Ideas and Recipes from a Rebellious High-Wire Artist
by Philippe Petit
- Below you can find my highlights
- Skim… then slow down on the paragraphs that catch your interest. Reflection requires pause.
~
Mind and body are melded one to the other, although most schools still insist on scheduling separate classes
It is by entering the road that leads to perfection that I will amaze and inspire myself, then by extension, inspire others.
Patience and tenacity. Patience brings me comfort. I install myself, my respiration stretches, time slows down. Tenacity has a nervous physical vibrancy. I feel its tight grip. Constant tenacity is painful to me and exhausting, and an undeniable force in my work.
body and mind swim in concert. So when I “attack” (here, by electing this term, I choose to feel how aggressive and harsh a first step can be), when I attack a white sheet of Vergé with graphite to render a rigging knot, I become the rope.
A child, I longed to impose myself into the adult’s world. I became famished to understand, to know as much as possible. As a teenager, my refrain was already: “Life is short!” When I was learning by myself, I did not see it as learning, I was … growing; I was … coloring my life. Each time I entered a new field, such as pickpocketing, theater acting, building theater sets, printmaking, discovering bullfighting, it was as if I were visiting a new country. I traveled all over the world. And then I traveled all over the world!
The sudden erasing was an early lesson in humility; the immediate switching to a new project was a delightful taste of something unknown to me: to not lose the impetuosity to create.
My pleasure — as with the ropes upon which, lately, I was attempting to balance — was to journey in the direction of perfection.
“Perfection” had become my idea of “the impossible” but in reverse: a process, not a goal; an accomplice, not an adversary. … the quest for perfection, the impossible.
Today’s education, with its crash courses, its CliffsNotes, its how-to videos, its Internet instant answers and its multitude of shortcuts gives the impression of winning the race against time, but what it really does is spread insidiously the frailties of artificialness. I have the certitude that although the sum of my autodidactic discoveries took a long time to crystallize, I did not lose any time. In fact, I won; the result remains solidly anchored inside me, and it will fuel my creativity for the rest of my life.
In his typical “madman-of-details style,” Philippe methodically began gathering all available books on the subject, doing drawings, constructing models and acquiring antique tools.
That type of spark urging me to embark upon a new project is a common occurrence in my life. For instance, I have compiled a list of my own titles that I could use for future books or articles.
I continue to carry secretly an early-acquired notion that “if 12 people can agree about something, then it is probably not worth doing.”
Another childlike (but not childish) attitude I possess: I rate difficulties by occurrences!
“Has it been done before?” No, it is not an attitude revealing an interest in competition, which is a notion I detest; but, if something has been done before, I instantly trust I can do it. Here, a natural-born reflex usually extends that thought to: “Probably, I can do it even better!”
the act of copying (another notion I detest — to just copy an action — I call that stealing) has to evolve into
When I “personalize,” I feel the breeze of success, because I am suddenly alone embarking on another of my intimate adventures and because the done-before-by-others history has just been erased as if a Private Browser Option had been activated!
(I loathe to hear, “Everything has been used in writing.” “Everything has been done on stage.” Oh, what intellectual laziness it is to think that way!)
Is the task impossible or does it only seem that way? The beauty is: Nobody knows!
how I put together my first performances as a young magician: by looking at what professional entertainers were doing at the time and by making a point of doing exactly the opposite! Costume, music, choreography, even magic moves, apparitions and vanishes, were chosen by me to break the rules of what was expected.
a type of determination that disregards life when taking on a project, or rather, that moves life to the side to give the project center stage on a now immense and emptied plaza.
I make a dream come true via the dual conviction that life is not worth living if I do not dedicate it to the making of the dream and, simultaneously, that I would choose death over not working on making the dream come true!
How? There never was a “how.”
I manage to whisper my first thought (whisper, so the demons won’t hear): “I know it’s impossible. But I know I’ll do it.” At that instant, the towers become “my towers.”
a new thought: “Impossible, yes, so let’s get to work.”
the first step for the artist is always a declaration of total involvement, an acknowledged point of no return. Before, there is the dreaming. The planning. And the painstaking assembly of ideas and prototypes. After that comes construction: setting a cornerstone. The first step is to spring off the diving board. To leave everything behind. To explore. To reinvent. To get lost. To survive. My first steps are performed with a triumphant engagement with absolutely no doubt.
As long as I keep collecting those minuscule atoms of a problem, one at a time, as long as I make progress, as long as I am not stopping to look up at what’s still an enormous mass of insoluble matter hovering over me, I will overcome!
it is now clear to me that cheating the impossible can be done if throughout my life I never leave an action other than victoriously. Giant victories witnessed by all, minuscule victories visible only to one’s own eyes, it does not matter, as long as I conclude whatever I am doing with a victory. As long as I keep collecting those victories, one after the other, like tiny specks of dust.
what animated me throughout my existence and has not changed: a thirst for learning, gifts from observation and the rewards of focused concentration.
“Passion should be the motor of any human endeavor,” I usually answer. Force a kid to climb a tree and you may have created an indelible altitude phobia for the rest of the child’s existence. But allow a kid to play in the park, and if it becomes the child’s idea to climb a tree, that activity will become a fearless pleasure and last forever.
13th-century English philosopher Roger Bacon: “Contemplate the world!” Because if we do not store in our heart a profound reverence for the miracles of nature as well as for the accomplishments of men and for their sometimes kind and illustrious way of thinking
if I am not allotting room for the capacity to be inspired and if the amazing exists, it might pass me by.
Do not establish a doctrine.
Surprise yourself.
Dream in a loud voice.
Invent.
Keep diligent, mysterious and secret.
Have a just and generous heart.
Compassion, yes; but no remorse.
Acquire a thirst for excellence.
And do not forget that the blood of rebellion flows through your veins, that around your soul meanders the river of perfection; above all stay devoted to your art — even if it is only the art of living! — above all remain loyal to it.
Believe marvels exist around you, inside others, within yourself. Go search for them. Gallop through life and without dismounting your horse manage (like a Cossack!) to pick up bits of otherworldliness lying on the path. Feed your imagination that way. That way, shape your destiny.
Reply