New Gaze - New World

Arthur

"Get up everybody!" Aziz shouted. This was usually the first sound everyone heard each morning at sunrise. Arthur was one of those who faced the cold desert night by burying himself head to toe in his sleeping bag. So much so that he could not see that the sun was up. He was therefore grateful to Aziz for acting as his alarm clock. Although the temperature was still cool, the first thing everyone did in the morning was to wash up. Everyone went to isolate themselves in a nearby dune with a bottle of water, soap, toothpaste and a toothbrush. In other words, there was no question of a shower and a long complete wash, only intimate hygiene and brushing of the teeth were on the programme. In fact, Aziz had taught them that when the sun is high in the sky and the desert sand is hot, another type of toilet is very effective and very pleasant. It consists of isolating oneself from the group and rolling in the hot sand completely naked and massaging all parts of the body with sand. Being caught in the arms of the desert was as pleasant and as effective as a good shower, with the added bonus of a good skin peel. So Arthur sometimes indulged in his hot sand shower in this way. He admitted that it was a very pleasant experience, which he would have gladly prolonged in time if he was not subject to the risk of being left behind by the group. Every morning, on the way from his room to his bathroom, Arthur also liked to observe the tracks left by animals in the sand during the night or in the early morning. Aziz had taught him to recognise the most characteristic ones. The most frequent were beetle tracks, an animal that was frequently observed during the day. There were also often traces of a gerbil, a very small mouse. But Arthur had not yet been able to see the animal. And sometimes he could see scorpion tracks, proof that the animal was present. But again, he had not been able to see any yet. Aziz had explained that one could meet the Fennec, a species of small desert fox, or the viper. However, for the latter, he had specified that at this time of year, it was unlikely to be encountered. Everyone had learned to live with these risks, Aziz said that the probability of encountering a viper or a scorpion was the same in the desert as when hiking in the south of France. He said that these animals are as scared as we are and avoid us. This morning Arthur was done with his animal tracking and morning grooming, he started to fold his sleeping bag, put his backpack away. As for the folding of the two camel wool blankets he had used, he had to have the technique explained to him. The blankets had to be folded in such a way that they could be loaded over the width of the camel, i.e. about 40cm wide and 1.2m long. On the first day, Aziz laughed a lot when he saw everyone bringing back their remarkably squared blankets. He had all the blankets unpacked and gave a Saharan folding lesson. About half an hour after waking up, "A table!" was the second howl from Aziz that we heard every morning. It meant that breakfast was served. Arthur hurried back to the camp with all the things that had made up his room for one night. He then went to take his place around a tablecloth set up on the carpets under the white sail. On the tablecloth were warm bread from the morning's baking, apples, dates, clementines, fig jam, hard-boiled eggs and hummus... there was even the international Laughing Cow. After breakfast, everyone washed their bowls and cutlery... again, everyone had learned that the dishes are made with sand in the desert. After breakfast, the nomads proceeded to raise the camp and load the camels while the trainees participated in the briefing. Like every morning, everyone was waiting with impatience and a smile for Aziz to unveil his method of the day for the constitution of the groups. Aziz left the suspense for a while, took the temperature of the proposals made by the trainees and finally decided that this day was an individual walk. The exercise proposed for this day consisted of each person taking what he or she considered to be an absolute certainty, an unquestionable truth, and putting it through the scanner of the fifth tool "I don't know". Everyone was free to deepen their questioning by using "Intuition" and "Tenth Man". After burning the last traces of the camp, the caravan could set off for another stage. 

Arthur was a man in his forties, he was in charge of maintenance at a WesMart© factory in the South West of France. He was a keen cyclist and runner and had the slim figure of a long-distance runner. During the first few minutes of the walk, he wondered, did he have any absolute certainties? After reviewing several options, he stopped at "money contributes to happiness and security". It seemed to him that the tools he now had at his disposal would have the greatest difficulty in questioning this certainty. "I don't know" was of little help to him at this point, because he was sure of it, "money contributes to happiness and security". He had experienced this all his life. Having a little money to spare would allow him to face all eventualities, the "hard knocks" and with the rest, he could afford what he wanted, the latest bike, a holiday in the tropics... But as he was invested in this training, he decided to take on the role of the tenth man and to shed light on these certainties from other angles. "If money contributes to happiness, does that mean that those who don't have it are not happy? During his travels, he noted that people who have few needs and live close to nature are often very happy. For them, happiness is their daily joy of living, the pleasure of working together on a common project, the simplicity of feeding themselves with the harvest from their fields, or even discussions around the fire. So why did he, Arthur, perceive money as contributing to his happiness? He had to recognise that at some point in his life happiness had been closely associated with possessing something coveted. It was in this identification of "happiness possession" that his certainty lay. Unhappy with this discovery, Arthur decided to analyse the opposite approach. Was it in the absence of money that one could truly discover happiness? He also knew that many people without money were clearly not happy. He had to face the fact that there were many people who had money and were not happy, and even more who barely knew the concept of money and were happy, just as there were some who were happy with money and others who were poor and unhappy. Clearly, there was no causal relationship between money and happiness. However, intuition told Arthur that while money could not buy happiness, it was not in itself an obstacle to happiness. It was all in the relationship that was maintained with money, therefore in a way in the way we look at money. A little disappointed to see his initial certainty cracked, Arthur decided to focus on the second part of his certainty, "money contributes to security". Arthur first asked himself what he meant by security. In principle, security is a situation in which one is not exposed to any danger or risk. Could such a situation even exist? Haven't dangers and risks been our daily lot since the day we were born? Of course, one might think that having money would allow one to face unexpected expenses. But did money really have the power to keep us safe? It seemed to Arthur that the 'tenth man' and his accomplice 'I don't know' were cracking what was left of his certainty. Arthur's intuition was still coming through. What if Happiness and Security were just decoys. One like the other does not really have a physical existence, were they not simply concepts put into our minds to become consumer products like any other. Didn't the insurance, alarm, fashion and food industries, to name but a few, take full advantage of this race for happiness and security? Arthur's certainties had just collapsed completely, everyone could set a budget for happiness and security, the market would provide the necessary products and invent new ones to make both more expensive and more inaccessible. Arthur had just realised that one could be happy without ever having heard the word 'happiness' and that there was no such thing as a risk-free life. And money had nothing to do with it. But then, wasn't the money he had saved for his own happiness and security the rope that tied him to these concepts? He then remembered a phrase from Matthieu Ricard: "Money makes you happy... when you give it away". Should he give this money away? He had to admit that this question was not very comfortable for him, but he was there to exercise the tenth man. Arthur tried to gather his thoughts, it seemed to him that the first level of wealth which allowed for the most basic needs of shelter and food was a prerequisite to considering the notions of happiness and security. After this stage, his intuition told him that happiness no longer lay in the use of money, but more in the relationship with it. As soon as the relationship with money began to dictate its laws, "money must be saved, money must be spent, money must be given away..." this put money in a position of power and humans in a situation of servitude. Money was meant to be a tool for its unquestionable side, but in many cases money was often brandished as if it were a religion with its dogmas and punishments.And as Sophie had suggested in her teaching the previous day, one should always end the job with "I don't know".Arthur had to admit that his certainty had not stood up to investigation, and he readily admitted that there was nothing certain about these new conclusions. He was sure that an exchange on the same subject with other trainees or further research would bring further insights and no doubt his view would be further modified.In the end, his only certainty was that he did not know.And this certainty was liberating because he felt ready to listen to all the arguments and all the points of view.It was liberating because he no longer felt responsible for defending certainties that he now knew were so fragile.Now he knew that all the answers they would receive would enrich his vision, and he also knew that, in the end, he still wouldn't know.