Been stuck the last few weeks on the question of what it is to lead a good life. As anyone who knows me will tell you I am not religious or particularly spiritual however that doesn't mean I don't want the next 50 (hopefully) years to be all about me. I quite like Aristotle's idea that you can't judge if your life was well lived until your dead - that in a way life is a peformance on a stage that cannot be judged except as a whole.

Nonetheless that still leaves me wondering what I need to for my life to be viewed as one well spent. I don't know what the answer to that question is. I get the feeling that a big part of it is serving other people in some way. If that is the case I am a little stuck since what with work, gym, doing my hair and going out on the booze I have precious little time left to polish my £200 calfskin brogues let alone get my hands dirty assisting the dregs of society.

Therefore I hope that fulfilment, redemption and eudaimonia can therefore be achieved in another way, ideally one that doesn't distract me from the big issues (me, the girlfriend, drink) and means I can still have enough time left in the day to complete Call of Duty 4 on difficult.

....

'I gotta rush away' she said, 'I've been to Boston to before. And anyway, this change I've been feeling doesn't make the rain fall'.

No big differences these days, just the same old walkaways.

Someday I'm gonna stay.

But not today.

listening to For What it's Worth by Buffalo Springfield

Hot off the press... I learnt the difference between a Sunni and a Shi'ite Muslim a couple of weeks back. It doesn't sound like a lot but damn it's sure causing some problems in Iraq at the moment. I suppose this is one of the 'classic' problems people have with organised religion.

If I had £1 for everytime some idiot has said 'if it weren't for religion the world would be a much better place' then I would have... well at last count about £46. Whilst anyone who knows me will be aware I am not a religious person, nor do I believe in God, however I am glad I was brought up in a religious family and that I live in a society that does still to some extent reflect the core values of Christianity (or Islam, or Judaism).

The reason is that it gave me a moral framework to develop within. Now I believe that no one has an innate sense of morality - no one is born intuitively knowing what is right and what is wrong - it's something we pick up from our environgment as we grow up, much the same way as we learn about anything else (and it is not a meme, whatever that twat Richard Dorkin will tell you). I believe that without a strong reference point young people get lost. I suppose the popular secular view is that there is no such thing as an objective right or wrong and that each person is equally as well placed as the other to make value judgements on issues. The problem is if you are still developing as a person you need some sort of reference point, and I really strongly believe that without this you are lost.

Now this reference point does not have to be a religion, it can be any sort of ethical philosophy e.g. humanism, however I think what is important is that all people as they grow up are given something to lean on until they are in a position to start making their own choices.

I think even then it is important that people continue to view themselves as part of a society or a community and not just as an individual whose rights and views have the same weight as everyone elses - this seems to be the popular view on the street and there are a lot of problems out there as a consequence of this. How are we meant to operate as a society when each person thinks their own claims as to what consists a 'good' life is equally as valid as everyone elses? Basically we can't, and that breakdown is obvious everywhere we look. Whilst I do not want to sound like some sort of prickish Daily Mail editor I think we have gone very wrong somewhere, whether that was 250 years ago in the beginning of the Enlightenment Project or at any number of junctures since. I have been thinking about this alot recently whislt re-reading After Virtue by Alasdair MacIntyre. It's an interesting book, some good ideas in there that I won't try and regurgitate now. Maybe some other time.

Also imagine how boring the world would be without all the little spats it gives us. To badly paraphrase a film that I can't remember the name of:

'in Italy 400 years of war and murder gave us Dante, the Renaissance and Da Vinci, in Switzerland 400 years of peace and brotherly love gave us the cuckoo clock'

don't like the cold

bloody freezing innit. hope it doesn't snow, otherwise won't be going anywhere tomorrow.

Just realised I can add to this from work. Crazy eh? Not had internet access for months, though if those brain-morons at Tiscali get a move on I should be able to add more postings more regularly in the New Year.

Shouldn't write too much as this is bound to be checked.

Pip pip.

University of where?!?

I have had enough lectures over the last few years from enough plebs saying how my degree (2.1, academic from a top 5 uni) is no match to their education from the University of Life. I generally accepted this since I reasoned that anyone wearing a cheap suit, with visible tattoos and that whiff of frustrated ambition about them must be right. However looking at the UCAS website the other day I thought I would do some checking up and realised there is no such place!!

I now realise that it is a fictional place made up by people with inferiority complexes, who cannot validate themselves in any other way, in order to try and elevate themselves above proper graduates. I am sure they spent those precious years of 18-21 really excelling themselves in the field of business - you know getting a solid grounding in commerce and the art of entrepeneurship, not just making tea for the MD or losing their fingers in industrial laithes.

What gets me even more is when they point out that some really rich people never went to uni (Richard Branson, Bill Gates et al). Ok, but then again I bet Fred West never went to uni either, and we can be sure that the Yorkshire Ripper, Pol Pot or Hitler never graduated from any established academic institution.

I have an idea for you - yes YOU. How about you shut up and accept that there are people out there who are significantly cleverer than you and that when a graduate on average earns £200k+ over their working life a £10k student loan actually is a solid investment not a crippling burden. Whilst you're at it how about you take a look at the board members of the FTSE 250 and look at the number of grads vs. non grads on the board, or why don't you try applying for some high paid, interesting job before realising that you can't because GCSEs don't count?

In fact just do all of us a favour - sit down, shut up and get used to the fact that you will one day be working for someone like me and unless you win the lottery or invent something that keeps car windscreens really clean this will never change.

It's the end of the world as we know it

5 years since the world moved on.

Funny to think how (if?) things have changed since then. Are we more afraid? If not, then should we be? In fact what are we meant to be afraid of?

I have compiled a short-list of candidates:

1. Al Qaeda
2. Osama Bin Laden
3. George Bush
4. Tony Blair
5. Taliban
6. Christian Eschatology
7. The Da Vinci Code
8. Suicide bombers
9. Racism
10. Intolerance
11. The Third Way
12. Anthrax
13. Sarin
14. Street Crime
15. Drugs
16. Lunatics 'acting on the fringes of society']
17. MRSA
18. Poor school dinners
19. The lack of prayer in schools
20. Disintegration of the nuclear family
21. Homosexual marriage
22. Killer Bees
23. The Bomb
24. The Man
25. Global Warming
26. Rogue Asteroids
27. Nuclear Power
28. Global Cooling
29. Whitey
30. KKK
31. KFC
32. Haliburton
33. APR 29.9%
34. Continental Drift Divide
35. LeonardBernstein
36. Leonid Brezhnev
37. Lenny Bruce
38. and LesterBangs
39. Birthday party
40. Cheesecake
41. Jelly bean
42. Boom!

you know what - I feel fine.