Why do I only enjoy things if I can tell someone?
A view, a concert, or a meal. In the middle of the experience, you are already drafting the message and choosing the recipient, and without a witness, the moment feels incomplete. Pascal asked whether we would travel in secret.
An experiment from the seventeenth century
Blaise Pascal observed this tendency in his Pensées. He proposed a thought experiment about a journey that could never be described to another person.
“Curiosity is only vanity. Most frequently we wish to know but to talk. Otherwise we would not take a sea voyage in order never to talk of it, and for the sole pleasure of seeing without hope of ever communicating it.”
— Blaise Pascal, Pensées, section II, fragment 152, translated by W. F. Trotter
Pascal uses the word “vanity,” but the core of his observation is a question: would you still go? He leaves the answer to the reader.
The role of the witness
For many, the desire to tell is not about faking an experience, but about shaping it, because speaking an event aloud gives it a structure (a beginning and an end) and allows someone else to hold the memory.
What remains when no one receives it? Some moments lose almost everything. Others remain intact. Identifying which ones survive without an audience is a way to understand what truly matters.
A listener, not an audience
The need for a witness is different from the desire to be known by many people, which is discussed on this page. It is also distinct from an inability to be alone with one's thoughts. In this case, the missing element is not a distraction, but a witness.
It is worth asking: which actions are taken for the sake of the story, and which would be taken even if they remained secret?
Epimelea is an app built around the existential school. The conversation carries over from one meeting to the next. The archive is encrypted on the device and belongs to the person who wrote it.
About the app: an AI therapist for long-term therapy
This page is about a school of psychotherapy. It is not medical advice and not emergency help. If you are in danger right now, contact your local emergency number, or find a helpline in your country at findahelpline.com.