I would like to share with you this very insightful commencement address that Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computers and Pixar Animation Studio delivered for the Stanford Graduation Ceremony, on June 12, 2005. Stay inspired.
The original text can be found here and a French translation there.
En ce jour de krach pour l’économie mondiale, je me permets de ressortir de mes archives cette fable que j’avais écrite voilà cinq ans. Le thème est bien connu, mais donne plus que jamais à réfléchir :
Le Billet et le Courtier
Un financier ruiné depuis quelques printemps,
Glanant débauché sur un trottoir répugnant,
Aperçut devant lui une coupure d’argent.
Notre mendiant, brutalement s’agite
Otant de sa tête les idées parasites.
Dans sa course, c’est logique
Il médite sur le morceau de fric :
« Cinq euros seraient laids,
Cependant bien assez,
Je les place vite en bourse et
Demain risquerai quelque gain ;
La moitié au banquier, le quart au prêt foncier.
Un mois ainsi, c’est aisé.
A moi, le raté, qui de tout fut privé,
Je sens que l’argent redevient familier !
Dans mes poches à moi, le nul,
Je perçois le pognon qui pullule ! »
Dans sa bourse la fortune défile,
Et tandis qu’il file
Vers lui un homme se faufile
S’incline, se penche, s’abaisse,
Récupère en liesse l’appât de la paresse.
Le gueux s’arrête, contemple sa défaite :
Broker, trader, « J’achète », fortune faite,
A tort et avec rien il crut gagner le faîte.
E. Mayer (2003)
My dear friend and business associate Youcef wrote a very interesting post regarding lucid dreaming. I can’t help trying to go further with my own experience and to suggest what could be the next possible steps.
I have been pretty successful in controling lucid dreams, when they occur. What does that mean? Well, I am completely aware that I am dreaming, that I am in a parallel world. And I manage to keep on with the experience. I usually use two ways to achieve this and to remain in such an unusual state of consciousness:
The first one is to try thinking as if you were in a video game with objectives. From there, you can benefit from two useful consequences:
1. If I stopped dreaming, I couldn’t finish the game so that would become a serious pain. Lucid dreaming, as a game, is turned into a continuous necessity.
2. I can switch from “It’s not worth doing that if it’s only a dream” to “It’s worth because it’s a lot of fun and I am able to experience things that I could not in real life”. This is exactly why so many people love playing video games, so why not love playing dreaming games as well?
I am not saying we are talking about the same thing. If you have already experienced that kind of dreams, you may have noticed that GTA IV is to controlled trash dreams what Pong is to RL Tennis (RL Tennis is not a video game, it stands for “real life tennis”). Yes, dreaming is a huge technological breakthrough, its only drawback being that until now it has only been discovered and enjoyed by unconscious people.
The way you feel the world while dreaming is in fact in the holy grail of the whole video game industry. Input signals do not suffer from the hassle of steering wheels, keyboards, joysticks or even the latest wireless controller for gamers, let alone the Wiimote. No, this time you feed the game directly with your mind. You do not only control what you are doing, you also have a total control on your environnment. No need for cheat mode.
But we have not mentionned your perception of the game output. Far from your beloved narrow-angle television or 15,4″ computer screen, you feel immerged in the richest colorful and three-dimensional environment ever.
Yes, you are at the same time the gamemaster and the main player.
The second method is quite similar, but works especially well if your lucid dream is closer to a lucid nightmare, a very intellectual story (like giving an articulate talk in front of an assembly or having a very deep conversation with someone), or affective events (a love adventure, tragic drama with members of your family being killed…). The idea is to consider you are writing the scenario of a movie (or a book for those who are more conservative) and playing the main role. Unlike playing a game, you don’t necessarily need to achieve your objectives. You only have to make sure everything is consistent and the story is interesting.
Otherwise, and this leads us to what can still break a lucid dream, you are likely to say yourself “this is a sheet of bull” and wake up. Dreaming games are likely to virtually crash (like a blue screen of the death) for the same reasons: too many inconsistencies make you feel this is a total nonsense, or on the opposite, a too-good-to-be-true event. Usually I cannot sustain it, that’s a pity but it might be because it is to far from reality to be acceptable. You suddenly wonder: “Hey, I’m happy but when I wake up I will have to face a slightly ruder reality!”, which cause your fun level to go down the required threshold and you open your eyes.
Now, what remains to be discovered to go further with lucid dreaming? All what I have described are only handcrafted and not that easily controlled experiences. Especially, it is still very difficult to enable the lucid dreaming functionality of your brain. When it happens, you are happy, but that is not satisfying, IMHO.
So, the first step would be to understand better how we can activate lucid dreaming on the fly, on demand, without having to be sleeping before for long hours for example.
So next one could be to learn how we can physically influence the content of a lucid dream, so that we could schedule it on our computer before going to bed (or using the machine developed on step 1).
More ambitious would be to retrieve in RL the content of a lucid dream, or otherwise to interconnect people’s lucid dreaming, so that it may help step 4 happen someday.
This latest step is the matrix. I won’t explain it, just watch the movie.
This time we are the ones. Let’s not miss the opportunity to be the pioneers.
Rien de tel pour apprendre à aimer la vie qu’une fine tranche de saucisson aux chanterelles assortie d’abondance et de beaufort.
Merci Thomas d’avoir immortalisé ce souvenir savoyard.
We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give. — Sir Winston Churchill
« Il y avait un jour un roi qui avait planté près de son château toutes sortes d’arbres, de plantes et de fleurs et son jardin était d’une grande beauté. Chaque jour, il s’y promenait: c’était pour lui une joie et une détente. Un jour, il dût partir en voyage. À son retour, il s’empressa d’aller marcher dans le jardin. Il fut désolé en constatant que les plantes et les arbres étaient en train de se dessécher. Il s’adressa au pin, autrefois majestueux et plein de vie, et lui demanda ce qui s’était passé. Le pin lui répondit: ” J’ai regardé le pommier et je me suis dit que jamais je ne produirais les bons fruits qu’il porte. Je me suis découragé et j’ai commencé à sécher.” Le roi alla trouver le pommier : lui aussi se desséchait… Il l’interrogea et il dit: ” En regardant la rose et en sentant son parfum, je me suis dit que jamais je ne serais aussi beau et agréable et je me suis mis à sécher.” Comme la rose elle-même était en train de dépérir, il alla lui parler et elle lui dit: “Comme c’est dommage que je n’ai pas l’âge de l’érable qui est là-bas et que mes feuilles ne se colorent pas à l’automne. Dans ces conditions, à quoi bon vivre et faire des fleurs ? Je me suis donc mise à dessécher.” Poursuivant son exploration, le roi aperçut une magnifique petite fleur. Elle était toute épanouie. Il lui demanda comment il se faisait qu’elle soit si vivante. Elle lui répondit: ” J’ai failli me dessécher, car au début je me désolais. Jamais je n’aurais la majesté du pin, qui garde sa verdure toute l’année; ni le raffinement et le parfum de la rose. Et j’ai commencé à mourir mais j’ai réfléchi et je me suis dit: ” Si le roi, qui est riche, puissant et sage, et qui a organisé ce jardin, avait voulu quelque chose d’autre à ma place, il l’aurait planté. Si donc, il m’a plantée, c’est qu’il me voulait, moi, telle que je suis.” Et à partir de ce moment, j’ai décidé d’être la plus belle possible !” »
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