Ski racing and singing…

There are things I should have known 60 years ago, but it’s never too late to learn them as long as it happens, especiallybefore one’s death. A few days ago, a very old French song jingled in my memory and I wondered if I could find it, somehow, somewhere. After some pointless search, I asked a few of my good friends back in France and one of them directed me straight to the song in question, right on YouTube. 

In the process and totally unbeknownst to me, I also found out that Guy Périllat, a famous member of the French Ski Team during the sixties, who had won the bronze at the 1960 Olympics, won most of the classic downhill races in 1961, was GS world champion in 1966 and was silver medal behind Killy at the 1968 Olympics, had recording some songs on the tracks of his racing success and national notoriety. 

Just after his medal at the 1960 Squaw Valley Games and his following record 1960-1961 season, Périllat fell for a singing career. It was a breve incursion into the pop music scene that was marked by recording an EP in 1961 with Polydor, including the song: "L'amour me brûle" (love’s burning me) with lyrics written by Ralph Bernet (one of Johnny Hallyday’s lyricists), and music by Danyel Gérard another French pop artist. 

That song was highly typical of the early 1960s ("crooner" style). At the time, there was such a "Périllat-mania" in France that record labels sought to capitalize on his image as "ideal son-in-law" and national hero. While his career on the slopes was legendary, his singing career remained a mere curiosity that faded very fast. 

This record can still be found today among vinyl collectors, It’s often sought after more for the champion's cover photo than its musical quality. Had he practiced skiing a little more instead of getting distracted by his jaunt into the show business, he might have beaten Killy! 

Envious or Jealous? (Part Three)

Often Jealousy is confused with Envy. I like to call them “cousins”, as they’re closely related emotions because they both stem from discomfort and insecurity. Yet, they’re distinct, Envy involves desiring what someone else has, while Jealousy involves the fear of losing what we already have to someone else. In fact Envy is the pain we feel when someone else has something we want. 

For instance, I’ve been envious all winter long of the great snow my friends enjoyed in the Alps while we a terrible lack of snow in the North American Rockies. Envy is about desire and comparison, not loss. It can be about talent, beauty, freedom, relationships, lifestyle, opportunities and of course, fantastic skiing! Envy is fundamentally one‑to‑one: we want something someone else possesses. 

On the other hand, as we’ve already discussed, Jealousy is the fear of losing something we already have to someone. Jealousy is about threat, not desire. Envy is “I want what you have” and Jealousy is “I fear losing what I have.” This distinction is ancient, shows up across cultures and languages and suggests the hidden engine moving consumerism..

As a feeling, Envy pulls our attention toward the other person, creates longing, comparison, self‑evaluation and can motivate growth or trigger shame. Jealousy pulls our attention toward some kind of threat, creating vigilance, protectiveness, insecurity, it also can strengthen bonds or create conflict. Both feelings activate different psychological systems. 

Envy means aspiration and comparison, while jealousy is linked to attachments and the resulting threat to them. If you feel envy, the question this brings up is: “What desire in me is being awakened?” Like with Jealousy, Envy becomes a map, not a moral judgment. While both feelings can be constructive if managed well, envy and jealousy are not identical, making envy more likely to be considered a flaw than jealousy. 

Both function as important signals for unfulfilled desires rather than inherent moral failings, but envy is more frequently linked to undesirable, negative and destructive behaviors. I hope my explanation didn’t make you envious and stopped jealousy on its tracks! 

Hello, I’m jealous! (Part Two)

After we’ve seen what jealousy is, we could ask ourselves where does it come from? The first question that crossed my mind was if the feeling of jealousy innate? The answer seems to be YES and deeply so. Across cultures, ages, and even species, jealousy appears in predictable patterns. 

One is evolutionary, as it serves us to protect the traditional family cell and ensure parental investment, as well as maintaining our social rank and preventing any loss of resources. It’s not a moral failing; it’s an ancient alarm system that might misfire in modern life and culture.

Jealousy is also not created equal as some of us individuals feel more jealous than others. This is where it gets interesting. I discovered that jealousy isn’t just about the situation, it’s about how our thinking works and how we feel emotions. Some personal dispositions can amplify jealousy, the ways we get attached. 

For instance if it’s anxiety, we feel the strongest jealousy. If we avoid attachment, it’s suppressed but still present. On the other hand if our attachment is secure, we feel the jealousy but it doesn’t dominate us. The stability of our self-esteem also affects our feelings. When I was younger, my self-esteem was weak and this led me to countless flares of jealousy. 

However when success came and gave me more confidence, I was far less prone to that sentiment. It’s clear that if our identity is tightly tied to a relationship, a social or professional role, a skill or any specific position, so any threat to these domains may trigger jealousy. Some of us are wired to track hierarchy and belonging more acutely than others, and can feel shifts in attention or status like a draft in a room. 

Finally, our brain is learning on the go and picking up patterns, so our past experiences of loss or betrayal teaches our brain that jealousy can be used as a guardrail to make sure that none of these past situations happen again. I would add that if we’ve experienced poverty at some moment in our lives, like it’s been my case, we’ve developed a sense of scarcity. 

So, if we think that love is scarce, opportunities are scarce and attention is scarce, jealousy becomes a default reaction. To conclude, I propose a better way to think about jealousy. Let’s not treat it as a problem, but as data. Jealousy always answers one of these questions: 

• What am I afraid of losing? 
• What part of my identity feels threatened? 
• What scarcity am I perceiving? 
• What story am I telling myself about my worth? 
• What past wound is being reactivated? 

If we can train ourselves to decode these different signals, the jealousy we feel becomes a map rather than a trap. Tomorrow, we’ll talk about Envy, that special cousin of Jealousy...

Hello, I’m jealous! (Part One)

Often, I wonder what triggers the feeling of jealousy? Is it innate and what dispositions makes it stronger with certain individuals? From what I have felt and observed, I’d say that jealousy isn’t random, and it isn’t a flaw either. It’s one of the oldest emotional systems we’ve evolved, signaling us to protect things that we feel essential, like relationships, status, belonging, identity, and security. 

I have experienced enough jealousy through my life to have grown familiar with that pesky monster every time I wasn’t feeling self-secured enough. In researching that feeling, we can understand what jealousy is trying to protect and it becomes far less mysterious. I’ve taken the time to look at that sneaky feeling and what I’ve found is that they’re human situations that will be guaranteed to trigger jealousy.

Almost all cases fall into one of these categories. First, a valued relationship is threatened, whether it is of romantic, familial, or friendly nature. For instance, if someone else gets attention when we feel it should be going to us, or if our partner seems drawn to another person or a friend invests more into someone else. These are classic cases, the jealousy we feel is like a guard dog that watches for what’s attached to us. 

Next there’s a form of jealousy we rarely admit, a threat to our status or our identity. In that situation, a colleague gets praised for something we normally excel at, or someone enters our social circle with a skill we’re known for. Another instance is a co-worker that succeeds in a domain tied to our self-worth. In all these situations our jealousy acts as a protector of what makes our specific identity or strength. 

Another category is a threat to our resources, whether they are emotional, social, or material. For example, someone else gets the job we were hoping for, a sibling receives a larger share of an inheritance or a coworker gets more access to the big boss. All these cases respond to perceived scarcity. Finally, there’s the threat of belonging. 

We’re tribal animals and we don’t want to be excluded. So we get jealous when we’re being left out of plans or of team, when we’re not invited to a party, when we see others bond without us or feel we’re replaced in a working group. This tells us that we’re socially displaced. This pretty much sets the stage for the causes of jealousy and in the next blog, we’ll see how jealousy gets inside us.

Theocracy and nuclear weapons (Part Three)

Just as I see religion, I personally see theocracy as highly irrational and it makes me nervous when such a government is armed with nuclear weapons. Since a theocracy is based on "irrational" beliefs, it becomes the subject of intense philosophical and political debate. 

Now there are people who view religious faith as a valid form of knowledge. Based on analysis from political philosophy and historical examples, theocracy is generally considered to be built on metaphysical, rather than empirical or rational, foundation. 

Mystical belief is considered by some not irrational, but rather "non-rational" or "arational"(like intuitive) because it operates outside the scope of empirical logic and scientific verification, often deemed an experiential, internal, or subjective reality rather than a direct contradiction to objective reality. Talk about semantics and the dog biting its tail! 

Arational sounds irrational or flimsy enough to me! It is argued to be an "arational" experience, something that cannot be validated or refuted with logical evidence. I simply don’t buy that either and I’m not the only one, as many critics argue that organized religion uses mystical beliefs to establish social control, maintain hierarchy, and enforce conformity. 

Religious doctrines are designed to maintain social solidarity or support the power of elites, rather than to reflect objective truth. Further, religious beliefs are instilled at a young age, before critical thinking skills are fully developed, creating a "blind spot" in a person's thinking process. 

There’s also another “glue” called fear (of hell, in particular) and the comfort it provides rather than evidence, making it a "hoax" that keeps people on a "straight and narrow" path. Finally religion is often used to fill knowledge gaps with "God" whenever science does not have a ready answer, an illogical approach to understanding reality. 

While critics cite Israel's non-signatory status to the NPT, possession of nuclear weapons, and demands on Iran as hypocritical, defenders argue that Israel’s security is under threat by a nation that has called for its destruction, making it a matter of survival and not just legal hypocrisy. Yet, Israel’s terrible reputation has been “earned” in almost 8 decades of maltreatment of the Palestinian people. 

I’ll conclude by saying that seeing folks like Bibi and the Ayatollah armed with nukes does not give me any peace of mind. I also know it’s not much better than the two Godless, Trump and Putin!

Theocracy and nuclear weapons (Part Two)

The question of whether a theocracy or a pseudo-theocracy should have access to nuclear weapons is a subject of intense debate among international security experts, theologians, and political scientists. 

The consensus from most international bodies and democratic states is that nuclear proliferation in any non-democratic or highly ideological regime poses significant risks, though some argue that the specific nature of a theocracy introduces unique challenges. 

Israel's policy of "nuclear opacity" (Amimut) is generally tolerated due to its strategic alliance with the West, its lack of membership in the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and perception as a responsible, non-aggressive actor, with of course the exception of its out-of-control current leader Bibi Netanyahu.

Conversely, Iran faces denial of nuclear weapon access because it’s a NPT signatory accused of violating commitments, thus triggering international constraints and fears of regional arms proliferation. 

So when you compare Iran to Israel, the former mistakenly signed the NPT, while Israel hypocritically refused to, amassed an arsenal of nukes and still looks clean before the Judaeo-Christian community that ignores its nuclear status. 

Something is clearly askew with that picture! Tomorrow will dig deeper into the religious excuse and its wild interpretation when circumstances make it necessary…

Theocracy and nuclear weapons (Part One)

The war started by the US and Israel against Iran, begs the question as to whether a theocracy should have access to nuclear weapons? Not a good idea, in my view. This, of course, is a subject of intense debate among international security experts, theologians, and political scientists. But before even debating this, aren’t both Israel and Iran bona fide “theocracies”? 

Since Iran is a Muslim country being judged by Judaeo-Christian cultures, everyone in the West seems to agree that it’s a theocracy. Since the 1979 Revolution, it has operated as an "Islamic Republic" governed by a doctrine known as Vilayat-e faqih (Guardianship of the Jurist), which places ultimate political and legal authority in the hands of a senior Shia cleric known as the Supreme Leader.

On the other end, Western civilization looks the other way when it only sees Israel as a democratic parliamentary republic and not a theocracy. While it defines itself as a "Jewish and Democratic State" and incorporates religious law (Halakha) into personal status matters like marriage and divorce, it lacks a supreme religious ruler and has a democratically elected Knesset. 

 However, it is a subject of debate regarding the influence of the Orthodox Rabbinate on law. So, let’s admit that it’s a little bit theocratic. 

Now, here comes the sticky point. Israel is widely estimated to possess around 100 nuclear warheads, although the estimates range from 80 to over 300. Israel maintains a policy of nuclear ambiguity, neither confirming nor denying its nuclear capabilities. It’s believed to have produced enough plutonium for 100–200 weapons, which can be delivered by aircraft, missiles, and submarines. 

With this in mind, Israel maintains a policy of "nuclear opacity" (neither confirming nor denying its nuclear arsenal) primarily to achieve strategic deterrence without triggering a regional arms race, inviting international sanctions, or violating US non-proliferation laws. This "open secret" allows Israel to deter adversaries while avoiding the political obligations of being an acknowledged nuclear state. 

A really sneaky, dishonest way to handle things in my view. Tomorrow, we’ll continue by taking a special look at Iran, at religion’s relation with weapons of mass destruction and whether both countries should be prevented from having such weapons or not, so please stay tuned...