saying this? Philippe Petit. Who’s Philippe Petit? The best way of introducing him would be to make you feel what he does. So let me suggest a little thought experiment. At the end of this paragraph I want you to close your eyes, count to ten, and open them again. Here we go.

Whenever I’m able do something without any effort I start to think it is inherently easy, that anyone should be able to do it. This is called the expert’s illusion. The minute you find yourself on the other side of expertise you realize it is an illusion, and that what is easy for one person isn’t necessarily easy for another. You find the illusion of the expert with literature teachers who think everyone must love reading. Or with math teachers who can’t understand why you don’t understand. This is the only thing they find difficult: understanding that what is easy for them is difficult for others. A laissez-faire guide to self-help. This is a book for those who aspire to the déshabillé, Serge-Gainsbourg-and-Jane-Birkin-morning-after look and the studied negligence of the Parisian Bobo (bourgeois-bohemian).”― The Times(London)

Summary

I feel like this book is vaguely marketed in the same category as all the other ones that romanticize french culture. This is not a book that teaches you to be more french or argues that the french do things better than us anglo-saxons. It's more of a meditation on the french tendency to put in the effort to look effortless. The author cites french artists, athletes, philosophers, etc to build a case study. He offers advice based on the case study. He theorizes on the philosophy behind it all. My favourite part of the book, Stop Thinking, walks through hypnosis, yoga, non-thinking, archery and modern rationalism to distinguish between thought and action - “Take a path you don’t know, to reach an unknown place, to do something you’re incapable of doing” When the Chinese painter Zao Wou-Ki first set foot in Paris in 1948, he knew only one word of French, one open-sesame that he gave to the taxi driver: “Montparnasse.” He didn’t mean the train station, he meant the mythical place that all aspiring painters dream of. He spent the rest of his life there in a studio very close to Giacometti’s. Chinese by chance, but French by the dictate of his heart.

OK. Place your left foot delicately on the rope. Your weight should remain on your supporting leg, the straight one, that’s still planted on the solid ground of the south tower, safely on the building. Now you have to shift the weight of this leg onto the other one, taking the first step onto the rope. There comes a moment where you have to decide. The first step is a point of no return. This book came about as the result of a conversation with my publisher and friend, Elsa Lafon. It’s important to specify “friend” because we weren’t working at the time, we were just having dinner. It wasn’t a professional discussion; I wasn’t there to outline a project or negotiate a contract. It was just a conversation for conversation’s sake, over a simple family meal and a good bottle of wine. In fact, I can’t even remember what we were talking about—maybe about the children, who were still running around and should have been in bed. What effort we expended—to no avail—trying to get them to do what we wanted! Maybe it would have been best just to ignore them and wait for them to tire themselves out. Sooner or later they’d go to sleep. After all, that night was slightly special: there was no school the next day. What greater pleasure, for a child, than to end up falling asleep on the sofa, lulled by the adults’ conversation? Late to bed, happy to bed—it makes for sweet memories. “How right you are,” Elsa said. “Why struggle? Let’s have another glass of wine.” Noah is lost in the deliciousness of the memory too, and his conclusion is the same as Zidane’s: there just aren’t any words; “those moments really are rare.” When the Chinese painter Zao Wou-Ki first set foot in Paris in 1948, he knew only one word of French, one open-sesame that he gave to the taxi driver: "Montparnasse." He didn't mean the train station, he meant the mythical place that all aspiring painters dream of. He spent the rest of his life there in a studio very close to Giacometti's. Chinese by chance, but French by the dictate of his heart.Loved this book. It is insanely thought provoking and far more philosophical than I first thought. Some of the stories sort of go on too long, but there is incredible depth and coherence in the chapters themselves and throughout the chapters. What can we learn from Stendhal’s example? Not everyone wants to become a writer. But “never make fun of the art of writing,” Alain says, If you thought the book’s title was confusing then the chapter on “Hit the target without aiming” will throw you off. But there is a difference between trying too hard to hit a target and preparing well enough, physically and mentally, to hit

Remember Malcolm Gladwell? He’s a writer at the New Yorker, and I love reading his books. In Outliers, which here is used to mean “exceptional successes,” Gladwell gives a precise answer to that question “how many?” Ten thousand hours, according to him, is the “magic number of greatness.” You want to become exceptional in any given domain? It’s “easy”: you just have to devote 10,000 hours to it, or ten years, to become an expert or perform at a high level. Strangely enough, this is exactly the conclusion Stendhal arrived at: “Write every day for an hour or two. Genius or not.” Ten years of writing for one or two hours a day, somewhere between 3,652 and 7,304 (counting leap years) gets you close to 10,000 hours. You’d only need to write between two and three hours a day to get there. Stendhal seems to be saying, like Gladwell, that what we mistake for genius is simply the result of hard work; ten years’ hard work, to be precise. Evident - to see. What happens when you see something with the minds eye, to understand it. Attention should focus on only one point at a time. Consider a torch, with a narrow beam of light and limited 'illuminated' focus.

The French Art of Not Trying Too Hard

Where do we start? That’s always been the big question. More often than not, we keep planning and eventually stagnate. “If you don’t know how to get out of this kind of stagnation, do what Stendhal did: borrow your first sentence or your first action from someone else, and continue it.” Like drafting or slipstreaming in cycling or learning a language by imitating others, don't start, continue Here is an except that is reiterated by many of those who more through the world with understanding: So grace is never guaranteed, and the very best, like the rest of us, are reduced just to hoping. But to know this kind of grace, to feel yourself king or queen of the earth, you don’t need to be a champion of anything: soccer, tennis, literature, or music simply serve here to underline the oneness of the experience, of the point of action, when “it takes,” when “it works,” when it’s “just great,” when “it” is impossible to express in words or transcribe with notes, because talking, like composing, means detaching yourself from what you’re experiencing, coming out of it and commenting on it, instead of staying “in it.” The best way of talking about the point of action, then, is through the dot dot dot of an ellipsis . . . To be alive is to be part of the narrative of experience, to be engaged with the world. We are always caught up in the action. So we don’t have to begin, we just have to continue. No need for big decisions. To explain what he meant, Alain took the example he knew best—writing. He quoted Stendhal, who, by his own admission, wasted ten years of his life waiting for inspiration:

In the realm of love, what could be less seductive than someone who's trying to seduce you? Seduction is the art of succeeding without trying, and that's a lesson the French have mastered. Do without thinking. Do not focus on the goal, on the aim, simply release the arrow, as it knows where to go. Be satisfied with being, and allow the work to come. The more you focus on something, the more you can cause yourself to make mistakes. When you think, you are focusing, you are judging, and therefore are thinking and not acting. When thinking, you are the antithesis of acting, and therefore, when firing an arrow can never hit a target. Express your pride through your posture, Pretend to be proud. Start by miming. "Man is formed through struggle, his true pleasures must be won, must be served. He must give before he receives. That is the law." (alain). Certain goals can only be achieved if we do not aim at them. i can conclude this book for you: “the key to action is getting down to it” that’s also one of the phrases the author uses in their conclusion and that’s literally all it says throughout using different words like okay i wouldn’t t know exactly cause i started skimming during chapter 2/3 but that’s what i believe through my expertise in skimming A thought-provoking and delightful book. Pourriol dismisses it as an airport read. Yet somehow, apparently without effort, he has turned it into so much more. . . . [It is like] a pastry: rich and light rather than stuff to be endlessly chewed over.”― Daily MailYesterday, when I saw the exhibition, I thought it looked great. For a moment, anyway. Too good, actually. That does worry me a bit.”