Thinking your life better, by yourself - a strange concept?

There are many courses -and books also -  that purport to help you improve your life, make it better, make you better, make you better able to handle what fate throws at you; some are super professional, smooth and clever, others are lovey-dovey amateur affairs. All ostensibly have the same goal, and that is to make you a better, more complete, human being, in control over whatever comes your way. The big question is this: do you need this stuff and can it really help you?

Please ignore my old man's quibbles, as I do not believe in any course/book/whatever that tells you how to live, how to run your life. My credo - applied to myself only - is to live one's life creating one's own philosophy along the way, learning, absorbing, adjusting. Read - and read a lot, please - but do not be in search of 'how-to' manuals but of inspiration, sparks, wisdom in any and every form. Read, absorb, evaluate and dismiss whatever you feel is not useful to your purpose; if you discover things that you are not ready for but feel may be interesting further along the line, put them to one side and remember them for perusal at a future date.

Coaching I have only found useful in specific situations, to learn  skills and tactics for a sport or a specific activity. I do not believe in 'Life Coaches' or gurus, nor do I believe in people with all the answers, especially not now in my late middle age - I have never seen an all-wise, all-knowing creature anywhere, ever. On the contrary I have come across individuals who CLAIM to be all-knowing, ones who know little but profess to know a lot (shysters, really...), useless and dangerous individuals seeking to take advantage of the susceptible and the gullible; they are vermin and should be avoided like the plague. But I have  met people who possess little bits of wisdom, are happy to share them and have the self-knowledge to accept that what they know is limited; their biggest strength is that they believe in the search for knowledge and wisdom, not the possession and exploitation thereof.

But we are funny old things, we human beings, always looking for shortcuts to our goals. We love believing that someone, somewhere has the answers, that he/she knows what there is to know, secretly controlling things and preventing us from finding the answers. And we persist in this delusion, stubbornly refusing to understand the value of the journey to knowledge and understanding, which contains few, if any, shortcuts.

Boys and girls, you cannot cheat your way to wisdom of any kind; you can learn from others, however, through observation and evaluation, but you need to be open, receptive and brutally honest with yourself. Try it, you may even like it...

Once upon a time...

Fairytales usually have happy endings, and we have come to expect that. But life is not a fairytale and it is often without the requisite happy ending... still, we go on.

We were all young once and all had dreams, some small, some big - we may even have wanted to conquer the world, be the best at something, become prime minister, marry our princess/prince (erase as appropriate), live happily ever after. Most of these dreams never come true, though this does not stop us having them, staring misty-eyed into the future with our youth propelling us along.

And, to be fair, some of us actually do manage to fulfil some or all of our dreams in one way or another. We overcome all obstacles to reach our goal, embrace it, make something of it and of our life; some of our goals are, of course, extremely modest and easier to achieve than others - anyone for sorting out our planet?

So what is it that determines whether we are successful in achieving our dreams? Is it down to intelligence, effort, determination, beauty, faith, luck or what?

Life is a funny old thing, as you know already dear reader from reading me assiduously; it is what it is and not what we may want it to be, not a respecter of dreams, neither on our side nor against us. We have to do our best and hope for the best, that's all, without any guarantee of success. What is certainly true, though, is that we will achieve nothing and fulfil no dream, however small, without doing our best.

The New Year is well under way and most of us will have made resolutions of one sort or another about how we are going to live during it, even what we would like to achieve. Think about the one you made this year (it's not too late to make or modify one now!), stick to it and attain something for yourself, even if it is something small. Perhaps you want to lose some weight, give up smoking or change the world... remember, all you need to do is your best! Nothing happens without some sort of effort, after all.

Try and ensure your fairytale has a happy ending, within your own parameters. That's quite a lot, you know.

And let's all try and ensure that the dreams and fairytales of madmen and women, of 'dishpots', dictators and nasty tyrants everywhere are thwarted and ruined - now that would be a happy ending!

Have I hurt your feelings, dear?

It's lovely to see how sensitive we are becoming as individuals, groups or countries and how easily, therefore, we are offended by anybody and anything that dares to to comment on us or criticize what we wish to stand for...

Of course this is not a serious comment on my part, but I'm trying - in my feeble, ironic way - to highlight the mind-boggling way that we now handle anything we disagree with, assisted by the idiotic spread of information aided by 'social' media. The other day a columnist on the Daily Mail, a paper I do not buy or read in any regular way, dared to suggest that children are generally better off having two parents, one from each sex, while acknowledging that, should these parents be less than perfect, a single parent or same-sex parents will fulfil the role. Well, the world jumped on him and his outrageous, prejudiced view... really!

Political correctness has gone mad - literally - trying to convince everyone that the only views allowed are the ones that accord with current thinking; everyone who disagrees is prejudiced, biased, nasty, a bigot. These views are then promoted throughout so called social media to stir up outrage against anyone and everyone, with accusations flying left, right and centre, judging and condemning all and sundry simply for voicing their - different - opinion. Never mind that such opinion may be fact-based and that, in any case, we are allowed in a free society to disagree; if political correctness judges you and condemns you you've had it.

This is the same sort of intolerance displayed by outrageous religious fanatics (currently showcased by islamist fundamentalists but not limited to, and over the centuries abundantly also displayed by christians, jews, polytheists and any religion you care to mention). This a direct attack on freedom of speech and thought and should not be allowed to dominate human discourse - remember, your freedom ends where your neighbour's begins - in order to promote only one view of the world, irrespective of what that is.

Different is not the new normal and it can never be unless we want to change the meaning of the words. Acceptance of the freedom to be who and what we want to be (and do what makes us happy and fulfilled) cannot be unilaterally enforced on others simply because we want it. Equality cannot mean that I can do what I like - and what technology allows me to - and you have to not only accept it but rejoice in it, or else.

Society has set about to correct long-standing wrongs and is going way too far the other way; this has to stop. At the risk of upsetting people I believe in a pluralistic society with a variety of opinions, the right to express them and disagree with them. No spurious moral outrage and absolutely no thought police, please, however (supposedly) well-intentioned.

Greed is NOT good

Wherever you care to look in the world you will see examples of greed. Sometimes they are hailed as symptoms of 'capitalism' by those politically so inclined, conveniently forgetting that greed is in, fact, a trait common to most humans irrespective of political sympathies.

What is certain is that greed is bad for us in more ways than one, even if by following it we can end up making a lot of money, as it usually brings out the worst in human behaviour; it can also seriously affect our health if we allow it to guide our eating and drinking habits. The revolting slide of western nations into a cycle of obesity and eating-related disease has its roots in greed, partially it is claimed triggered by the shortages of food during and after WW2 and the feelings it created among the population.

Examples of greedy behaviour are commonplace in the corporate world, of course, and we have recently seen examples of service firms (such as the big accountancy and/or consulting firms) charging and being paid massive fees by companies that subsequently are proven to be incapable of surviving. It would matter less if, in doing their jobs, they had highlighted the problems; rather, they keep quiet, then one of their lot earn another lot of fees as receivers or liquidators. The recently bankrupt firm Carillion is an example of this, with accountancy firms accused in today's media of 'feasting' as it slowly died. These firms should be investigated properly and be fined severely if found liable, if only to discourage future transgressions.

Greed is not limited to money or food, though they may be the most obvious showings of it. Power is another interesting field where greed appears all consuming, especially in less than democratic environments. This has been made obvious through the ages by despots (or 'dish-pots', according to the wonderful writings of P.G. Wodehouse, surely one of the supreme masters of  the English language and its use) the world over; as the old saying goes 'power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely'.

There is one area where greed is not only acceptable but actually good, and that is knowledge; for most of us the more knowledge acquired the better it is, the better our life will be, as well as the lives of those depending on us. The thirst for knowledge, admittedly rarer than it should be,  is something extremely important to my life, as those close to me know. I have often told them, in fact, that the day I stop learning is the day I want to die, so I hope to keep on learning for some time to come!

P.S. :  The flower (three separate ones, actually) is nothing to do with the subject, other than that it is beautiful and, therefore, helps satisfy my greed for beauty in life. It has thrived due to the TLC shown to it by my green-fingered host and flatmate!

The Inveterate Wine Glugger

Are you one of those people? No sooner has anyone put an opened bottle of wine and a glass in front of you and off you go, knocking back the stuff as if it's going out of fashion, as if someone will appear at any moment to take the wine away? Are you an inveterate wine glugger?

I'm not trying to make you feel bad about being a glugger - there are even times when it is not only acceptable but de rigueur - but I do need to point out that this is not what you should be doing all the time and with any wine put in front of you. And no, it is not about being pretentious or precious, about only drinking the best wines on the planet at stratospheric cost or saying idiotic things like 'I only drink Chateau XXX 198X with my meals'. I don't fraternise with people who think or behave like that, because I love wine and its capacity to enhance our lives (and I think they're idiots!); this is not necessarily dependent on fashion or price tag!

Glugging should be part and parcel of a convivial meal with friends and revolve around tasting and eating food with wine as companion, both being the background melody to friendship, conversation, bonding.
Please understand that wine is meant to be sipped, nosed and appreciated for all it brings to our live over and above the alcoholic hit, which is only minor compared to spirits anyway. Have a look at a previous post 'Lunch is a Battlefield' to see what I mean - yep, we glugged well that afternoon, spending wonderful, convivial time with like-minded individuals, friends.

We are sometimes tempted to glug away in private, and sometimes do; this should be avoided if at all possible and certainly never be a regular occurrence, as it is a one-way road to unpleasant oblivion - it can become wine (or alcohol, if you prefer) abuse, a prelude to your (painful) demise.

So respect wine, please, treat it with affection not condescension and only glug it with food and company, otherwise sip, sip, sip. Select it with care - the bottle shown is a straightforward, relatively simple Spanish red of exceptional value on promotion with a bit of  much-needed age (2010 vintage, so good I've shown it twice!) - and drink with respect. The wine deserves your respect, so choose a nice glass (look at the one I chose, perfect, huh?) and a good corkscrew.

There, job done, sip away and pity the inveterate glugger.

Wine Tasting for Beginners (part two)

So you've been out and about tasting every and any wine you could lay your hands on, despite that January is meant to be a month of relative abstinence after the excesses of the Christmas and New Year period... fair enough! You are, after all, doing it in a quest for knowledge, not just to get pissed, and your friends would admire you for it if only they realised the educational slant to your consumption. In any case now that February has usurped January you must get down to some serious work, and that includes reading I'm afraid!

But seriously... Rome wasn't built in a day and your deep wine knowledge is not going to be either, so slow down and take the methodical approach to this. Rushing around like a whirling dervish is not the best introduction to the subject - as we said before patience is needed - so spend more time reading up, adding to your general and then detailed knowledge of the subject. Read about grape varieties, viticulture, how to make wine, styles of wine, old and new world approaches, producers. Read about France, Italy (and many others) and discover the most famous wine-producing areas in the world, but also the lesser known but equally interesting parts of the wine making countries. Read more than one account about how grapes are harvested and how wine is made in order to dispel the stupid myths that surround this. This is all essential background information that will aid you in understanding the wines you are tasting and slowly, gradually, in noticing their distinct characteristics, then think about them and be able to distinguish and describe.

By all means after the description of every wine you taste (yes, every wine!) do note down whether you liked it or not, but at this stage this is not truly important. You are on a journey through wine taste 'country' and your perceptions will change again and again, being shaped as you find out more about your subject. Be interested and critical, look for basic tastes and then the nuances, search and note everything. And yes, it is frustrating and takes time but is ultimately extremely rewarding; we are talking about a great sensory reward that will enrich your life and add colour, aromas, taste and texture to your days, to your meals, to your relaxation.

If you are a serious taster you will need at some point to think about the type of glass that you use. This is important for a variety of reasons and should have nothing to do with showing off and reinforcing your status - leave that to the politicians and the nouveaux riches. In any case proper wine glasses should be clear - never contain any colour or design - and preferably be made of crystal. The absence of colour on the glass allows us to see and evaluate the colour of the wine properly, crystal being finer interacts better with the texture of the wine and transforms our experience. The little tumblers used in simple restaurants all over southern Europe are for glugging, not tasting, and should generally be avoided; they add nothing - in my opinion they detract - from the tasting and drinking experience and are often part of a misplaced reverse snobbism. Don't worry, however, about specific glasses for specific wines as even expert opinion is divided on that, and you have a long way to go before you can think of yourself as an expert!

Keep on reading, learning, tasting and evaluating - it is after all a life-long pursuit as you can never know too much - and stoke your passion for the stuff. You will have so much to look forward to!