Life – Page 45 – Achilles & Aristotle

Pax Romana

Spending time with friends at New Year, a penny dropped – I do like my peace and quiet. I can do ‘gregarious’ in bursts. But in the main I’d rather be a respectful distance from folk having a good time. Ideally in the next room.

Perhaps, with the passage of years, I’m more interested in knowledge than conversation? The Platonic ideal of ‘justified true belief‘ appeals far more than the garrulous Socratic Method – especially when Google and Wikipedia are such reliable and immediate alternate sources.

I’m far more up for the first two legs of the Reithian ideal of inform, educate and entertain – although one excellent rediscovery this New Year’s has been a tall, well iced Gin and Tonic which puts me far more in the mood for the latter.

And perhaps this is the crux of it. As Russell Crowe famously said to a baying crowd in Gladiator: “Are you not entertained?” I recognise a duty to engage and take part, but after a few thrusts and parries, a lap or two around the sociability track and a couple of good conversational gambits – I’m done.

More booze and I’m nodding off, more chat and I’m reaching for the iPhone for facts and data… And so to the kitchen for my reliable friend the dishwasher. A pot, porcelain and pan-based puzzle of stacking and arrangement, which doesn’t answer back – peace at last.

Children, Life, Work

Blood, Sweat & Fewer Tears

Interesting to realise – on my last day of work in 2013 – that something I’ve been responsible for a long long time is no longer going badly.

In truth, it was never going quite as badly as some made out. But looking back on 2013, you have to say it is now going pretty well.

When a baby is crying, it’s hard to focus or get anyone else to focus on anything else. But, just like when a baby stops crying – or when your kids stop waking you up every night – you quickly forget and simply get on with everything else.

Still, it’s progress. So here’s to even fewer tears in 2014.

Achilles, Life, Philosophy, Psychology

Sisyphus

Albert Camus, the French Algerian Existentialist, challenges us to be happy as Sisyphus. That Greek King was damned by Zeus to forever roll a boulder uphill, only to have it roll back down as soon as the summit was achieved.

For Camus, the human condition requires us to face the futility of Sisyphus – that we are alone in the universe without meaning or destiny, each pointlessly rolling our own boulder uphill. But Camus’s challenge to us, is to smile and be happy in the face of this futility – not sad or downcast.

And the lot of Sisyphus, was mine yesterday – faced with several hundredweight of miscellaneous building rubbish to shift, in a biblical downpour. Badly bagged, paint dripping from it, from a narrow alley to an unknown refuse site without proper parking or help.

Three bags in – I was Sisyphus. Drenched, cold, back stiff and a hamstring already taught. With dozens more bags and wood and board and plastic and blinds and rubble and cement and soaking dustsheets and rags and sharp stuff and awkward stuff and worst of all paint-dripping stuff. A ball ache to match the back ache.

Toying with chucking it in, taking shelter or hoping it would all go away, Monsieur Camus came to mind -smiling enigmatically, with the collar turned up on his French trench-coat…

All human existence was momentarily encapsulated in sacks, rubble and timbers. To be happy as Sisyphus, the triumph of the spirit over drudgery – the satisfaction of a thankless task well done.

And it was done. Drenched, back-breaking, four car loads of dripping, spiky, heavy building debris bit the dust. And a happy Sisyphus was I.

So much so, that after a couple of celebratory beers and a pepperoni pizza, I cheerfully armed myself with two chisels and cleared two staircases of carpet staples and nails.

Zeus himself would have been grudgingly impressed and Camus was right. Sisyphus, happy, is the satisfaction of a thankless task well done. And that’s about all there is to life – chin up, put a smile on your face and keep rolling that boulder.

Life, Psychology, Science

The Eternal Beauty of the Open Mind

Surely one of the defining characteristics of the passage of years, is the tendency for the mind to close.

Knowing best, seen it all before, mind made up, declining interest in the new or different, set points of view; these are casts of mind which stalk us all. The secret to evading them, is to strive to remain an ‘open system.’

To adapt Wikipedia: the person who remains an ‘open system’ is one who continuously interacts with their environment or surroundings. The interaction can take the form of information, energy, or intellectual transfers into or out of the system.

This contrasts with the ‘closed minded’ person who exchanges neither energy nor information with their environment – they are substantially uninterested in and unaffected by the views of others and drain energy in their interactions.

There’s a lot of it about. We’re all guilty of it at times. But a true test of a person, is how hard they fight to resist it. The open mind is an interested and interesting mind.

Start closing and you stop learning, growing and thinking. The closed mind is old before its time. An open mind is ageless, limitless and eternally beautiful.

Aristotle, Ethics, Life, Work

Is isn’t Ought

Useful to be reminded this week that among David Hume’s many contributions to the world of ideas is this one – you can’t get an ought from an is.

So it is. You can describe a phenomenon or circumstance, however awful or wonderful but it doesn’t mean it’s objectively good or bad.

Nearly everyone struggles with this. It feels all wrong – but that’s the point, it feels. ‘Oughts’ are a matter of interpretation and beliefs, not matters of fact.

9/10ths of bother in human affairs derives from this misunderstanding. And so it was this week as I was besieged by people pointing out things they didn’t like – and inviting me to agree with them on what ought to be the case. Generally I didn’t.

Sometimes, all you can do is give people the context; more facts and data, the ‘oughts’ we all end up deciding for ourselves.