Comparisons

I often hear it said that human beings differ from animals in having self-awareness, or understanding that we will die one day, or that we have morality.

Preachers say this kind of thing a lot.  And I think – How can you possibly know that?  And – So what?

What’s the point in making that comparison?  Who cares?  What’s the advantage in thinking myself more moral than an iguana or a three-toed sloth?

And I recollect an acquaintance who was fond of making similar human-to-human comparisons – telling me not many people would have thought of choosing the décor she settled on for her kitchen, or that most people would have gone to Spain but she went to Gibraltar, or that not many people would have thought of wearing the colour combination she had on today.  Yawn.  Who cares?  So what?

What’s the purpose in these comparisons?  Are we really that insecure, needing to be the Only Ones, the Special People, rare and refined and discerning?

A choice is ethical or not.  I like this skirt or I don’t.  Does it really matter if a giraffe would never have thought of it or my Great-Aunt Nora would never have worn it with that cardigan?

Scorn, opinions and marsh gas

Two things on my mind tonight.

The first is scorn.

I started thinking about it yesterday when I was driving out through the Sussex lanes that wind between the hedgerows and the fields.  Scorn.  The family I grew up in was big on scorn.  We held almost everyone who wasn’t us in comprehensive contempt.  The habit of mind travelled with me, entrenched and unquestioned until I reached my thirties, when a friend commented “You’re always so scornful.” It was true, and I’d never noticed before.  I tried after that to be kinder, and less quick to belittle and dismiss.   If I’d thought about it earlier, and if I’d realized how hard it would be to shuck off opinions, I think I’d have gone for giving up scorn for Lent.  Mind you – just for Lent?  Scorn is the kind of thing that should be given up forever.  It sounds like a manufactured food: Nuggets of frozen scorn in crispy breadcrumbs (Ingredients: half-baked self-esteem; bitters).  Yum. Not.

Opinions still proving resistant to eradication.  It’s Buzzfloyd’s Facebook page that’s my undoing.  She posts links to these interesting articles I can’t resist commenting on.  Ooh – talking of ‘interesting’ – this film is wonderful. Well for us fans of Ina May Gaskin it is, anyway.  Oh, I loved every minute of it.

But the second thing (apart from scorn) I’ve been turning over in my mind is to do with liver and the emotions.  I never attained the full Gerson regime, but at least for a couple of weeks I didn’t eat anything it said not to.  After I had my mole chopped out and my general health was clearly good, I relaxed the Gerson idea but actually found it had made me so well I that went back to the principles of it.  One of a variety of health benefits it offered is steady detoxification of the liver.    As this has progressed I’ve noticed the appearance of free-range unconnected emotion.  Sometimes happiness (light, happy effervescent), sometimes sadness (intense, dragging despair).  I have no idea where these emotions come from, they seem to be unconnected to anything, bubbling up like marsh gas, eventually to disperse and float away.

No-opinion Lent

Lent so far: one spectacular fail.  I have more opinions than I ever thought humanly possible.  I suppose discovering this is of itself useful to the soul.

PEBCAC

The very last thing I have to do as PCC secretary in our church before I hand over with wild joy and exhilaration is produce the huge meeting document for the APCM (Annual Parochial Church Meeting).  This extensive piece of paperwork contains reports from all aspects of church life.  Because of the length of time it takes to get them in, format them, collate them, and print them off, all in time to be available a fortnight before the meeting, I have to start sending out reminders in January to people who every year have to send in their reports at this time but do nothing unless reminded.

Some people, even if reminded, ignore the deadline which was the last day of February this year. 

So I had a phone call this morning.

Caller:  “I haven’t had a reminder to send in my report for the APCM.”

Me: “I have sent you two reminders.”

Caller: “Oh?  Well, I haven’t received them.”

Me: “The deadline was last Friday but as I am still waiting for some people whose reports are in late, I can still add yours in if you send it in today.  Do you still have my email address?”

Caller: “No.”

Me: “Do you have a pen and paper to hand?  Yes?  Well, here it is.  Okay, I’ll say it for you first, then spell it for you, then say it again to check you’ve got it.  Are you ready?  Here we go.” 

[I spell it out with lots of s-for-sugar, b-for-bertie, m-for-mother etc to make sure my friend cannot possibly get it wrong, then read it back to check it has been correctly transcribed and make them affirm that it has.]

Me: “Okay, well if you send it in today I can include it.  But I did send two reminders to the address I had last year.”

Caller: “Oh, well I have changed my email address.”

Right. That’ll be the problem, then.  No wonder you didn’t receive my emails. 

It is Lent, so I will express no opinion about this conversation.

Lent

Okay.  Lent begins.  No more opinions until Easter.  Ooh, how very, very restful.  I tell you, this day was full of opinions.

Oh – for those of you feeling bewildered and not knowing what I’m talking about: I’ve chosen to give up opinions for Lent.

This does not mean opinions won’t arise within my mind, I’ll just keep them to myself.

I intend still to express preferences – so if someone says, “Would you like some cheese on that or not?” I won’t be responding: “Whatever.”

I expect I’ll still say what I think, but try to express it as something other than a judgement/evaluation.  So I can say I really like yoghourt with prunes but not that yoghourt with prunes is delicious.  I can say I love the sun but not that sunlight is beautiful. At first glance that may seem rather pedantic, but I suspect it will be liberating. 

I was born into a family with decided views expressed in certain terms.  Its members never perceived the boundary between objective reality and personal viewpoint.  Thus it was that I grew up believing purple to be ugly, vulgar and hideous, “settee” to be a socially inferior term and sweet sherry to be contemptibly infra dig.  I was thirty before I came out about my penchant for Lemon Puffs, forty before I admitted to preferring sweet sherry and hating dry wine, and I never wore anything purple before I joined a religious organization that insisted upon it.

Opinions have bludgeoned me into submission my whole life long.   Being released into the wilderness where no opinions are looks like one glorious six-week holiday from here.

You are not bound by this foray of mine, of course: you will be entirely free to tell me as often as you like that in your opinion what I have just said is an opinion: because the great thing is I won’t be able to tell you if I agree with you or not.  You can just say it.

Me eating yoghourt with prunes.  In the sunshine.