Hector Finds Time. Francois Lelord

to get women to forget his age and his white hair.

      ‘When I was between forty and fifty,’ said old François, ‘I appealed to young women who had unresolved issues with their fathers.’

      ‘And now?’ said Hector.

      ‘I still do,’ said old François. ‘They just have to have had an elderly father. Or else a complicated relationship with their grandfather. Of course, there are fewer of those.’

      Since old François seemed to be in quite good shape, Hector asked him if this was the secret to his eternal youth.

      ‘No,’ said old François. ‘Of course, every time a love affair begins, I suddenly feel very young. But every time it ends – obviously, there always comes a time when they finally see me for what I am: an old bloke on medication – then I feel much older …’

      Hector wanted to ask, ‘So why carry on?’ Of course, he didn’t say that. But old François guessed what he was thinking.

      ‘I’d like to achieve inner peace,’ said old François. ‘Or think about nothing but my grandchildren. Or have faith, of course. But that grace hasn’t been bestowed on me. So now I read philosophy.’

      And he showed Hector an enormous library filled with books. Hector recognised some authors’ names, like Aristotle, Seneca, Epictetus, St Augustine, Pascal, Heidegger, Bergson, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein and quite a few others. (You can copy these down if you like so you won’t make any spelling mistakes.)

      ‘And does it help?’ asked Hector.

      ‘It passes the time!’ old François said, laughing. ‘If you like, I’ll write a few summaries for you … well, my interpretation of them, anyway.’

      Hector thought this was a very good idea, because just the thought of reading all those books himself was making him feel a bit tired, and he was sure that old François would have some interesting things to say about philosophers. But, even so, there were some things he wanted to know right away.

      ‘What questions do philosophers generally think about?’

      ‘First of all, they try to define what time is. And it’s not easy, because you can’t see time and you can’t touch it. At the same time, you can’t get away from it. “What is time? If no one asks me, I know; if you ask me, I do not know.” That’s St Augustine.’

      ‘How very true,’ said Hector.

      ‘And Pascal, a philosopher who also invented the first mechanical calculator, said that it’s useless to define time, since everyone understands it, and if we try to define it we just end up going round and round in circles.’

      ‘I think I’d agree with that,’ said Hector.

      ‘But, even so, there is a definition I like … “Time is the number of movement with respect to before and after.” That’s Aristotle.’

      ‘Sorry, what?’ said Hector.

      He was beginning to find philosophy a bit complicated.

      ‘No, really, it’s very simple. You just need to define “number”. In fact, Aristotle makes a distinction between what is measuring time, the “numberer” if you will, like the seconds your watch measures (which are all the same) and the thing that’s being measured, what happens to you in your life, and Aristotle calls that the “numbered” … the seconds of your life. You’d agree that the seconds on your watch, the numberer, are all the same. One second is always the same as the next. But when it comes to the numbered, the seconds of your life – one second of happiness, one second of unhappiness, one second of boredom – they’re never the same …’

      Just then, the telephone on the desk rang. It was his secretary.

      ‘Blast,’ said old François, ‘I’ve left a patient waiting in the waiting room!’

      When he was leaving old François’s office, Hector had several new ideas. He quickly took out his notebook to jot down:

       Time Exercise No. 6: Write down everything that makes you feel younger. Then write down everything that makes you feel older.

      Hector thought to himself that for old François the answer to both questions was the same: love. Then he also remembered what he’d said about faith: ‘That grace hasn’t been bestowed on me.’ It was strange. Usually, it was the good Lord who bestowed grace. So, it was as if old François thought there was a God who hadn’t given him the grace to believe in Him!

       Time Exercise No. 7: If you don’t believe in the good Lord, imagine you do. If you do believe in Him, imagine you no longer believe. Note how this affects your view of time going by.

      Then Hector said to himself that, even if philosophers had trouble defining time, that shouldn’t stop others trying, because even if you didn’t manage it, it made you think about things.

       Time Exercise No. 8: Play a game with some friends.

       Try to find a definition of time. First prize: a watch.

      Hector knew that all these little exercises revolved around one question: is it better to fight against time, to slow it down by trying to act as if you were still young, to act as if time wasn’t passing, or rather accept that it is passing, that you can’t do anything about it, and that you’d be better off thinking about something else? Or a little of everything all at once? Is it better to live as if you were going to live for ever, or to think that you might die tomorrow, or, at any rate, in the not too distant future?

      More and more, Hector felt that if he could find answers to these questions, it would help a lot of people, almost as much as anti-ageing cream and supplements of other supplements.

      As always when he’d begun to puzzle over something without finding a solution, Hector had the same impulse: to go on a journey.

      That’s all very well, said Hector to himself, but where do I start?

       HECTOR AND THE OLD MONK

      THE next day, in his office, Hector picked up his newspaper to read in peace, because one of his patients had cancelled their session. (When you’re a psychiatrist and one of your patients cancels a session, it’s a bit like when you’re at school and one of your teachers is ill: you get a free period.)

      Suddenly, he jumped. What was that picture he’d just seen on the front page of the newspaper? The old monk laughing with his orange robe over his shoulder! Hector was very happy: if there was a story about the old monk on the front page with a photo of him laughing, then he must still be alive! Then he read the story.

      The old monk had disappeared, and everyone was arguing.

      People from different countries all over the world were accusing China of having made him disappear, because the old monk had already had problems in the past with the people who ruled China. He didn’t think like them. As a result, he’d spent quite a long time in rather cold prisons in order to learn how to think in the right way, which is to say, in exactly the same way as the people who ruled China at that time. But, since he hadn’t succeeded (he hadn’t tried very hard), they’d kept him locked up for many years. But all that was a long time ago and, anyway, China had changed since then, and the important people in China these days said that if the old monk had disappeared they had nothing to do with it. The other countries said that it was China’s fault, and perhaps they had everything to do with it! This had started a big row between all the countries in the world: important people said unkind things to each other in big meetings with microphones, and it was quite funny to look at the picture of the old monk laughing as if he’d just played a great trick on everyone. Of course, straight away, Hector thought of only one thing: finding the old monk. First of all, because he was worried. He wanted to know what had happened to him … perhaps the old monk needed some help. And