'The danger is that people will get lost in a morass of addictive pleasures and not ask themselves questions about the meaning of their own lives and not make the effort to make themselves interesting to others.... people are finding it very difficult to make themselves interesting to each other.'
On Lincoln Road, Miami Beach, I see staggeringly beautiful women, wearing very little, accompanied by nondescript men in toddler clothes - baggy, crumpled shorts with pockets, flip-flops, variations on the tee-shirt theme. The men are on their phones, talking or texting; the women are just being beautiful. Every man they pass is thinking - 'She's too good for that dork on the phone.' Scruton, it is clear, has a point. These couples don't seem to be interesting to each other. But if they are interesting to themselves...
PS And on the subject of addictive pleasures, here's Maureen Dowd on Twitter - 'Was there anything in your childhood that led you to want to destroy civilization as we know it'
A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
more religion? btw, you did a good job of describing those nondescript men.
ReplyDeleteThey might be nondescript men in toddler clothes to you Bryan, but to those girls in bikinis they could be someone really worth admiring.
ReplyDelete-Like a drug dealer, for example.
"I see staggeringly beautiful women, wearing very little, accompanied by nondescript men in toddler clothes"
ReplyDeleteThey're usually arseholes too, that's a main component that the staggeringly beautiful woman looks for.
I believe Socrates said it long before Scruton: "The unexamined life is not worth living."
ReplyDeleteAnd what "tourist uniform" are you wearing while sitting at the cafe sipping cappuccino, trying to be interesting to the world Bryan? be truthful now, brits don't do appropriate dress for the sunshine do they? somehow I cant eliminate the handkerchief on head?
ReplyDeletebtw, have you thought about a pitch to the beeb to be the new "darker" Alan Whicker? You could jet around the world pointing out what kind of dorks we all are, in cultured tones obviously.
White shirt, Timberland jeans, Converse sneakers and a copy of Robert Bolano's The Savage Detectives. Not that any of this is important to me.
ReplyDeletenever got facebook or myspace but twitter, oh yes. it's www's version of the bus stop conversation. hello, mrs. jones, how's your bert's lumbago?
ReplyDeletethe boys did good.
But it might be important to some of the baggy shorts troop, Converse "sneakers" might be a killing signal for some?
ReplyDeleteKeep your onions peeled!
...btw you did not rule of the hanky!
ReplyDelete'White shirt, Timberland jeans, Converse sneakers and a copy of Robert Bolano's The Savage Detectives.' Ooooh, get you!
ReplyDeleteWho the hell wants to spend their lives making themselves more interesting to other people, sod 'em, what they get is what the label states, if they don't like it, tough.
ReplyDeleteFancy looking burdz with short, ugly, balding sweaty guys...it's called money Bryan, twas ever so.
Bernie Ecclestone must have needed a biscuit tin, Sarkozy just needs a penis, although power is as popular as dosh in the honey jar stakes.
Personally I relied upon a kinda animal magic although the Bob Martins stopped working a decade ago.