« Nothing brings more direction than to change directions »
Michel Serres
... OR HOW TO APPROACH THE RESILIENCE PROCESS IN A FEW CONCRETE STEPS!
Who, among us, would have believed a soothsayer announcing last January the chain of events that led us to the exceptional, anxiety-provoking and unprecedented situation we are experiencing today?
Who could have predicted that our world would come to an end because of a virus so tiny that it was able to sneak into the smallest loopholes of our organisms and our immunity systems, leaving behind it many victims,
in their health as well as in their life balance?
It has brought to a halt
The North as well as the South
Rich countries as well as poor countries
Well-to-do as well as working and precarious classes
The Right and the Left
Great captains of industry as well as small craftsmen and shopkeepers
Juniors and Seniors
The great majority of schoolchildren and students of this world
Travelers, explorers, and nomads of all kinds
It has allowed
Our planet Earth to finally take a breather,
Our ecosystem to start restoring themselves,
And for us, simple humans, to take a step back
On the way we live, consume, move
and pollute, waste, degrade without thinking about tomorrow …
To reframe our priorities, redefine our values,
To respect ourselves better, by respecting in a finally “human” way our nourishing ecosystem
The only real issue is this:
Do we want MORE or BETTER after COVID-19?
It is up to each of us, individually and collectively to align heart and head, being and having, thinking, and acting
To align beliefs, values and projects with a generous impulse and a responsible commitment, for ourselves and for others
To simply put the human being back at the center of his or her Life, of Life and of Living!
The only leaven in the dough, for this to happen, was formulated by Elie Wiesel when he wrote:
“What counts is to know that we are bound, perhaps, by the same story.”
THIS IS NONE OTHER THAN THE APPROACH OF RESILIENCE!
The global bill of the health crisis we are going through is dizzying… it will undoubtedly take months and years, after COVID-19, to have a precise idea of it, when so many different areas are impacted.
State debts, financial difficulties and bankruptcies in cascade, psychosomatic and mental illnesses, cases of abuse and mistreatment are some of the tips of a multifaceted and gigantic iceberg that will feed social unrest and question breathless political systems.
I am personally very concerned about the survival of countless Foundations, Associations and NGOs dedicated to beautiful and necessary causes … What about their financing, from the moment when companies, institutional and private donors, until now faithful and reliable, will simply have no more “pocket” for philanthropy?
However, I remain an incorrigible optimist in the capacity of mankind to bring out the good, the good and the beautiful, from the worst distress, and I want to believe that a new conscience will emerge- one that is more ethical and philanthropic. It is up to each one of us to bear a part of the responsibility to make it happen and take root!
For the past few months, we have been in solidarity with each other, we have done better with less in the small gestures imposed on us by the confinement. There have been countless small miracles of kindness!
We will have to continue on this path, in the “less is more” as a conscious and virtuous choice to consume less and spend differently, in order to always keep a pocket of solidarity in a give-back approach … money is still the water to the mill, but there are so many other ways to contribute!
Today more than ever, we can only agree with Michel Serres a thousand times when he says
“Nothing brings more direction than to change directions”.
It is always difficult to talk about oneself… but it is a necessary step in order to highlight beautiful causes and noble projects!
This is the mission of the Antenna Foundation, which for 30 years has been mobilizing for the essential needs of the most precarious people on this earth, to which I would like to pay tribute. There is more information available on the Antenna – Béjart Ballet Lausanne Partnership (and in particular on the IX Symphonie performance planned in June 2020, and postponed to June 2021) in my Newsletter from December 2019.
This article has just been published in the Elle (online version).
https://ellesuisse.ch/dominique-brustlein-bobst/
I thank my friend Romaine Jean for all her thoughtfulness …
The paper version with the Swiss insert will be published in May (the written press is also going through a crisis because of the lack of advertisers as long as the crisis lasts.)
My friend Philippe Ungar, a French writer and journalist, sound archivist… and philosopher, living in New York, created three years ago SOUNDS LIKE PORTRAITS. philippeungar.com
This weekly podcast is dedicated to creativity in many fields.
The interview he conducted last November, with a beautiful and deep listening, allowed me to express myself on my “creative inner springs”. It is a gift to me!
This podcast is also available on French Morning, the #1 French newsletter in the US and Canada:
https://frenchmorning.com/dominique-brustlein-bobst-aider-les-autres-cest-recevoir-davantage/
Dominique Brustlein-Bobst, “to help others is to receive more”.
All my life I have always tried to put myself in the shoes of the other person, the one who was never offered the same luck,” Dominique Brustlein-Bobst confides to Philippe Ungar for this new episode of Sounds Like Portraits. Company director, consultant and philanthropist, Dominique Brustlein-Bobst and her family were hit hard by the Madoff affair in December 2008. Her family’s financial situation was jeopardized, but she did not give up. On the contrary, she has since multiplied her energy, creativity, and interest in others. “It was an opportunity for me to reach out, to seek out my friends and to look within myself for ways to bounce back,” she explains. Her philanthropic commitment has given meaning to her life.
This interview is an opportunity for Dominique Brustlein-Bobst to talk about the development of her creativity and her empathy for others. The trials of life are at the origin of what she is today, but “the influence of the people we meet is determining. What you receive in return is incomparably larger than what you are able to give”. Quoting the writer Matthieu Ricard, she explains that “the empathic stress that we feel when we are sensitive to the suffering of the world and of others, can be so suffocating that the only way to transform it into something positive and virtuous is to come closer to the other.
