Delirium matutinalis

So it is clear that it takes very little to overhaul a man’s internal clock, his virtuous life and well guarded propriety when heat, booze and holiday are applied rigorously. I am absolutely convinced that the moral fabric of the whole society is a rather unsubstantial thing in the face of trials such as buffets and 50 cent pints. There is a salutary lesson to be derived from all this: the virtue and civility we had taken for granted is in fact as ephemeral as our allegiance to a GP. When his opening hours unexpectedly change, we fly to the next one. In my case the concoction mention above only needed an Anglican vicar and mayhem was guaranteed.

Two socially accepted pieces of advice seem to be totally lost on me. Firstly, never mix booze. Secodly, don’t talk about religion and politics. Both featured heavily last night and the result is a headache of momentous proportions combined with that nasty nagging feeling that you may have slagged off someone’s deepest held beliefs and values.

So if for a paragon of self restraint all this can happen after a few beers, gins and glasses of perfectly acceptable house red, what will become of Britain with its yobs and young alcoholics once they turn 18 and partake in the fora of a civilised society. I predict a riot.

Heat under the skin

Despite the forewarnings, forebemoaned moans and forebodings, all is superb in our little paradisical corner in the sun. Being of a rather translucent complexion and wholly unused to such bliss in the middle of the winter, I don’t quite know what to do with myself. Thankfully, I haven’t had to. Organising various festivities, the hotel brought a snake charmer in yesterday. Funny, I thought to myself, as I sent realise there were snakes indigineous to these isles. I fear it may have been as typical for the region as are White haired men in shorts, socks and sandals. But hey, when in Rome….

Through modern Medicine, witchcraft and engineering te beer is very cold indeed. I plan to return amathyst coloured, with a gum and a gently receded hairline: apparently it’s de rigour. Most of all, however, I plan to return with my relax-o-metre fully charged and up for whatever my brand new job requires of me. It’s a wonderful feeling, moving on to something you’ve been looking forward to, but being torn away from the hamster wheel temporarily into the African sun that shines aloft. Yes, aloft.

In this slow, newly decreased tempo where even my blood pressure seems to have gone down mysteriously, I’m spending hours deciding where to have dinner. Gordon Ramsay’s (not TM’ed) was meaty. Was was the Spanish place last night. A small, cheap pub with iced beer brought relief too and a small Finnish pub looking over the sea was full of consolation. Relieved and consoled, more beer beckons. What would I without the cold nectar of Olympus? Sober up and realise the absolute lack of any intellectual incentives? Saints preserve us.

Nothing human is foreign to me

Having now spent long enough at my resort to be able to comment on the psychological effects it may or may not be having on it’s guests, I have been making some preliminary notes on the Mathematician, who is both bankrolling the operation as well as providing unspeakably inappropriate entertainment.

Leaving aside the shameless (presumably French) geriatrics who bare all, I am happy to say the horarium of boozing, over-eating and baking in the Sun is religiously observed by all alike. I nearly slipped into writing something along the lines of regardless of class or colour, but the clientele is perhaps one of the most homogenous assemblages I’ve ever had the pleasure of sharing a hotel with: lobster-red and common as muck. Nothing to be sniffed at, however, as the hours of frivolity are a most welcome departure from work, rain and darkness of London.

I will now return back to the pool, but will undoutedly pen something suitably appropriate about the Mathematician’s lapses (for they are many) or my own observations in this melting pot of human flesh. It’s very hot indeed, but that’s why we’re here. Over and out.

Pleasures, not only for the senses

Taken aback by an unfounded and misguided attack on my person by the Dancer earlier on, I was drawn to contemplate the dictum about working hard, and playing quite hard too: ultimately the dichotomy between work and leisure does little more leg work for someone deep in thought about topic than delineating the hours of the day you’re paid to ramble through spreadsheets, prepare for meeting, shout at people in an accusatory way for not having finished said spreadsheets. Ask anyone running out of the office at 5.01pm on a Friday to extrapolate on the juxtaposition, and the dust they left behind in shooting past you serves as proof enough that freedom is attractive and labouring under the yoke of serfdom is not.

I thought it only fair to think of someone eminently sensible, an authority in the human life and remind myself what Aristotle’s views are on the utility of leisure, its place in a flourishing life. I go to Aristotle, rather than the intellectualist (in a non-judgemental way, mind) Plato or the overly virtuous medievalists,  because I was always most struck by his insight. Writing to his son, the Philosopher (as Thomas et al. call him) rattles the basics of our modern study of ethics, corporate and private, and touches on the topic of leisure, but also discusses pleasure. A somewhat nastier streak in Greek philosophy is shown in the pre-Protestant Puritans who inhabited the bit between the Aegean and the Ionian Seas and renounced sensory pleasure and innately evil. Their knee jerk reaction couldn’t have been far removed from the social outcasts thrown into the New World from England and the Continent, and the thinking – if not appealing – is strangely attractive. Pleasure surely takes away from the life of the mind, the internal (and supernal) life, and therefore in pulling us back down into the world that suffers from constant flux, prevents us from projecting our minds heavenward, where they ought to be constantly directed.

Aristotle’s sage reply is: stuff that. Humans aren’t merely intellectual beings, despite the intellect being the highest faculty at our disposal. He would agree, I insist, that the rational life that Plato praises is not falsely lauded, but to reduce our activity purely to mental effort is to do the concept of eudaimonia (let’s just refer to a flourishing life for ease) grave injustice. This is why the occasional holiday to Alicante should be celebrated, not lacerated with classists commentary.

Equally, not all pleasure is worthwhile. Some ought to be foregone for higher pleasures, and Aristotle makes it perfectly clear that the idea of pleasure does not end in the sensory experiences, but are proper to the whole human being not just the lower faculties. The pleasure from good food and drink have intrinsic worth, but the pleasure of being able to lead the state or instruct the ignorant gives out a higher pleasure when successfully completed. If fantastically interested, Book X of Ethics speaks about this ad nauseam, but also makes the point that these pleasures – all good, some more worthwhile – can be in competition with each other.

I think there’s a step that Aristotle perhaps didn’t see pertinent to his reflection on pleasure, but that should be taken, especially in the context of being maligned for having poor taste in holiday destinations. The psychological function of a holiday is to remove yourself from the humdrum, daily existence. It serves as an opportunity to read a book you’d otherwise leave untouched, or go mountain climbing that you’d otherwise struggle to do in central London (although reliable sources tell me there’s a great place somewhere in North London – more of this later). The reset button effect that you experience when you take a sip of your first holiday gin and tonic, or when you throw your suitcase into the corner of the hotel room and head for lunch is not to be undermined. Whether consciously stressed or not, the way our minds work is so overwhelmingly complicated that pressing reset does not only release some of the tension carried during daily life, but also might just allow for the different pieces of the jigsaw to appear in a new order where it makes more sense, giving rise to a meaningful new experience, new vantage point or even solving some question about the direction of your life you would rather avoid on the morning tube. So let’s pack up and head for the sun – but don’t pack Aristotle unless your weekday reading consists solely of Dan Brown and Danielle Steele.

Fiscal prudence and the guy that wields the stick

Living the reality of the credit crunch on a daily basis, I am today wondering whether or not it’s been such a curse on us after all. No one seems to have been driven into debt prison because their Amex bill wasn’t paid. Few around me have lost their jobs and fewer yet seem to fear for losing theirs. Perhaps I work in a corner of the financial world that’s doing relatively well compared with the riskiest of jobs. Perhaps I look at things from a very isolated ivory tower, but be that as it may I am ready to applaud the clever minds at the Conservative HQ who have caught on to the fact that what Britain wants is someone to offer a common sacrifice, to perform the rites of ablutions and send the sins of the community as a whole into the desert along with the ribbons that tie the scapegoats horns.

All the world’s a stage – sure enough, but what catharsis can we gain by being told of yet more eye-catching iniatives and eye-watering excuses for why things aren’t getting any better? It might be that there is an absolute limit which the government sponsored systems of education, healthcare and infrastructure can attain. Schools can only become so good, despite how much money one throws at them under the current model. Healthcare’s extra pennies don’t seem to be adding any real value, but the life blood of the nation – our hard earned tax monies - is being bled into the coffers of managers who manage other managers. Or identify management needs. Or need further management.

Judging by the reactions that people are having to the Conservative conferece this week, with special reference to George Osborne’s self-immolation seems as surprising as it does heart-felt. Are we sick and tired of being lied to, and an admission of the realities of financial stricture are direly needed, or have our mimetic desires have come to a complex breaking point where the necessary sacrifice is craved for by rich and poor alike?

The civilising effects of trains

Train travel has always been close to my heart, and as many have heard me rant about the languid journeys to Edinburgh with a good book and a bottle of something pleasant I am hardly writing with the zeal of the convert – but zeal nevertheless. A few times now I’ve stayed in out of central places for a night and taken a commuting train into central London: what bliss it has been.

The ease of train travel compared with the sticky, smelly, crowded and unpleasant tubes is indescribable. The air conditioned coaches ensure that the quiet, bump-free ride to the heart of London not only happens in a timely fashion, but also with silent dignity. Unravelling your morning spreadsheet will not transfix your fellow commuters’ retinas to the plexi-glass dividers but happens with the facility of an expert cook turning an omelette on a well-oiled frying pan.

This morning, listening to a spot of Bach’s orchestral works, I arrived in London Bridge on time, composed and most importantly without malodourous side effects of commuting. I was best pleased.

There’s a private indulgence attached to sitting on the train, especially for a protracted period, when you have time for yourself. Picking up the book that felt too heavy after a day’s work feels less of a challenge and more like pampering. Self-help shelves in bookshops – wholly objectionable and worthy of every condemnation – are full of advice on how to concentrate on making me happy. Listen mates, if you friggin’ can’t sort your lives out any other way, how about advance booking a one day return to Scotland for a Friday and take a copy of Seneca’s Moralia with ya.

 

Metamorphoses

Argus necatur

Change is a weird and wonderful thing. Necessary though painful, moving from the familiar to the new seems to be pretty darn central to the way we manage our dreams and prospects, how we grow and become the person we want to be. Many of us build their lives around securing an unchanging role for us to play, trying to tame the ocean in constant flux. A worthwhile task, you might say, especially considering that  building a home, a family is no longer the exercise it used to be during the nomadic eras of our ancestors. The agricultural advice of Horace would have us settle and perfect with patience the plot that we’ve been given, but how many of us considers themselves as suburbican farmers? The city life requires constant movement, adaptability and a hunger for getting ahead in life.

It is with characteristic retinence that I have now decided to move away from my precious home in Notting Hill to a new and more exciting (and painful?) existence in another rather more central location. After 7 years of stability & careful perfecting of the plot of land by nourishing relationship with neighbours who turned friends I have decided to take the plunge. In my mind, I idolise those who manage the forward movement on an annual basis. Packing all one’s earthly belongings, ridding oneself of the baggage no longer deemed worthwhile – it all sounds cathartic and rather healthy. Equally, rather than viewing the move as an uprooting of the social self, moving flats (and neighbourhoods) is an oppportunity to broaden horizons. It can, of course, go horrifically wrong when you realise that your local pub doesn’t serve an adequate selection of gins or the owner is less than happy to extend a revolving credit facility for your weekend splurges.

The flux that we protect ourselves against, and by we I mean first and foremost myself, is a sign of chaos, of unpredictability and insecurity. Its effects are to leave us without a stable footing on shore, and it pulls us away from our comfort zones. So much academic effort is expended in reinventing the wheel that I often feel nauseous at the thought of doing yet another exercise in crashing together unrelated concepts, applying a wholly unsuitable methodology to an age old question in hope of gaining something new. Similiarly professionally there seems to be an obsession with unguided experimentation, whereby value is placed on not a carefully planned excursion into the unknown, but rather at any stab that looks good in the context of a few whiskeys, the bright lights of closing time and a deadline that looms menacingly ahead. I am driving myself into the newness of another place to live, and expect friends, family and my psychiatric nurse to be most forthcoming in supporting me through this tumultous time.