There's a hair in my pie...

There's a hair in my pie, and I don't think it's mine.

I wonder how it got there, this poor forlorn hair;
Whether it longs for its home, and those that it left behind;
And whether its owner has enough left to spare;
As these cold winter months start to pass...

I wonder if my hair gets misplaced too,
And to whom it presents itself;
What lives they might live and what they might make,
Of the poor forlorn hair that they find.

I wonder if they will think of me,
And how I feel the cold...

Mostly however, I stare at my pie,
And hope that there aren't any more...

Halloween...

Samhain was a festival marking the transition between the longer, brighter days of Summer and the darker, colder nights of winter. Associated with it is the thought that the walls between this world and the next are at their thinnest. It was a time for taking stock, and preparing for what is ahead.

Halloween seems mostly to be an excuse to either eat too much chocolate or drink too much booze (depending on age/preference).

I'm voting in favour of abandoning Halloween in favour of adopting the Mexican Day of the Dead; a holiday that somehow manages to combine Samhain's sense of spirituality, Halloween's tendency towards boozey excess and, to top it off, an excellent visual aesthetic to boot. What more could anyone want?

Sunday morning...

I ventured to briefly leave the house a minute ago, only to find myself walking past what appeared to be a condom full of excrement (which, for full effect, had of course been stepped in by someone too).

The only semi-reasonable explanation of this I can come up with is that somebody might have been walking their dog, only to realise that they were unequipped to deal with a canine call of nature. Desperately searching for a solution, they fished in their pocket and produced something which - at least conceivably - could possibly have served to contain the doggy doings.

When push came to shove, however, (if you'll pardon the unpleasant imagery this might conjure up) they discovered that their makeshift rubber shitsack was not really up to the job, leaving it splayed on the pavement behind them, attempting to suppress their gag reflex and trying not to think about the unfortunate soul who would inevitably step in to the mess they had left behind.

Needless to say I do not intend to leave the house again today.

Time

To state the obivous, time is a paradox.

It is both something inner - the way in which we experience the world as a stream of events and consciousness - and something we are within - the "cosmic" passage of time that encompasses past, future and present.

As such it is both something personal - my experience of the ever receding present - and something shared - that by which we can be said to "share" a present.

And it is both something finite - something we never have enough of; our time is constantly "running out" - and something infinite - time stretches out as far behind and and far ahead of our own lives as it is possible to consider from the perspective or our own finitude, making it part of the very limit of how we can understand being and creation.

All I really know is that I'm struggling to keep up with it. Perhaps if I'm allowed to work on my thesis at somewhere close to the speed of light, then things will be ok? Although I'm not sure what effect that will have on the word count.

Deep Thought

"I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you've never actually known what the question is." - Deep Thought on the answer to the ultimate question...

Thinkings today, but I am trying to avoid doing philosophy. So instead I will ramble on a blog. Which is the same but somehow even more pretentious.

The world is conditioned by our understanding, and our understanding by our experience of the world. As the ways in which we, across space and time, have understood the world have and do differ, it stands to reason that the worlds have differed too. The concepts by which we understand the world are not, ultimately, separable from our experiences; they draw from and feed in to one another. There is no way we can step out of the stream of experience to get a "God's eye view" of things.

But we want to say that, at the same time, it has been the same world understood by different people across time. How then, do we unify the plurality? How do we find identity among difference?

It seems, at first necessary to posit some world independent of the languages and methods we use to describe and understand it.

But this could be missing the point. The world isn't represented to us via experience, it is present. There is not necessarily a gap to be bridged.

The reason we might think there is could be because, although we cannot step outside of experience to get a "God's eye view", we can step back enough to ask a question as if from that point of view.

We are, for better or worse, self-conscious. We are aware of ourselves as ourselves. We are also aware of the world as the world. This seems something fairly uniquely human. It's not clear cut. Animals are conscious. A dog is aware of the world. It's consciousness is directed towards the world; the dog chases the cat. But it is only in language that this relationship becomes transitive; the dog does not, as far as we know, think of the cat as the object of his consciousness, and he the subject. He just gets on with chasing the cat.

Many animals, it should be said, do occasionally display behaviour more sophisticated than "chasing", which may complicate matters a little. I'm not going to claim to be an authority on animal consciousness, I only want to make the point is that there is something fairly unusual about humans, as far as animal life on this planet goes.

Things like language, and anything by which we "describe" or manipulate the world in some way or another, mediate between us and the world, allowing us to bring our own experience of the world to consciousness. It is because of this mediation, however, that we become alienated from our immediate belonging to the world. We experience the world both prereflectively as part of the world and reflectively, aware of ourselves as conscious within the world. We fall from grace, and become aware of ourselves as naked in the Garden of Eden.

I'm getting too close to philosophising for comfort, so I'll leave a lot unsaid. It probably comes down to some sort of sense of resolution, in terms of both the will and an end point. But perhaps what unites the plurality of worlds is that they are all attempts to answer a question that no one quite understands. Coming to terms with ourselves as of part of the world even through our alienation from the world. Ways of Being-in-the-World.

Which I suppose makes Eve the first philosopher. Good on her.

"When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves." - Genesis 3:6-7

Fake Country Song...

Earlier today, I decided that "My Glass is Half Full (Of You)" would be a great name for a country song. This afternoon I felt that I had a moral compulsion to write this song...

They say that this world can be trying

That it’s all just thieving and lying

My brother sees this, and he’s at a loose end

He says he that he just can’t comprehend

How it is that I smile all day through

It’s ‘cause my glass is half full of you

Yeah, my dog is dead

Got no roof o’er my head,

But my glass is half full of you

They say that it’s hard to be a woman

Giving all your love to just one man

And every single day, you say that I ain’t got a clue

Why it is that you’re feeling quite so blue

But darling, what else can I do

When my glass is half full of you?

Yeah, my dog is dead

Got no roof o’er my head,

But my glass is half full of you

May the gods of song forgive me...

Sweet Dreams...

I tend to listen to music or the radio as I am attempting to go to sleep. I know that, on one level, this is counter intuitive. That it probably stops me from getting to sleep. That I should really just close my eyes and let sleep steal over me. And I do this whenever I can. It's a good feeling.

The problem is that, most of the time, it doesn't work like this. My brain starts shouting at me instead. Frequently, just when I feel like I might be near dropping off, it will throw some long forgotten memory my way, to remind me of my own inadequacies. Something deeply embarrassing that has happened to me during my life. Or something unpleasant or painful. Like some little homunculus pointing out mental scars and shouting "Remember this one! Wow! You were a complete dick!" And it will often continue as long as it can, undermining my confidence and waiting for my sanity and self-esteem to collapse entirely.

Last night was an odd one. It began with a memory from when I was very young. I was with my parents, who were themselves doing a scavenger hunt organised by a pub in Bickleigh (the village where I went to primary school). I was probably somewhere between five and eight years old, I guess. One of the items on the scavenger hunt list was, perhaps oddly, a snail. My parents had given me the snail to look after, as I was fascinated by creepy crawlies of all kinds when I was a wee 'un. I remember, when we got back to the pub, I had the snail on my hand. It was just crawling about, like snails do. I showed it to another boy (of whom I have forgotten the name), the son of some of my parents friends. It's fair to say that he wasn't quite such a fan of invertebrates as I was. I know this because, upon seeing my snail friend, he slammed his hand down upon it, crushing it. So I now had a dead snail smeared across my hand. Which was deeply upsetting as, in our short time together, I had developed an attachment to the slimy little thing. And nobody likes having snail innards on them anyway. So I cried like the tiny child I was, and ran back to my parents.

No idea why that memory has stuck with me so, or why it should return in the dead of night like it did. But, regardless, it is not a feeling you want to lie there reliving as you try to sleep. The feelings of sadness, shock, powerlessness, guilt and inadequacy. So I decided to listen to an episode of Yes Minister on iPlayer. At which point I fell to sleep.

What Will You Do?

Song. Ultra-twee as a form of self-defense against the world...

What did you do this morning?
What did you do when you woke up?
What did you do this afternoon in the sunshine?

What did you do when he told you?
What did you do when you found out?
What did you do, did you ask her name?

Don't lose sight of the big picture,
Don't lose sight of how things could be,
Don't lose sight of who you are,
'Cause you're something else,

Something different,
Something good.

What did you do come the evening?
What did you do when you got home?
Did you still make tea for two tonight?

What did you do come the night time?
What did you do under starlight?
What did you do, did you sleep alone tonight?

And don't lose sight of the hard times,
Every time he made you cry.
And don't lose sight of the good times,
Every time he made you smile.

'Cause I know,
'Cause I know you're strong.

What will you do?
What will you do?
What will you do?

...

To believe that an idea is more important than your own life can be noble, stupid or some combination of the two. But I find it hard to imagine a situation in which believing that an idea is more important than somebody else's life is ever anything better than arrogance and inhumanity.

Thinking 'Bout History

The reality is that we are never alone. It is not necessary that other people who differ materially from us are there, because we always bring with us and always bear in us a lot of people. - Maurice Halbwachs, La mémoire collective


It sometimes makes me sad to think that so much of that which has passed remains mute because nobody deemed it important enough to preserve. Mostly this occurs on the level of the individual. The ripples just die out, unless we've really made a splash. I realise that it is important that things are forgotten, and that some things are more important to remember than others. The things that are most well documented are those that effect or implicate the largest number of people. As we scale down, the effort that goes into documenting groups and collectives also scales down, and different groups have different ways of preserving the past, many of which will not be understood by outsiders. The things in life that cut to the core of our collective identity (family, society and humanity) are the things we need to hold on to, so that we remember who we are, and don't forget that we're in this together. And our sense of self as individuals is grounded upon the identity of those with whom we belong, whether we were born into that group or found it later on. In that regard, they are more important than the life of any individual, and it is understandable that we document them most thoroughly.

Maybe the Internet is changing things. Preserving everything at the expense of understanding why anything is all that important in the first place. Which is a worrying thought. Only time will tell, I suppose. They probably said the same thing about the printing press.

Forgetting is important. But it would be a shame if we were to trivialise the forgotten individual. They were important too, even if only to a much smaller and more exclusive group (we can keep scaling down until we reach the lives lived by two individuals together, or so the Romantic in me believes). So even if we can't remember them, and that peculiar to them which is lost, I think I should probably do my best to remember what they represent and try to appreciate that aspect of my own life. Whilst I'm still splashing about.

Dream

I'd say you broke my heart
But I'm just too literal minded
And I'm still here after all.
And most of what I know
Comes from listening to the radio
So what's a boy to do?

I do bad things to you,
But its ok, you like it.
I do bad things to you,
But its ok, if you like it.

It's all just noise without you,
But it'll make sense come the dawn
And I'd kill right now for a quiet life.
A cigarette in a darkened room,
Dream of a girl who speaks right good,,
So what's a boy to do?

I do bad things to you,
But its ok, you like it.
I do bad things to you,
But its ok, you like it,
Don't you?

Could this be the dream? Could we wake up soon?
A dream that seemed so real, like they always do.
Never wake me up, if there's a chance that this is true.
Never wake me up, oh what's a boy to do?

G, Em, D, D6
G, D, D6

Dignity and Pride

This morning I watched a programme called Choosing To Die.

It is a documentary fronted by Terry Pratchett, a well-publicised supporter of assisted suicide, detailing the procedures and decisions faced by people who choose to end their own lives. Pratchett, a sufferer of Alzheimer's disease, has also long insisted that when the time comes that he can no longer be an author, and no longer communicate, that he wants to die.

There are a lot of issues that this programme touches upon. It is definitely worth seeing, although I would caution that it is by no means easy to watch. The matter that I find myself thinking about most for the moment, however, is the notion of "dignity".

The arguments for the legalisation of suicide often center upon the right to "die with dignity". When somebody is suffering from an incurable disease, and one that gradually eats away at the ability of the sufferer to live their life and that will ultimately prove fatal, it is argued that it should be a human right to be able to choose when to end that life without fear of prosecution for those who may have been involved in assisting that choice. It is an argument I wholeheartedly endorse; it is insane to believe that a loving wife or husband should face conviction for allowing the person they love most to die in the way that they want.

But something that worried me when watching the documentary is whether the matter at hand was truly one of dignity, or one of pride. And there is a deeply important difference.

Dignity, according to the OED, is "The quality of being worthy or honourable; worthiness, worth, nobleness, excellence." By comparison, pride is perhaps more complex. On the one hand it is defined as "A consciousness of what befits, is due to, or is worthy of oneself or one's position; self-respect; self-esteem, esp. of a legitimate or healthy kind or degree." But on the other hand it can also mean "A high, esp. an excessively high, opinion of one's own worth or importance which gives rise to a feeling or attitude of superiority over others; inordinate self-esteem."

One definition of pride is definitely more overtly positive than the other, but what is perhaps most marked is that both rely heavily on self-perception. It is about what is right for oneself, and one's own self opinion. This stands in contrast to dignity, which is a quality that presumably we can ascribe to others. We might say that someone has dignity, even if they are unaware of it. But to say that someone is proud implies a certain state of mind in those of whom we speak.

Watching the documentary, it seemed that those who had chosen to die had often done so because they could not face losing the life they know. They couldn't face living life as an invalid, with the knowledge that it would only get worse and more painful from thereon in. I don't at all want to undermine this decision. It is not one based purely on "pride" or "vanity". The prospect of losing the ability to live one's life as one chooses, and to a certain extent one's identity in the process, is a genuinely terrifying one, and the decision to die rather than face this prospect will never be one taken lightly, nor one that anyone involved will take lightly.

But it was apparent that the loved ones of the people choosing to die in this film were, understandably, conflicted. They wanted to support the person they loved, but they didn't want to lose them. I'm trying to imagine it from the other direction; how determined does one have to be to die in order to leave behind someone you love, knowing that they will be devastated? Perhaps you think that it is preferable to having those loved ones see you die slowly and painfully? I've always felt that, even at the worst of times, we have a responsibility towards those whom our death would impact upon. It is hard to tell where the responsibility we have to ourselves sits in relation to this when faced with the degenerative disease and the decision to take one's own life.

That seems to be a contributing factor in Pratchett's way of thinking about it; he claimed that his wife wants to be able to nurse him through his disease, but that he understands better than she does what is involved in Alzheimer's disease. But it that your decision to make? Maybe it is, but at the same time there seems to a certain degree to be an element of not wanting to be seen to lose control, to not let the ones you love see you gradually stop being yourself. This was most evident when Pratchett discussed his situation with a doctor.

One has to be in a sound state of mind to be able to consent to assisted suicide. The paradox of this is that one can only choose to kill oneself before before the stage of one's disease at which would rule this out, which is often the very stage that motivates one's decision. Pratchett would prefer to die than to know that he has lost himself to his disease, before he loses his words. But to choose to die he would need to still be in possession of himself, and his ability to communicate. To choose to die, he needs to decide to do so before he is ready to die. It is the fear of what will inevitably be lost that motivates the decision to die by assisted suicide, rather than the loss itself.

It is perhaps in this regard that I feel that pride enters in to it. Palliative care for those suffering from a fatal disease is designed to protect the dignity of the patient as much as is humanly possible. If this doesn't suffice, if the thought of being nursed through to one's end is too much to face, then I suspect that this is a deeply subjective issue far more to do with "consciousness of what befits, is due to, or is worthy of oneself" than it is to do with anything else. Not that this is entirely distinct from dignity. A sense of self-worth is inherent to dignity. But is it more valuable than life itself?

I don't know. I've never been faced with such a decision. Nor have I been the primary carer for anyone who has. Those members of my family that I have seen die a gradual death marked by mental and physical decline have all been loved and cared for deeply throughout this period. Even then, it has been painful to see it happen. So I think I can understand why someone would make that decision. But the line between the self-worth inherent to dignity and pride is at best a fuzzy one. One of the definite dangers associated with assisted suicide is which side of this line any given individual falls on.

According to the programme, 21% of the people who pass through Dignitas, the assisted suicide clinic in Switzerland, choose to do so simply because they have become "weary of life". I find it hard to imagine justifying this statistic, but then I don't know the details behind these cases. I also worry that, despite Dignitas being a non-profit organisation, their services are expensive are their finances reputedly lacking transparency.

Nothing in the programme has changed my mind in principle about assisted suicide. I still think that, faced with a gradual but inevitable and painful death, it should be the right of any individual to decide when and how they die. But it is impossible to deny that as it stands the system doesn't work. People shouldn't have to fly to Switzerland to die on an industrial estate. And I worry that by placing this responsibility solely and uniquely in the hands of one organisation we perhaps make it too easy to die, that it plays in to the grey area that exists between dignity and pride. And I'm not sure this in itself is dignified.

Following up...

I am nothing if not consistent. But given my tendency to whine on this blog, I am going to attempt to be positive about the matters I have brought up on here in the last month or so:

Work: Still disenchanted, to say the least. Still tired and stressed. But I'm going to try and give teaching a go. It'll be an experience if nothing else. Experiences are good, yes? And I'm trying to learn to relax more. I don't get anything done anyway if I'm tearing my hair out about university stuff, so it makes more sense to take care of myself first, and hope that trickles down into my work.

Love: Ok, positivity might be difficult here. Am still convinced I am probably better off alone. Although it is not as if I have been making a lot of effort to disprove that hypothesis. I have friends though. I don't appreciate them as much as I should do, probably. Need to concentrate on that.

Future: Still have no idea what I'm going to do with my life. But I'm fairly sure that is not a bad thing. Sure, there'll be struggle and uncertainty. But I think that might not be an entirely bad thing.

Not A Philosopher

Or I feel less and less like one, anyway. And am really starting to question the role philosophy has to play in my life.

Before I go any further, I should preface this by noting that I am aware that this is largely the angst of a sheltered and privileged middle class white kid. I am in relatively decent health. As far as I know, none of the handful of people I really care about are at risk of dying imminently. I have a roof over my head and food and water. There are people with much bigger problems than me. But, over the last few weeks, thinking about university, work and the world of academia has been causing me to suffer panic attacks with alarming regularity, so I at least need to vent a little. So please forgive me.

I had my annual review meeting today. The point which provoked particular anxiety for me was the question about opportunities for teaching experience. Thus far, I haven't done any teaching. Which is fine with me. But if I am even vaguely considering a life in academia I need to do some soon.

The question remains then, am I considering a life in academia? Right now, the answer would have to be no. I don't want to be involved in university life any more. I don't want to be involved in education. I don't particularly want anything to do with philosophy.

Why, then, am I doing a philosophy PhD? Until about six months ago, the answer would have unreservedly been that philosophy is something I care deeply about and I have been given an amazing opportunity. And that is still the answer I give if questioned. But more and more of late the answer I should have been giving is that I have put a huge amount of time and effort in to it so far, and I am far too stubborn to let that go to waste.

It's not that I don't still care about philosophy. I found myself reading Levinas the other week and the intelligence and beauty of his thought and writing truly moved me. But that simply highlighted to me how little I feel an affinity for what I am doing at the moment. I can't see why it would matter. I'm not even sure to what extent I believe what I am arguing.

It's not even that I can't see myself having a career as a "philosopher". Just simply that I cannot possibly take that path right now. I need time away from that life. I've been in full time education for two decades now. There is no way I could possibly go from that to teaching philosophy as a profession. I need a few years to myself first. To try other things. To see a few parts of life which don't involve educational establishments, even if that is likely to be painful, unsatisfying and boring. Who knows, it might even not be.

The problem is that if I have any intention of working in academia at any point, I need to get things right now. I need to try publishing stuff at some point. But, more importantly, I need to get some experience teaching and I don't think I am likely to get that opportunity once I am done at UEA. But I really don't want to. I don't care enough about teaching to do it properly. I don't feel like I can spare the time or effort. I don't think I would be a good teacher. I don't think I would enjoy teaching, or the responsibility involved. More than anything, I suspect that it would be unfair on those who theoretically would be getting taught by me. I'm aware that having a disillusioned fool overseeing first year seminars is unlikely to ruin too many lives, but it still seems stupid to put myself in that position if it isn't necessary.

But I need to decide. Pretty much now. I either put myself forward and take on a responsibility that I don't want, risking my ability to work properly and my sanity in the process. Or I don't and risk shutting off that particular avenue in my life. Which right now feels like it would be a weight off my shoulders, but I suspect that in the long run I would consider a mistake.

I'm aware that this is the kind of thing I should have bought up during my review meeting. But I'm not good at talking about things like this. The words and thoughts are too heavy. They got caught up, trip over one another and stop making sense when I try to articulate them. They need writing down. Maybe that is what I need to do; put myself forward tentatively, but mention my reservations. But it doesn't exactly feel as though that is how these things should be done. It feels like I should be making this decision myself. I'll have to at some point.

But I don't know. This evening I am simply going to sit and eat jaffa cakes whilst listening to Joni Mitchell. Tomorrow I will take it easy, rewatching Russian Ark to decide what place, if any, it has in my thesis. And then on Friday I will decide whether to send an e-mail. I may regret sending it, I may regret not sending it. I'll let you know for sure in thirty years, I suppose.

In the meantime, advice would be appreciated. Or simply thoughts on the matter. Or furious castigation telling me to get over myself and get a sense of perspective. Anything would be better than nothing, if you've taken the time to read this far anyway. Thanks.

Perspective...

I'm going to keep this brief, as I can't even be bothered to listen to myself at the moment.

Have experienced an interesting range of emotions this evening. Started off quite chipper, moved on to having a mild panic attack, and have ended up feeling profoundly sad (as if there was any other kind).

Find myself thinking I need a holiday, but then I remember that I'm a philosopher and the idea of a philosopher needing a holiday is liable to provoke scornful laughter in anyone who has a real job.

Ultimately though I realise that I am just one of millions of tiny, absurd and self-obsessed individuals stumbling about confusedly in this world. I just haven't quite decided whether this is something I should consider crushing or comforting.

Tomorrow, however, is another day. I'll work it out then.

Confession...

I am here to make a confession. Not of guilt, but in a rather old fashioned sense. The Latin word in the Bible from which 'confession', in both the Catholic and Augustinian senses, is 'confiteri'. Psalm 32:5 in particular seems important in this respect:

"I acknowledge my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid."

What interests me is the idea of not hiding. God will know your sins, so the point in confession is not to inform God, but just to be honest with oneself in front of God. Now, I don't believe in God, so that isn't really an option. But I still think there is a great virtue in being honest with oneself. So it is in this sense that I confess.

The truth is, I'm lonely. I've been fairly consistently single for almost three years now. What I miss most is waking up next to someone. Waking up alone can leave me feeling unutterably sad, which, needless to say, is not a wonderful way to start your day.

However, the question arises as to what the relationship between my loneliness and my sadness is. I suspect that, rather than being sad because I am lonely, I am lonely because I am sad. I have a melancholic temperament at the best of times, but I don't think this equates to being sad. For the most part, I am relatively content, I think. Even when I am happy, I'd still say I am melancholic. And when I am happy, I'm not lonely. In fact, I think I'm somewhat prone to being a bit of a loner when I am happy. Of course I enjoy seeing my friends when I'm happy, but I rarely feel that need to be around other people.

Of course, it is distinctly possible that the loneliness does cause my unhappiness, and that the loneliness simply comes and goes of its own accord. But I'm inclined to believe that feeling lonely is symptomatic of a wider frame of mind. It's the same frame of mind that makes me stare into the distance, considering the virtues of starting a new life somewhere else. It's just a desire for change, change in which I can be someone else.

The distinction is an important one, as this kind of loneliness would be a selfish one. To desire romance as a salve for an aching heart is just another form of self-medication, and one in which we have the potential to hurt others. When we are unhappy, we often lack self-confidence, and it is natural enough to look to others for reassurance. But when we do this we run the risk of bringing negativity into their lives, of draining something from them. Unfortunately, I speak from experience on this matter. It's not something I hugely wish to experience again...

And it is often the case that what we desire is an idea of what someone can do for us, or an ideal of what romance should represent. Giacomo Leopardi's poem 'To His Lady' is a beautiful example of this; a man lamenting that his lover can never live up to the Platonic form of femininity with which he is truly in love.

I suspect, oddly, that loneliness is not a good reason to go looking for love. Maybe I'm kidding myself. Maybe I'm just trying to rationalise my clear inability to find love. Justify not trying. I certainly haven't been proactive of late, in this regard. It's not that I don't occasionally see someone I find attractive, I just don't seem to be able to translate this into any kind of motivation to talk to said attractive person. And when I occasionally force myself to do such things, I tend to lose interest rapidly. All of which lends credence to the theory that I'm not really looking for companionship, but simply a remedy to ennui.

And so I confess my sins. I am going to try and overcome my loneliness and concentrate on being a better person. To look after myself better than I do. To find the confidence in both my life and my work so that I can be at peace with myself. Of course I will never be free of melancholy and sadness. I wouldn't want to be; sadness is part of the human condition, and helps us empathise with those around us. But hopefully I can achieve a state of mind in which I am, for the most part, content. And, in this state of mind, maybe I'll find myself capable of engaging with another human being in a manner characterised by respect, compassion and love.

Aristotle claimed that, in order to love others, it is necessary to love ourselves as well. I have to admit, I've occasionally wondered whether the reverse may not also be true; that we must love others in order to love ourselves. In truth, there is probably something to both of these maxims. This, for me, is because we are never alone; our lives are always intertwined with the lives of others. Who we are is necessarily related to who we live alongside. As such, how we perceive and behave towards others necessarily effects how we perceive and behave towards ourselves. It is a circular relationship. The key is in learning to enter this circle in the right spirit. My task for now is to cultivate that spirit.

Talking to Squirrels

After having spent most of this morning hiding from the grey skies outside and trying to play the intro from A Message to You, Rudy on the harmonica, I decided to try and make myself useful and do a few things around the house. Unfortunately, this also started me thinking (as many things do). Specifically, about how useful I might be. A brief approximation of my skill set follows:

• Intelligent, in a bookish sort of way
• Can be quite resourceful, when needs be
• Happy outdoors and in the company of small animals
  
• A decent vocabulary
  
• Basic ability with a number of musical instruments
• Relative physical fitness (if the point of comparison is Chris Moyles)
• Ability to bake rather good bread
• Fondness, if not aptitude, for handicrafts
• Capable of getting up (quite) early in the morning
• Good listener
  
• Fairly disease resistant
  
• Soft hair & decent beard

I like to think that all of these things have an intrinsic value of some sort or another, but I've been struggling to think of quite how I'd market them and myself as "useful" in any significant way. There aren't a huge number of jobs that call for such talents. The only one I could think of was that of Twee Woodsman. Essentially this would be someone who spends their days talking to squirrels and fashioning jewellery out of acorns. Unfortunately I don't think there are many career openings of this kind around at the moment.

Do let me know if you hear of anything though, dear reader. In the meantime I'm going to do the washing up (a skill which may well feature heavily in my future working life).

Baking

I've taken up baking relatively recently. I really enjoy it.

I can't entirely remember why I started. I've been finding myself increasingly craft oriented for quite some time. Never was a hugely creative person growing up. Or I can't remember being. But as you get more interested in art and music, you want to start creating yourself. In the last couple of years I've definitely tried to embrace that. I've started playing music more, and have tried to dabble in various other creative activities. It's fun to make things, and to use your hands for something. Baking certainly works for me on that level.

I tend to find myself drawn to creative people too, including a number of people who are good bakers or cooks. Not people who do such things professionally, but people who enjoy it and have a talent for it. One friend in particular is a very good baker, and I enjoyed hearing her talk about baking. One occasion in particular, where she spoke about making brownies and improvising based on what she had in her kitchen, stands out as something that made me think; "I want to do that."

There was also a TV programme called The Great British Bake-Off to which I found myself somewhat addicted. I really loved how passionate these people were about their baking, and how much it mattered to them. I can't remember if I'd started baking before I saw the programme, but even if I had I'd say it must have encouraged me.

For the most part so far baking has been something I enjoyed doing, something relaxing and satisfying and something I could share with my friends. But, in the past few days I've found myself thinking about it differently.

I think this was triggered by an e-mail my mum sent me. I'd previously e-mailed her with a picture of some bread I had baked. A little visual proof of my activities. Her reply included this:

"Your bread looks delicious, nanny would have been proud of you she loved making her own bread. I remember when I was little and there was a bread shortage (I can't remember why, maybe a baker's strike) loads of people in the village asked her to make them some and the smell of fresh bread seemed to fill the house for days. My favourite was a fadge which was round and not too deep."

I'm sure my mother did not intend to induce any particularly profound reflection in me, but it did a little bit. I was really touched by the idea that my nan would have been proud. I've never been very good at family. I don't dislike any of them, but I certainly don't make as much effort as I should to stay in touch. I very rarely saw my nan over the last decade of her life, and even when I did I can't say I made much of an effort to engage with her. So, even if it comes too late, I'm happy to think that we share in a common love of baking. I think I'm going to try and find some of her recipes (I've already made an apple cake of her devising, which is delicious).

I'm also rather touched by my mum's brief story of her memories of baking. It occurs to me that baking is something to which a lot of memories must find themselves attached. Sense memory is a powerful thing, and smells in particular are very good for evoking them. And baking is, among other things, an olfactory delight. Hopefully baking memories are mostly good ones; brownies and discord don't go well together. It'd be nice to think that someone might one day come to associate the smell of baking bread with a happy memory involving me.

Not that I'm really sure what all this thinking is going to achieve. Here's just to hoping I keep making bread.

Eden

I lost my faith
Some time ago
Scattered by
An ill-thought word

And if I remember
What you said
I'll heed your call
And find a way

I'll find a way

Through this candor
And through the blame
My sunny heart
Will shine again

Eden will grow
In seven days
I'll take you there
When I find a way

I'll find a way

We only love
What we believe
But over stolen glances
We'll find a way
And in those stolen moments
We'll find a way

Love and Sociology

Hello there.

Philosophy is often rather draining for me. I just seem to struggle to understand how people are thinking when they write what they do. The other day, for example, I was reading something about the affective dimension of conscience; the way in which our conscience calls out to us via the emotions, and how the relationship between self and other is mediated by our emotional existence. But the writer in question decided to focus on the emotion of shame. Shame may be an important part of our lives, and our conscience. But I just couldn't get my head around why someone would choose to make it the defining characteristic of our moral involvement with those around us, when surely love and compassion are at least as important? It left me feeling rather alienated.

But more recently I have been reading the work of a Spanish sociologist called José Ortega y Gasset. He's a rather charming and intelligent writer. He has a lot of good ideas too (although he seems to have predicted that the English would be responsible for the disappearance of the handshake as a form of salutation, which as of yet hasn't transpired to the best of my knowledge). But what I enjoy most about reading his book, Man and People, is that he has a much more romantic soul than the majority of academic writers. The following passage, for example:

"There is no more superlatively human relation that that... between the man and the woman who love each other... This man is in love with this irreplaceable, incomparable, unique woman... Now, what the two lovers do most is to talk to each other... the love of lovers, which lives in looks, which lives in caresses, more than all lives in conversation, in an endless dialogue. Love is talkative, warbling; love is eloquent, and if anyone is silent in love, it is because he cannot help it, because he is abnormally taciturn... love is the attempt to exchange two solitudes, to mingle two secret inwardnesses - an attempt that, if it succeeded, would be like two streams mingling their waters, or two flames fusing into one."

Now, leaving aside the heteronormativity of this statement, I'm not even sure I agree with it. Silence seems a much more natural thing around someone you love than with anyone else. Perhaps he simply means that love cannot stay silent forever. Or that love calls out to be spoken. Even if this was the case, sometimes silence can be the greatest expression of the nobility of love (or it can be if you're Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, at least). I get the feeling that this isn't what he means though. I suspect that Ortega means that love requires and is based upon communication, and the desire to communicate. Which is true, but it overlooks how intimate silence can be; an intimacy of a sort that can only ever emerge when words are put to one side for a while. But, despite this, I take great comfort from the fact that this all exists, especially in an academic context.

Maybe all I need to do to find my place is move to Spain (half a century ago). Or maybe Ortega felt as out of place as I do now. Either way, I find the above rather beautiful, and all the more poetic for being philosophy (of a sort) as well as poetry.

All The Same

You choke on your thoughts
As you chain smoke cigarettes
Trying hard to forget
How he made you feel that way
Oh, boys are all the same
And maybe I am too

But honey, don't fret
I'll be there for you
The world's not such a lonely place
Or it doesn't have to be

And you would always laugh
At all those bitter jokes
A broken heart can be a funny thing
So maybe you see something we don't
But we'll crack a smile for you
And just be ready for the fall

So honey, don't fret
I'll be there for you
The world's not such a lonely place
Or it doesn't have to be

And if I may be so bold
All that glitters isn't always gold
He's telling lies you never told
So just remember that you deserve more
C'mon darling get involved
I promise that we'll beat them all

Daydreams

Have been spending a lot of time daydreaming lately. Mostly about my own future. Am reaching a junction in my life where I will have to make a fairly big decision. Or what feels like one anyway. So instead of confront that I prefer to fantasise.

The most common situation I dream of is the idea of having my own little farm. It'd be, preferably, a nice old stone building. I wouldn't be farming as a profession or anything. It'd just be a piece of land where I can grow my own food and grain. Maybe keep a few animals. Just enough to mean I could live off the land.

Maybe there'd be a bit of excess. Enough that I could perhaps sell a bit of veg. Would be able to use the money I make to buy a few essentials. Maybe everything I'd need so I could do plenty of baking. I might even be able to sell a bit of what I bake too.

I think that it'd be on a piece of land near Norwich, as Norwich feels like home for me right now. It'd be near enough that I could walk or cycle in (I'd have to get a lift in when I was bringing my produce in to sell at the farmer's market, of course). I'd come in a few times a week. Catch up with people I know. Maybe gatecrash the philosophy society at UEA, if my intellectual needs demand such things. Would be able to keep up with all the wonderful music and art that Norwich has to offer too.

I think, in the ideal version of my daydream, I'd have had some capital when I decided to set up my farm. Then, maybe, after I've settled into my rural lifestyle, I'd have enough money left over that I would be able to build a little recording studio. I'd be able to use it to noodle around in, recording silly little songs. I'd invite my friends and other musicians I admire to come stay on the farm and use the studio for free. Maybe I'd even be able to finance it all by renting it out now and then.

I'd be there, in the place I call home, with my animals and my land and my music and my thoughts. My friends would be nearby. And I'd feel content. Tranquil.

Occasionally, in my daydreams, there is someone there with me. I don't really know who, but someone. Someone to share my home, my land and my life with. Although at the moment that possibility seems the most remote of all, as I'm a bit of a mess. Maybe once I'm on my farm, at peace with myself, then it'll seem more real.

Until then I'll just dream.