Thought Bubbles
What pops up, what flows through me.
Anaïs Nin once wrote: “If I hadn’t created my own world, I would have probably died in someone else’s.” She speaks of the profound need to create a world of our own—a space shaped by what stirs us, what resonates deeply within.
But these worlds don’t appear fully formed. They take shape through fleeting, almost unpredictable moments. An image, a word, a scent—and suddenly, bam! These bursts of life, these insight rushes, illuminate a fragment of the everyday and reveal its unexpected meaning.
For a long time, I only captured what felt substantial enough for an article. The rest drifted, dissolved, and reformed in the currents of my thoughts. But in recent weeks, I’ve been writing it all down. Every idea, every intuition.
Today, I’m sharing a few of them—bubbles of thought, raw and unfiltered. No order, no frame—just fragments of reflection, exactly as they came to me.
Prompting: The BS of the Ultimate Guides
Since the release of ChatGPT, the internet has been flooded with a wave of "ultimate prompt guides" promising magic formulas to maximize the capabilities of language models. But in truth, these guides are based on a flawed understanding of what a generative AI truly is.
LLMs are not “answer engines” delivering ready-made solutions but probabilistic systems that generate text based on context and input data. These guides, which claim to hold the ultimate secrets of prompting, miss the point entirely: true mastery of a model like ChatGPT lies in the art of conversation, not in prepackaged formulas.
In short, these "ultimate guides" are mostly marketing fluff. What truly matters is learning to ask the right questions, iterate, and refine based on your needs. Everything else is just noise.
The Weight of Excellence
I bought six Murano glasses, thinking they would be enough. I was wrong. You rarely regret having too much of something rare, but often regret not having enough.
The alternatives in France? Cheaper, but heavy, clumsy. Ironically, it’s the most expensive that turn out to be the lightest.
Expertise is like Murano glass: its value isn’t in the price, but in the ease it brings. Without excellence, everything feels heavier.
Human Abstractions
There are things AI knows. It describes and analyzes them with precision. But all of it remains abstract.
Take passion.
For AI, it’s a pattern—a dynamic it breaks down, a model it can replicate. For us, it’s a storm—a force that sweeps through us, shakes us, overwhelms us.
Or silence.
For AI, it’s an absence—a gap in the flow, an interruption it can measure. For us, it’s often a presence—an inhabited space, rich with intention and tension, where a thousand invisible things reside.
But this boundary isn’t a limitation—it’s a reminder. Where AI sees patterns, we feel worlds.
Let’s nurture them.
The Questions That Shift
My intern asks a lot of questions. Not to get answers, not to start a debate. Just enough to gently shift the perspective of whoever is listening. Questions that don’t seek to know but to nudge.
In psychology, they’re called open-ended questions—designed to spark reflection. In coaching, they’re known as powerful questions—the kind that create a true shift in perspective. In philosophy, they echo maieutics, the art of helping someone bring their own ideas to life.
But I don’t need a specific term for them. I just call them hers—because they wouldn’t exist without her.
The Friend Trying to Tame Their Heart
We all have that friend who seems to live in a future we haven’t caught up to yet. Their latest obsession? Training to achieve a resting heart rate of 50-55 BPM.
Most of us exercise to lose weight, get in shape, or clear our minds. But they’re after something else: a slower heartbeat, controlled heart rate variability, an almost imperceptible equilibrium. Kettlebells, calisthenics, boxer routines—all guided by modern masters like Pavel Tsatsouline and Andrew Huberman.
At first glance, it seems odd. But on reflection, maybe it’s not so crazy. Real luxury isn’t a sculpted body—it’s one that lasts. In those 50-55 beats, there’s a more constant, less fleeting sense of well-being. That friend isn’t crazy. They’re just a few heartbeats ahead of the rest of us.
Human Paradox
In the directory of custom GPTs—those personalized versions of ChatGPT—a strange trend emerges. In the “writing” category, the top five most popular bots fall into two groups: those that generate content using AI and those that, refine that same content to make it more “human.”
In short, we rely on AI to produce text, but its outputs, often marked by repetitive structures and predictable phrasing, betray their artificial origins. To address this, we turn to yet more AI, designed to replicate a “second look”—the human act of revising, refining, and infusing deeper meaning into an initial draft.
Curious, isn’t it? Delegating something that should be intrinsically ours. It’s the path of least resistance—a familiar bias, readily amplified by technology. But here’s the real question: are we truly correcting the machine, or merely addressing the echo of our own absences? In erasing the detours, we may be erasing the paths altogether.
The Watched Watcher
My father passed away at the end of this summer. For weeks, I stayed close to him, for him, unable to write. Sadness consumed me. I thought: I’ve lost my inspiration. How could I ever write again?
But in his final days, I started to write about grief. It wasn’t what I usually wrote, and I doubted my words. Yet they came—simple, clear—as if grief itself had opened a door.
I had always thought I was the one watching over my father. And yet, even in his illness, he was watching over me in his own way. He revealed something truer, something rawer. I didn’t find inspiration again—it found me, through him.
Clothes Don’t Make the Man
On the subway, I notice a guy, scrawny and draped in oversized clothes. Fashion? Please, no. More like a clumsy attempt to disguise a frail frame. Some even believe oversized outfits can hide overly generous curves. But these tricks don’t hide anything—they only reveal more.
And it made me think of AI. Of those who believe they can hide behind it, masking a lack of substance with texts too large for them to carry. But AI doesn’t hide—it amplifies what’s already there. So here’s my advice: let your words fit you, because they’re the ones that truly speak for you.
Two-Wheeled Philosophy
I’ve been riding a kick scooter for 10 years. I think we’ve finally tamed each other.
When I escape with music, it’s always with just one earbud. The sounds around me are essential: to stay alert, to listen, to exist among others.
On rainy days, I avoid white lines and manhole covers. In autumn, I’m wary of fallen leaves. Curbs? Never at an angle. And when all of these obstacles align? I get off.
Much like life: avoiding traps, keeping balance, moving forward despite the slips. With a bit of momentum and plenty of flexibility, everything eventually glides smoothly.
The Space for Answers
Sometimes, we write without fully understanding what we’re putting down on the page. As if certain sentences were a puzzle, with missing pieces that only reveal themselves over time. These words hold subtexts, invisible layers that escape us. Then one day—sometimes years later—we reread them, and suddenly, they speak. Not as strangers, but with a voice we never realized was our own.
Why didn’t we see their meaning back then? Because we weren’t ready. It wasn’t the answer that was missing—it was our ability to hear it.
What if AI were like that? Not a machine for instant answers, but a guide. Not there to explain everything, but to walk alongside us, shedding light when the moment is right.
The best conversations don’t give us answers—they give us the space to find them ourselves.
What Draws Us Away from Life
People often say the opposite of love is hate, while others insist it’s indifference.
But when I think about it, I believe the true opposite of love isn’t hate or indifference—it’s fear. Fear of opening up, of losing yourself in someone else, of surrendering control. Where love opens, connects, and frees, fear shuts down, divides, and holds us captive.
Fear is what draws us away from life itself.
MD