M.SCOTT-PECK

The message in Scott-Peck’s books is potent and maybe dangerous. I see his work as essentially a mix of traditional religious morality and modern psychology. He’s attempting to take the impossibility of Christian aspiration with its attendant authoritarian structures and then weld a scientific rationale on top. A lethal combination indeed and one that should be handled with care. It comes perilously close to fundamentalism.

LOSING THE ESSENCE

In a relationship as soon as it becomes an item something gets lost. Some kind of unadulterated essence gets replaced with a formal expectation of what each person is supposed to do. The rules of courtship, convention and exclusivity begin to dictate the play and distort the initial connection. It’s that connection that needs to be preserved more than anything.

DARING TO BE SERIOUS

If I were to write a book I might call it “Daring To Be Serious”. Centrally it would be a diatribe against the frivolity and superficiality of modern life. It would rail against how any degree of earnest and sincere application is increasingly despised; against its tendency to self indulgence and hedonism and its demand that issues should be lightweight. I would criticise how the agenda these days is set by mouthy media types, how pushiness and naked aggression are the thing; how the virtues of intellect, excellence, integrity, vision and talent are being relegated to a lowly status. I would make it clear how much I hate all that and how unsuited I am to it.

INSURANCE

I would like a way out, a way out of life that is; that at some point I could say enough now. I would say that safe in the knowledge that what’s on offer from this point will be a lesser variant on what has gone before, ever diminishing into a degraded state. It’s not unreasonable to want to cut that short, to put a stop to innate deterioration. Prolonging life to the bitter end is a form of madness. I would definitely like to have a way out even if it’s just an insurance policy.

CRUSHES

I’ve had many infatuations throughout life. They’re so weird. They can be about someone in a picture, or off the telly. It can be a person on the street, somebody you don’t know, possibly someone you don't like that much when you get to. The good friend you’ve known for a while isn’t exempt either. And they are so fully penetrating and in some cases can last for years. “Crush” is the right term indeed. A damn nuisance really.