Action in Uncertainty

1Born to Act

We are born to act.

Michel de Montaigne¹

1.1. It’s hard not to act

This book is devoted to action: what is action, what are its modalities and virtues, its pitfalls and excesses. As Montaigne said so well: “We are born to act.” And as Pascal says, no less pertinently, in a well-known statement², we are incapable of remaining quiet: “I have discovered that all the misfortune of men comes from one thing only, which is not knowing how to remain at rest, in a room.” In the developments on entertainment that follow this quote, Pascal develops the idea that human action is the means they have found to forget the misery of their condition. “They [humans] do not know that it is only the hunt, and not the catch, that they seek.”³ It is indeed quite difficult to remain without a project, without hope and without action. Action often imposes itself in the face of the discomfort of a state or situation. As the experiments on rats have shown, not being able to, even if only to flee from an aggression, generates very great stress⁴. Action is therefore in itself a remedy: “I do not claim any other fruit in acting, than to act, and do not attach to it long suits and proposals, each action is particularly his game: carry if it can!”⁵ In summary, as Pascal said, the hunt counts more than the catch, many hunters will agree, the action has its own virtue.

What is it that drives us to act? The vertigo that seizes a person alone in their room, confronted with their condition and the ...