Laurent de Sutter, philosopher. “Disappointment hits twice. we are disappointed first in what we find intolerable, then in ourselves.”

The sentence falls, cruel ax. “I am disappointed.” About a movie, a restaurant, a summer place that everyone praises or, worse, a friend or companion who has made a mistake in my eyes. And who hesitates under the reproach, “you disappointed me”, slapping it like a slap. However, the philosopher Laurent de Suter, a professor at the Vrije Universiteit de Bruxelles in Brussels, suggests in a short influential essay: Disappointing is fun (Ed. PUF), twist the idea of ​​disappointment until it becomes a source of powerful joy.

Engine of life

“I was hoping you’d do the dishes and you didn’t.” Why does it hurt, really? “Disappointment is particularly shameful in that it delivers a double blow. we are disappointed first in what we find scandalous or intolerable, then in ourselves when our expectations are annulled. When we disappoint, this doubling is also at work: we are first put on a pedestal without asking our opinion, only to fall off it. We failed, but more than that, we are not where we should be,” admits Laurent de Suter.

Since ancient Greece, History has established this pairing of hopes and disappointments as the compass and driving force of our lives. “This dance of expectations and disappointments envelops and pushes us like a hand on our back. But what is the basis? Frustration is more of a police problem than it seems. an unspoken rule defines our behavior, defines the place we can occupy, distinguishes the normal from the rest. And what about spontaneity? “Our frustrations go beyond the individual and place him in a social space that is itself parameterized by notions of order.”

Free from expectations

Away from personal impulses, they therefore participate in the organization of the world, the definition of roles, responsibilities and prohibitions. Laurent de Suter invites us to question under what unwritten rule a good friend or worthy companion would go shopping, get more news, or cancel birthday plans. “Let us beware of what people would have us do without knowing why. What madness drives us, you ask me something, I feel obliged. I urge you not to wish, first to complain, then to accept, but to know why. It is actually the basic reflex of the mind. And maybe a drive to something else. On the one hand, the opportunity to escape from oppressive expectations and establish a different relationship with the world, then. A world that we would look at in the face as it is, without going through the sieve of what we would like it to be. “Waiting, by definition, feeds in itself, for itself, from a closed space and leads to the end. To avoid it is to reconnect with the outside, with meeting places and beginnings, with the unknown, which forces us to go beyond our limits and discover new paths.

Healthy letting go

Perhaps it is in love today that this tension plays out to its fullest. What if expectations and fear of disappointment were paralyzing during sexual decline? “Despite the increase in possibilities, part of the modern love condition is ultimately abstract. And when it comes to meeting through the body, confusion ensues. Because we have lost the habit of it, but also because of the structure of expectation that maintains the idea that eventually it will happen. We believe we are searching, but desire actually arises in the place of not knowing, where fantasy collides with appearance.’ An imperfect and unexpected appearance that requires deep surrender of hopes, but also of the desire to master everything. Dizzy but auspicious to miss. “I don’t know if it’s comfortable, but it’s probably more breathable. Between expectations and disappointments, we drown in an anxiety-inducing relationship with the future. But I think we are suffocating for the wrong reasons. And that we all deserve to breathe a little.”