To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to withdraw profit from good critics and let go betrayals from supposedly friends; to leave behind something good, a child in good health, a piece of garden or a society in progress; to leave the world a better place…to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

last summer, Jerry was writing his next book (launch in january 2018!); i read a bit of it, that was roughly saying : “i don’t mind not being remembered when i die.”

my skin got frozen while reading these few lines : “that is just not possible, you are making a fool of yourself!”

(major LOL for this complete transfer… ok check.)

and then he answers me, his grand father was everything for him. no one will remember him, he wasn’t famous, he wasn’t an artist, he wasn’t an intellectual, he wasn’t wealthy. my french president may have qualified him as “being nothing” but life is less binary. and this man was everything for his grand-son and that matters. make only one life better, thanks to you, make life better before than after you’ve been here. and this way to see life, and death, has totally transformed me.

since then, we have questioned here this notion of success, from inside vs. from outside. and i think this quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson totally captures it. i’ ve read it in a book about psychogenealogy. her founder, the researcher Anne Ancelin Schützenberger, is not a great writer and her book appeared to me so messy, but some bits are truly enlightening for those who are interested in that subject.

i am reading it while working on my movie, the Rivers, that i can’t wait to see take life, but for which i had to stop the editing process. 1 month ago we looked at each other with the editor and said “this is not working”. so i am rewriting it totally. and that is so hard! pffff! i never regret to launch myself in this adventure but what an ordeal. anyway, i shall… succeed!

thousands of kisses!