“The moment I’ve been expecting for so long has finally arrived, the birth of my son. It’s an event I’ve always dreamt of. My child will do whatever he wants in his life, that’s absolutely clear. I will support him, I will love him in everything he does, but I won’t be the one to tell him to become a banker or a capitalist! So I’m already trying to raise his awareness regarding the environment, regarding nature.

We have this little ritual everyday where we go for a walk in the forest and we have such wonderful moments. It’s a time we spend just the two of us. Most of the time it soothes him and he falls asleep in my arms. So I sit at the feet of a tree, and from time to time we see a fox run by, or a chamois or a deer. Being able to show him trees rather than buildings, that’s kind of what fills me with emotion these days.

I wasn’t raised with this awareness, it came with time. I arrived in Switzerland thinking “trees are boring, they’re useless!”. Then I lived many years in le Locle and I met extraordinary people over there who showed me a different way of seeing things. People who are a kind of outsiders, people who don’t have much money, who live very well and who are very happy. This awareness awakened in me slowly. And today I’m very happy to see things differently, to break from this formatting and this programming that we all have from our education at school, about work, about money, etc.

And it’s now, at this moment, that I have a son! That’s why it fills me with emotion. I am fortunate to be able to give him an education with a different awareness. Without being a loony, that’s for sure. I’m not into religion… we just need a little more… spirituality, let’s say. Without speaking about God, or religion… But just a little more spirituality, being a little more human. It’s very difficult to be a human being these days. We’ve been screwing things up for 10’000 years, so we’ll take 10’000 years to repair them, but it starts now!”

(Vieille ville | translated from French)