Life – Page 58 – Achilles & Aristotle

Thin Skin

…I reckon I’ve got it. An ‘in your face’ blog in The Telegraph the other day accused our Prime Minister of not having learned in ‘the school of hard knocks’ – not having the appetite to enjoy scrapping it out with all comers.

Montaigne for his part advocates garrulousness:

I love stout expressions amongst gentle men, and to have them speak as they think.

His argument is there is joy in debate and disagreement:

The contradictions of judgments, then, neither offend nor alter, they only rouse and exercise, me. We evade correction, whereas we ought to offer and present ourselves to it.

I’m a bit equivocal on all that. I like to get to the right answer and certainly don’t need to be right in the process. But I don’t like being shouted down – or shoved about. Montaigne though seems energised by it.

When any one contradicts me, he raises my attention, not my anger: I advance towards him who controverts, who instructs me; the cause of truth ought to be the common cause both of the one and the other.

Perhaps I should be work on being a bit more argumentative – up for a rumble. I don’t like cheap shots and low blows, but I’m trying to stand my ground a bit more this week. Let’s see if I get a bloody nose.

Death, Life, Work

A Moment in the Sun

A bit morbid perhaps, but the redoubtable Philosophy Now magazine does throw up some interesting angles on death.

Some say, along with religion, that the main reason philosophy exists, is millennia of thinking folk coping with their own mortality.

So handy to come across a timeless thought from Voltaire, via Schopenhauer:

“Non-existence after death cannot be different from non-existence before birth.”

Interesting. Given I don’t sweat the 8 billion years I wasn’t here before, why am I so put out by those I’ll miss when I’m a goner?

Whatever evolutionary or intellectual remnant of me might persist, I will be returned to Schopenhauer’s ‘pure Will’ – the restless energy of the universe – probably bouncing about in random particle form.

It’s quite a relief. I wasn’t around for dinosaurs and I’m not too sad. So why am I worried about missing the first Mars landing or the discovery of extra-terrestrial life? I wasn’t here for the sparking up of the Sun or the origin of multicellular life. Who was? It all behoves me, as ever, to live for the day, enjoy the moment and focus on the here and now.

I’m sat ‘suited and booted’ on a sunny step writing this, in a lunchtime pause from work. Feels a bit odd not to be bustling about. And the odd passer by is looking at me a bit strangely – but why not sit in a suit on a sunny step?

These atoms will only be in this configuration for another four decades or so – so let’s make the most of them.

Children, Life, Work

Idling

Brain function is low, speed dropped, the acceleration has gone. Lying idly next to my son, with the breeze flapping the blind – in my record third week of holidays – I notice indolence and a mind declined.

Still the body is stronger, the face browner and the belly slimmer so I’ve got some things right. And good times, happy smiles and big hugs from the family are a very significant compensation.

But maintaining an agile mind is like running a high performance engine – it needs quality fuel, high revs and plenty of throttle to go through the gears.

Country lanes and coastal roads are all very well, but I’m about ready for a return to the rigours of the urban cycle. Work is as important as play.

Life, Psychology, Sport, Work

Why Silver is the worst medal of all

Watching the Olympic 10m diving yesterday, one couldn’t help but be struck by the delight of Tom Daley, in third, versus the desolation of Qiu Bo in second. This morning a friend sent me a good reason for it: counterfactual thinking.

Put simply, Silver looks at Gold and thinks about loss. But Bronze looks at the whole of the rest of the field and delights in making the podium at all. Each sees the most obvious counterfactual outcome – what might have been. Gold for one, nothing at all for the other. Each then frames their assessment of their situation accordingly: Dumb luck vs Result!

It’s a fascinating insight. And one which travels to other domains – notably work. People often obsess about the job they haven’t got, instead of being grateful for the one they have.

Instead of lamenting over the top spot, more of us should revel in making the podium. Bronze is a more precious metal than it looks.

Life, Philosophy, Psychology, Work

Fridge Frees

Proof, if ever it were needed, that Csikszentmihalyi’s ‘flow’ can be found in any – and I mean any – activity. This morning at 7.45am, I began chucking some veg and old bottles of chilli out of the fridge…

…Two hours later the entire fridge, glass shelves, drawers and door storage sparkle clean as a whistle; for the first time in over five years.

What possessed me? A combination of ‘homo faber’ (Hannah Arendt’s thesis that man needs to work) and ‘flow’ any task done with focus and intensity brings absorption and satisfaction.

Positive feedback from my astonished ‘other half’ helped too. Amazing what a week off work does for you – plus a brief respite from the kids.

As I said to the missus last week, I sometimes have an uncontrollable urge to take some autonomous action, to get on and do something – anything. Hannah Arendt explains why:

“Men are free…as long as they act, neither before nor after; for to be free and to act are the same.”

A fridge frees.