I recently found myself at a happy hour where the arrival of the little boy of a couple of friends with his bicycle helmet decorated with constellations brought back to the guests their memories of the eclipse. Everyone was unanimous on the fact that it was not so much the small crescent of light, magnificent as it was, which had deeply marked people’s minds that day, but rather seeing everyone’s reactions to this historic event. extremely rare…
Two very strong feelings arose.
The first: that it had done us a great deal of good to experience this event together in a park and to be collectively amazed rather than collectively anxious.
The second: that this eclipse had revealed to us our own smallness, this famous feeling of being an unimportant grain of sand in the universe. And surprisingly, that too had felt good.
Because we have to admit, everyone wants to be the Sun and no one the grain of sand.
It would be far too painful to admit that there are so few of us. And yet, we can find some comfort there.
And I see myself, part of a greater whole, rather than being at the center of this “whole”.
However, we live in a society that has been telling us the complete opposite for a long time. Even in the most mundane details, we must be made to feel exceptional. A credit card tells us that we belong to the category of people who have “infinite privilege”, it can even give us access to a lounge at the airport for supposedly privileged people. From there, we can watch, with free soft drinks and coffee in hand, as other travelers wait in armchairs in an “ordinary” section without free soft bars and coffee in hand… And here we are, against a backdrop of cheap treats, more “important” than them.
I was very surprised to discover that we even created the VVIP section in certain concerts. Yes, now you can be a “Very Very Important Person”, because being just a VIP was no longer enough.
Because the humility before which nature places us is imposed on us. We can’t do anything about it, we endure it in spite of ourselves.
But if more generally, this moment of humility in which the eclipse plunged us on April 8 allowed us to reflect on the possibility of extending it more widely to our life, to our way of being and of act socially?
What if, in a more interior reflection, humility was found in realizing that we don’t know everything? To find ourselves less important. To understand that we are not able to comment on everything. That our opinion does not necessarily always deserve a platform. That there are reflections that belong to the intimate and that it is very good like that. Dany Laferrière wrote in his Diary of a Writer in Pajamas: “We should reactivate this delicious thing which consists of thinking without feeling obliged to attach an opinion to the end of our thoughts. We keep nodding, and it makes an infuriating noise. »
I recently came across a very interesting article by psychologist Daryl Van Tongeren – whose specialty is humility – on The Conversation1 website. He talks about what he calls “intellectual humility,” which he describes as “it’s about controlling your ego so you can present your ideas in a modest and respectful way. It’s about presenting your beliefs in a way that isn’t defensive and admitting you’re wrong when you are. This involves showing that you care more about learning and preserving relationships than being “right” or demonstrating intellectual superiority. »
Yes, seeing that there is an elegance in nuance, an elegance in knowing how to withdraw and an elegance in a certain modesty, perhaps. Change things in the shadows, but make a real difference. Let the light be an unexpected consequence and not a “have-you-seen-me” driver.
Daryl Van Tongeren states that when we approach things “with curiosity and humility, they become opportunities to learn and progress” and that this exercise is difficult to do when we evolve in a society that “rewards the fact of having reason and punishes errors” and that is indeed part of the problem… “To progress, you have to admit that you don’t know” he adds.
Before April 8, I would never have imagined that observing the Sun disappear for a few moments would offer me an unusual exercise in modesty. All the trivialities having vanished in this short period of time: no more VIPs or pseudoprivileges, no more certainties or useless opinions. All that remained was this great bond of wonder and this desire to return to less “self” and more “together”.
Whether we are majestic like the Sun or discreet like a grain of sand, I tell myself that the key is perhaps to humbly try to accept our condition with its limits, but above all our greatness with its failings.
And to also accept, from time to time, to eclipse oneself.
