From Our Weaknesses…
Sometimes, it’s not a whole poem that gets me – a mere line can be enough.
I was reading “She Teaches Lear” by Iain Crichton Smith. It’s not a poem that touches me particularly, but then the third line of the last verse smacked me right in the guts:
“From our weaknesses only are we kind.”
Now there’s a thought…
Booze, Bets and Sex
Let’s unpack this. A friend is not a smoker, so when he sees someone in a cloud of smoke, although he says nothing – he’s English, dammit! – he concludes the person is a moron and is predisposed to look down on him forever.
Then, the demon drink – not his problem! Just a bit of wine now and then, and rarely spirits. He used to share a flat with a buddy who got regularly “stoshered” – a great Scottish slang word – and who regularly lay on the floor, his mouth agape and smeared with vomit. Reasoning with him was wholly pointless – and in time, the poor sod pickled his liver and died in his fifties.
So, booze isn’t my pal’s problem, and he feels free to despise all drunks as morally weak. Nor is he a gambler, so he has no sympathy for losers on either horses or tables. And he’s as thin as a string of spaghetti! He could live on a diet of deep-fried Mars Bars, Big Macs and Hob Nobs without adding an ounce. So, of course, as soon as he sees a barrel of lard waddling towards him, his lips curl in horror at the self-indulgent slob!
Is he faultless? Well, I happen to know that sex is his torment. He told me once that fate appears to have chained him to a gibbering sex lunatic and he has difficulty keeping his flies up. So, when a close friend was caught “sleeping” – a ridiculous euphemism, for sleep’s not the thing you do (so I’m told!) – with a hooker, he was hugely supportive. My friend understands that temptation only too well.
So, “from our weaknesses only are we kind”. Now you know!
I am sure that most ZANE supporters are perfect, but perhaps one or two of you will recognise this more-or-less universal tendency to condemn others for sins that – by the grace of God – are not ours?
Pascal’s on the Phone
French philosopher Blaise Pascal (1623–62) wrote, “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone”. Of course, he was making the point that without entertainment or distractions, humankind must confront the harsh realities of suffering, pain and death.
Enter the ultimate distraction: smartphones. They’re hugely addictive because whenever the devices are checked, a stimulating substance called “dopamine” is generated, which affects emotions and behaviour. Of course, its effect is transitory and then users suffer from “Nomophobia”, or NO MObile PHOne PhoBIA. This fear of being without is partly responsible, we now know, for loss of self-esteem and acute depression. And it’s total catnip for the bottom line of the smartphone industry.
Glassy eyed phone addicts stagger down the road, and I expect to bump into one anytime soon. And then at my gym, the cardio machines are strewn with teenagers barely exercising and squinting vacantly at their devices.
How can this new generation, with a paper-thin tolerance of boredom, produce poets, authors, playwrights, thinkers, actors or philosophers? Instead, it would seem their creative juices are draining into the bottomless fog of Facebook, TikTok, Instagram and X.