Recidivism
blog
You may have noticed that I have been a bit quiet on the self-improvement front. This is not because I have achieved enlightenment and am beyond such petty concerns, quite the opposite. For the past few days, I have been concertedly breaking all of my rules. I have been devouring the soap opera of football gossip, habitually checking my email account, drinking tumblers of whisky, not doing my stretches in the morning, staying up late, not flossing my teeth, not shaving, not going to the gym, and basically just indulging in irrational, swinish behaviour. Do I feel better? Do I feel worse? A bit of both, actually.
At first I felt guilty, ashamed of my recidivism, but then I realised I needed a holiday from virtue and a reminder of the costs and benefits. It reminded me to beware of anyone obsessed with virtue because they are generally equally obsessed with vice. I felt better knowing that I could do whatever I wanted, but also more tired and lethargic. My dreams were sweeter, but reality has far less clarity.
Last night I tried to read Shakespeare’s Henry VIII and was utterly unable — as unable to understand as Charlie is at the end of Flowers for Algernon. Instead I read Wilde’s The Soul of Man Under Socialism, but at the current rate who knows for how long I’ll have the necessary levels of attention?
The patron saint of resolutionists is H.G. Wells’ Doctor Moreau. Like the resolutionist, Moreau attempts to extirpate the animality from animals. In Moreau’s case this involves turning pumas, hogs, apes and leopards into passable humans. In the resolutionist’s case, it involves going against their instinct to drink and idle. The inevitable failure of both of these attempts should make us think again. Not to give up genetic engineering/resolutions, but of finding a way to work with nature not against it.
So after a few days holiday from virtue, I have been making quiet agreements with myself rather than attempting to impose unworkable rules or laws. It helps, in this cause, to observe those around you who are full of entropy. What you see are people incapable of focus, drifting, dissatisfied, suckered into youth culture, it is a terrible state to get into.