I’d like to see your dark side.

Your jealousy. Your selfishness. Your addictions. The gambling, the sex, the things you do when nobody's watching. Especially the parts of yourself you've spent years trying to get rid of.

Pretending it doesn't exist will make me trust you less, and here's why. Let me introduce you to three men you probably already know:

Dostoevsky wrote some of the most profound explorations of human psychology ever put on paper. Caravaggio gave the world some of the most extraordinary religious paintings in history. Picasso revolutionized modern art and changed how generations of artists saw the world.

Now, let's look at the men.

Dostoevsky was a compulsive gambler. He accumulated debts, lost money he could scarcely afford to lose, and repeatedly found himself at the mercy of impulses he understood so brilliantly in his writing. Caravaggio was violent, frequently in trouble with the law, and killed a man. Picasso could be cruel and controlling toward the women closest to him.

Interesting, isn't it?

We can spend hours admiring what these men created, knowing perfectly well what they were capable of doing. We can hold their brilliance and their ugliness in the same mind.

But when we look at ourselves, suddenly every imperfection becomes something to correct before we're allowed to begin. You want to write, but first you need more discipline. You want to love, but first you need to heal. You want to build something extraordinary, but first you need to become someone worthy of doing it.

Apparently, the people who changed the world were allowed to be human. You, however, have decided you need to become something else.

You talk about becoming a better person as though somewhere, hidden beneath your insecurities, bad habits, and questionable decisions, there exists a finished human being waiting to be uncovered.

Someone confident but never arrogant. Ambitious but never selfish. A person who knows exactly what he wants, never contradicts himself, and somehow manages to make the right decision every time.

Good luck becoming him.

Consider how easily you contradict your own beliefs: You understand the importance of honesty and still lie to avoid an uncomfortable conversation. You believe in generosity and feel resentment when someone asks too much of you. You can love someone and occasionally wish they'd leave you the f*ck alone.

Come to think of it, it's rather fitting that the first printed issue of Les Essais is about cheating. Of all the things I could have chosen to examine.

Because you've decided these contradictions shouldn't exist, you begin trying to eliminate them. So you turn the entire experience of being human into a correction exercise.

Now, every insecurity becomes a problem. Every undesirable thought becomes evidence of something unresolved.

There's something almost comical about a species that invented the concept of perfection and then became miserable trying to achieve it. Especially when the people you admire most rarely came close.

So, I have a little invitation for you.

Consider this email a confessional booth. Hit reply and tell me something ugly about yourself. Your jealousy. Your greed. Your selfishness. Something you've spent years pretending isn't there.

Because you can't master a part of yourself you refuse to acknowledge. And who knows what you might become once you stop wasting so much energy hiding it.

Show me a little darkness.

I might actually start to like you.

Stay curious,

Benoit