Les Grosses Têtes: LE LIVRE DU JOUR - "Vivre avec son passé, de Charles Pépin

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Let's talk about rugby.

In rugby, there are some in advance.

I'm not mistaken, Mr. Riou.

Well, there we'll have on the phone

a philosopher who offers us

to go ahead, not in advance.

But it's a great book.

It's not a personal development book

as there are many, because it would be

really insulting

this book that I have in my hands.

Charles Pépin, a well-known philosopher

with whom we must have famous comic strips

Jules, the illustrator.

Jules Charles Pépin publishes

Live with his past

a philosophy to go ahead

how to sometimes solve

the problems we've been working on

for years, but indeed

in a philosophical way,

but also with the new methods today.

We'll talk with Charles Pépin in a moment.

But first, I asked you

and this will be a question for Sian Kress

who lives in Arbonne, in Laude.

I asked you to find the name of the philosopher

precisely, to talk about memory.

Because before, the past

it wasn't really a question for the philosophers.

In any case, he thought that this past

was frozen. What is the first

philosopher to really have

put forward the memory?

A French?

A French, yes.

Ten?

He was born in Paris, we couldn't

be more French, and he died in his

countryside house in Saint-Cyr-sur-Loire.

A great French philosopher.

He died in...

He doesn't remember.

He died in 1941.

What is his name?

Henri Berkson.

Good answer!

He's famous for the western

my name is Berkson.

Especially around the laugh,

which is expensive for us,

but it's true that before the laugh, there is the memory

Hello Charles Pépin.

A philosophy to go forward,

I immediately said that he was

the question of a personal development book

even if your book can help.

Yes, of course.

The idea of the book is that

living with its past, it is not living

in the past. It is that there are ways

to fight the feeling,

the rejuvenation, the rumination.

And in the end, I have the impression that

we can't go forward if we don't know

where we come from, and if we don't know

exactly which story we inherit.

And finally, there are new methods in psychotherapy

which are inherited from recent discoveries

on the brain function, which shows us

that memories can be reinterpreted,

that memories are not sealed.

And as you said very well,

that finally, we can

receive its past, the reinterpreted

to go forward in a new way.

And so Berkson, it really was the first

philosopher of memory.

Of course, there were philosophers who had talked

about the past and the memory as Saint Augustine,

for example, but the great novelty of Berkson

is that he tells us that the past

persist indefinitely through our habits,

through our perceptions.

There is a very beautiful sentence of Berkson

who says that there is no perception

of the present that is not intended

to be remembered. And it is true that in a

way of appreciating a plate, in a way

of having a human reaction in relation to

someone, in fact, we are the whole of

his past. And so if we want to understand

and if we want to go forward and if we want

to build his future, we must know

how we were constituted by his past

and how we inherit his past

to be able to go forward.

That's what he said because obviously

you mentioned many philosophers

in your book. Nietzsche told him

that he needs a double dose to continue

to live.

So it's true that there is a way of this

memory that allows you to go forward.

There is also a way to forget.

If you want, if we remember everything,

we could not advance, we could not make the

tri and the great novelty of Nietzsche

in my book, I come back to Nietzsche

after Berkson, it means that

you have to do your market in your past,

the tri in your past, and know

how to take what is a kind of force

of the future, and know indeed sometimes

that it is light. And it is also valuable

to make an eye.

When we make the eye of someone, if we

think all the time about him, if we are

obsessed by this person and if we do not

make the tri between the memories that

will bring us, that will allow us to

maintain a spiritual relationship with

the drawing, and if we are like that,

if we live in a mausoleum invaded

by the memories of the drawing, then

you are going to sell it in a nice relationship

to the drawing. And that is what Nietzsche said,

it is that you have to remember, but you also have to

a small dose of oblivion.

So there is something, your book is exciting

to say, but there is something I did not know

and it is an experience called

the white bear effect, tell us.

So the white bear effect is an experience

that has been developed by psychotherapists

to show us that when we want to

avoid a bad memory,

in fact, there will be a rebound effect

and sooner or later it will come back.

For example, before you fall asleep,

do not think of a white bear.

Or if we tell you, for 11 days,

do not think of a white bear,

you will obviously think a lot more.

In fact, the lesson of life is very

interesting, it is that in life,

you have to avoid dangers to be happy.

But on the other hand, you do not have to

avoid thinking about dangers. And the more

we welcome bad memories, the more

we welcome what will make us happy,

the more we confront ourselves mentally

to what is bothering us, the less

it is. And that, it comes from a phrase

by Dostoyevsky, who was very funny,

who launched all his studies of psychotherapy

and that we do not know, by saying

here, try not to think of a white bear

and you will see that it will appear on your

eyelids all the time.

No, no, try not to think of me

when you fall asleep.

Charles, Charles, what age are you?

So I'm 50 years old, I've just been

50 years old. And besides, it has played

your age, I think you were 5 years old.

I'll tell you a story, it will make you laugh.

Last year, you were 5 years old.

Yes, I got up this morning, my book

came out this morning, and I got up

quickly, and I ran to look for an envelope

and I made a crack at the mullet.

In fact, the book

ends up like this, how not to become

an old fool. And that's a bit

of it, the book is a method to have

a softer, more flexible relationship

to its past. You see, not being

in the train all the time to ruminate

your past failures, not to be attached

to your past glory. And that's it, I also wrote

in the middle of my life, I felt

confused because it all threatens us

to become an old fool.

Yes, in your book, there is also a chapter

on the past base of our identity.

And there, you obviously mention

Alzheimer's disease, which is

quite symbolic, because in the

end, it is true that sometimes,

someone who suffers from Alzheimer's

will remember some very, very old

things, and it's even often like that

that it happens, and nothing

immediately, obviously.

Another very interesting thing about the

Alzheimer's disease is that we realize

that the patients who suffer from it

don't remember

a large part of their past,

and they don't even remember

to approach the future. And that's

very interesting, because it shows

that there is a relationship between

the relationship I have with the past

and the relationship I have with my future.

And you see, one of the flaws today,

and maybe that's what you also mentioned

earlier, is the obsession of the present.

We have to do the meditation of full

consciousness, focus on the present.

But that's not it, a human being.

A human being is someone who has a conscience

of the past, is someone who inherits from

the past and who worries about the future.

And you see, today, compared to the

ecological and climatic crisis, what we

especially need is to turn to the future.

It's not to be in the present.

And for that, the good thing, maybe,

to turn to the future is to know

to go back to the past and wonder

what the past teaches us. Sometimes,

on what we could become in the future.

And it's also valuable.

I'll say it even more simply.

No, it's not true.

If you want, as an individual, to know

what matters to you, what is essential,

what looks like you,

what will allow you tomorrow to be happy

and to succeed in your life,

the good thing about our way of questioning

is to turn to the past, because

the past tells you that at such a time

you did that and you didn't like it.

At such a time, you tried something else,

you tried to go back to your history,

that you knew each other better,

and that you could better build your future.

I talked a little bit about your past,

about the success you had with,

effectively, the comic books,

The Planet of the Sages,

Platon Lagaffe, or even 50 nuances

of Greek, so much fun

to approach philosophy in comic books.

But in my opinion, this book

should make a carton,

it's at Alarie-Edition, live with its past,

and it's signed by Charles Pépin.

That was our book of the day.

See you now for 1,99€ per month

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Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.