"Douces Phobies." It would be a great title, in French. These postcards should not be scary. Their therapeutic value depends on a kind of detachment from the fear itself, and the object of fear. A detachment, a distance that does not come from reasoning but appears from inside a sort of phenomenological exploration. So the phobias should have something sweet, or bittersweet, about them.

Then “douces phobies” sounds like “douce folie”: literally “sweet madness” but in fact more of a harmless distraction. “Douces phobies” also sounds like “douse phobies.” Because there are twelve videos, like twelve months, a year of phobias that may start again with the New Year, or be just a parenthesis.

Unfortunately, “Douces phobies” doesn't work in English.

It is my wife who finds this title, involuntarily. We are talking, a summer afternoon, in Burgundy, sitting at the restaurant in the marketplace. We speak French, of course. I tell her I am working on these twelve videos, “Douze phobies.” She understands “Douces phobies,” which I find is a beautiful title, and perfectly adequate to the project. Except it is French.

Of course, my wife hates the videos themselves. She thinks they are narcissistic and shallow. Which is true but, as I tell her, if you want to take up and divert a new medium, you should first use and imitate its existing forms of expression. Then you may try and subvert them, if you can. That is what is called “entryism” in politics. The videos that you find on the Internet are incredibly narcissistic: look at Youtube, or Facebook. In fact, I believe this narcissism is called for by the medium itself. The Internet represents a desynchronization of the Self, and Narcissism is a response to this desynchronization. It is a way to reaffirm ourselves, and build up against the threat of breaking up. It is like phobia, really, which is usually considered a form of protection against a wider and more profound anguish. Instead of letting the threat invade our whole environment, we unconsciously crystalize the fear onto a peculiar object, which should be easier to deal with.

Besides – I go on to my wife – you know that these videos are not really about myself. It is just fiction, an imaginary exploration of phobias. There is no phenomenology but the imaginary. Or, if there is, it is very poor, for we have limited experience, and hardly any way to describe it except using the whole apparatus of imaginary literature. I am not really bored in Burgundy. I spend all my time cycling and taking pictures of the marketplace. How could I be bored? I can cope with dogs (most of them)...

But it does not work with my wife. She believes philosophy ought to be austere, rigorous and perfectly rational. And then we are back on Pascal's plank.

The irony is, she is called Pascale.