I have long thought that writing was a tool of art and creation – or a tool of work. As a child, I spent hours writing texts. I then gradually quit – as if, after studying a different field, I realized that writing made little sense, not in any way aligned with my choice of career.
In fact, writing is a form of therapy, and a fertile ground for developing ideas. Not writing for a while dried up my thoughts. These ideas that occupied my mind as a kid, these big questions that everyone asks themselves and to which everyone ends up finding an answer, adequate or not, were no longer on the agenda. there is no end to looking at the world through the eyes of a child, constantly in awe, ready to question everything. Writing is a way to avoid falling into the trap of routine, to stop questioning yourself.
Fifty years from now, I don’t want to wake up feeling like I’ve missed out on the nicest thoughts I could have had. I do not want to find myself stuck in the beaten paths built by our societies and which seem so easy to take.
Writing is a form of rebellion. A way to put wood in the fire of our critical mind. Staying hungry for novelty, ready to assert your ideas – if only to yourself – while accepting criticism, cannot be done without a medium that allows these traits to be saved and to digest them, to reread them, and adjust them. Mental digestion is active, not passive. We can spend hours learning without developing the critical mind necessary to have the perspective to make choices that really belong to us. Even highly skilled work can exist without asking to think outside the box.
So I decided to rebel. On everything and nothing. To write this rebellion in a way that makes it tangible and allows it to survive.
Thus, be warned. This logbook is messy, awake, angry, and not always objective.
Comments by Mathieu Maender