Blackbeard's Delight

Detached, wise and merry

I wouldn't normally write about a book until i'd finished it but this is an exception, as it is so utterly delicious i have to talk about it.  How to be Idle is a book i've been meaning to read for a while and it might just be life changing.

I've always thought that my daytime wanderings on my own round London were a bit weird, especially when i'd meet up with friends in the evening and they would ask me how i'd spent my day.  These wanderings  have no real purpose, I stop off here or there for a coffee and bite to eat, people watch, window shop in a bit of a daze, occasionally chat to shop owners or waiters.  I'm usually a bit hungover, which probably helps with the daze.  But i'm perfectly content on my own.  In fact, it's not the same when i'm with someone.  It's a completely different day out.  If you're with someone it gives the day a purpose.  The solitude is what makes the wander a wonder.

However, it turns out i'm not weird after all.  Apparently "in the pedestrian, the wanderer, the rambler...can be found the soul of the idler...he walks for pleasure, he observes but does not interfere, he is not in a hurry, he is happy in the company of his own mind, he wanders detached, wise and merry, godlike.  He is free."

Wow.  That is truly brilliant.  The french have a name for someone who wanders in this fashion, or at least they did in the nineteenth century.  He was known as a "flaneur".  Apparently the word "flaneur" came to describe "an elegant kind of gentlemanly moocher who ambled purposelessly through the Parisian arcades, watching, waiting, hanging around".

I love this book.   

On Religion

Photo from Flickr here.

I have been meaning to write about this for a while - i went to see On Religion at the Soho Theatre a few weeks ago.  It's co-wrote by the philosopher AC Grayling and playwright Mick Gordon.   I previously read AC Grayling's book "What is Good?" which is absolutely fantastic, recounting man's search for "the good life" or meaning and purpose, from ancient Greece to modern times. 

On Religion is essentially about the dynamics of a family, divided by different answers to the question "What is good?".  The mother, a leading naturalist academic, superbly played by  Gemma Jones,  is crushed firstly by her son's conversion to Christianity and entry into priesthood, and then by his death.  The family (mother, father, son, girlfriend) is a microcosm  of society in that it tries to illuminate the various different world views of society. 

I though the play was fantastic, no let up throughout, constantly kept us on our toes, not quite sure of the relevance of some scenes until the end of the play when it all came together.  The acting was superb by all, some of the scenes were utterly gripping. 

What On Religion did really well was present the differing and contrasting viewpoints of the protagonists in a way that shows there are no easy answers.  Life is complicated, and as such the way people choose to live their life is always going to be complicated and contentious. The play gave a glimpse of exactly how contentious: touching on birth, death, marriage, love, loss, grief, prayer, hope, laughter and reconciliation, to name a few themes.  You may hold on to your beliefs, be they rooted in reason, science, tragic loss, upbringing, or "calling", but you need to respect other people's decisions to live their life.  A great example of intolerance was the fundamentalist fervor of Grace, the academic mother, who refused to grant her son his dying wish because his religious beliefs were "wrong".

All in all a fascinating play, which led me to look up a bit on humanism, courtesy of wikipedia here.  Which led to skepticism here, and eudaimonia here.  Fascinating stuff.

Positive review here
Less positive review here.

Time

This is a great article that appeared in The Independent on new year's day by Julian Baggini, on the concept of time.  It's a great article on the history of time and why we find it is important.  However, my favourite part of the article is when he talks about the absurdity of slogans and mottos to live your life by.  The sort of thing that usually accompanies an Athena poster, like "Life is not how many breaths you take, it's how many moments take your breath away".  I remember seeing a lot of schoolboy slogans like this when i was travelling around south-east asia.  All cheesy, all trying to be all encompassing, but usually only ever suitable if you are travelling around south-east asia listening to redemption song and jack johnson while wearing thai fisherman trousers.

As Baggini quite rightly says, this is romantic fiction.  Most of us simply cannot stake everyhthing on "the moment" and neither should we. Instead of calls to arms like "seize the day", which has connotations of cramming as much into your day as possible, a much preferable term that he proposes and i love, is to "savour the moment".

"To savour you need a certain degree of calmness as well as a hunger to to enjoy all the good things life has to offer".  A beautiful concept, and reminiscent of The Golden Mean in ancient Greek philisophy.  Another concept is the Buddhist practioce of mindfulness, or "being attentive to the experience of the moment....things take as long as they take and there is no futile hurry to get on with it before time runs out".  I'm not sure how this would work in a client meeting at work but as a guide to the imoportant stuff in life it sounds pretty good indeed.