Translator: Koko Enanga Lyonga Reviewer: Denise RQ
In 2011, I had a rather unpleasant experience,
on the eve of Valentine's day, I found myself in the hospital.
And the diagnosis was rather serious for me;
a panic attack.
I thought I was dying,
but no, it was a panic attack, following a digital burn out.
I was spending so much time online,
so connected, discussing with other people
that I finally cracked up.
Since I am a writer, I said to myself I need to stop for six months,
and I will try to keep my distance and reflect.
I switched off.
I picked up my old habits; for instance, reading books.
When you're connected, well me,
I saw so much to the extent that I was unable to read books.
I started them, never finished them.
I suddenly, found time to read.
I swiftly thought of a book which I bought 2 or 3 years ago,
which I hadn't read so,
I said to myself, I am sure that there's an answer in this book.
I remembered that it was about the stories of writing,
invented over the centuries.
Unable to find this book. I searched everywhere.
Time passed, then I invited Narvik to the house,
a renowned French blogger, a specialist in media studies,
to find out what was changing in the media world, in general.
Narvik arrived at my house,
went to slept in a hut which we have in the garden,
and the following morning, he came for breakfast with a white book,
same cover as the one which I was looking for.
He had spent the night reading.
And he told me that the author, Clarisse Arendt-Smith,
wrote a theory
in which mankind had successively created three writings:
the first, is the writing of languages in 3,600 in Babylon
the second, in 620 BC, the arithmetic writing;
the third, is quite recent,
tt is Alan Turing's, in the 30s,
who discovered how to code and program computers.
Narvik, who read the full text over the night, told me,
"It's extraordinary!
When we add writing to our human possibilities,
it broadens his field of consciousness, we spread what we see.
That's what I was trying to explain:
being connected enables us to see the world differently,
it broadens our field of consciousness in a direction,
but at the same time, when we practice only one digital writing,
we forget the other writings and lose certain fields of view.
My aim was not to lose any but to try to widen it.
In the morning, when Narvik told me that, I was truly thrilled.
In fact, I felt a profound happiness
because he had found the book which I had been looking for;
moreover, the contents of this book
would enable me to progress on my way, on my quest.
That's serendipity, when it occurs in our life.
There's no point in making a great discovery, like penicillin;
a little discovery like that is enough to delight us.
In order to define serendipity, it is usually said to be
looking for something which you can't find,
or looking for something we want but in an unexpected manner.
A little like what happened to me.
Serendipity has two levels, an unexpected event in our lives,
which in a way provides us with an answer, which will make us progress.
These two criteria mean that serendipity gives us considerable pleasure.
The psychologist Isabelle Filliozat says that we are happy on two condition:
the first is feeling connected to others;
in a group which isn't necessarily large we feel connected, and we are not alone.
The second is to progress on as self-given quest.
Serendipity depends on a moment of connection
- with Narvik, with friends -
and two: the content of the book helps me progress on my quest.
When serendipity occurs, it generally, fulfills these two dimensions,
thus it gives us pleasure.
When we know this, we say to ourselves, "Well, I will wait
for serendipity to fall on me."
I believe that if we begin to unravel serendipity,
we'll start getting ideas to make it occur more often in our lives.
There is a dimension which is that of you connecting with others.
In order to do that, one has to come out of oneself, to move.
It is possible in the physical world,
and in the digital world on the social networks.
The only important criterion is to listen to others.
If we don't want to hear what's happening
on the network, be it physical or not, it's always the same.
So, one must be attentive.
The third very important criterion is that everyone on the network
must be able to express, even the smallest voices.
A very tiny voice could be saying something significant
which will awaken something in us.
It is the three freedoms: the liberty of movement,
the freedom of listening, and the freedom of expression.
We haven't progressed much;
we are already quite free in our Western countries.
In order to develop serendipity you need to be even to be freer.
I'll try to show you how we are all capable
of becoming much freer and quite simply.
For instance, when you create a link on a social network,
on the imaginary social network map, which interconnects all of us,
we add connections just like that.
And the more we add the connections, the more the map becomes complex.
You imagine a Michelin map:
many roads, and we are constantly adding new ones.
This map represents a territory. It is the society.
The more complicated the map becomes,
the more complicated society becomes, in fact.
An interaction which occurs at one place on the map
will be able to spread further, on the map.
We have an enormous power:
when we create links, we complicate the world.
put yourselves in the polices' shoes
with their cameras, their warning signs.
New roads are constantly being constructed everywhere.
How do you control what happens on it?
If they place a camera,
everyone will take the nearby road; they will be unable to control.
If the map and the territory become continuously complex,
the people who should be controlling what's going on in this territory,
face increasing trouble.
In 1977, the cyberneticist, Valentin Turchin,
demonstrated a mathematical theorem which explained that in a system,
the element of supervision, the control of the system
should be as complex as the most complex part of the system.
The police require more methods, more cameras.
The controlling force can't have as many methods
as the entire network; it is already lost:
the organization which controls cannot control.
A new theorem appears:
the more I create links, the more I complicate it;
the more I complicate, the freer I am.
It's not winning in advance.
At the moment, in all the democratic countries,
all the governments are enacting laws
to limit our possibilities of interconnecting with one another.
In France, you've all heard of Hadopi.
Today, we're discussing laws under which, before publishing on the Internet,
an authority should have validated validated the content.
Before publishing any nonsense on Facebook,
someone should validate it.
Billions of us post on Facebook;
billion policemen would be required to verify everything, it's impossible.
As in all stories there are two opposing camps.
On one hand, citizens who are naturally for complexity,
even if they don't notice that it leads to freedom.
On the other hand, people who control who want to reduce this complexity.
Their obsession is to control.
Today, we are in a state of crisis,
we need serendipity in order to interconnect.
So, it's very good, we are very powerful.
You should remember that we could all connect, unite.
the more we unite, the better it would be;
but beware, watch out for burn-out.
It is in doing this that I exploded.
So, beware of burn-out, however, continue to unite.
(Applause)