Advice to my young self #66: Almost everyone is a fraud.
Almost no one knows what they're talking about, or what they're doing. They don't know enough to know they don't know. It takes courage, not intellect, to recognise one's own incompetence.
If you can manage to be not a fraud, you're already among the best.
"Optimism is a political strategy." - Nick Sagan
"All failure is lack of concentration." - Bruce Lee
"Strange times call for strange comforts." - Bryan Lambert
"The people who must never have power are the humourless." - Christopher Hitchens
"Marriage is the attempt to make something lasting out of an incident." - Albert Einstein
Advice to my young self #36: Stupidity always has a purpose.
Everyone has the facilities to understand why their beliefs are false and their actions counterproductive. Stupidity is the refusal the use these facilities, and the motive is fear.
To make someone intelligent, help them work through their fears.
"Rage doesn't need effort." - Former People
"We don't want upheaval, we just want an upgrade." - Caitlin Moran
"The wonderful thing about children is, they grow up." - Lawrence Krauss
"Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education." - Bertrand Russell
"The framing of the innocent axiomatically involves the exculpation of the guilty." - Christopher Hitchens
"The literal mind does not understand the ironic mind, and sees it always as a source of danger." - Christopher Hitchens
"Schools are where you send your child to be brought up by other children." - Alan Watts
"When you see something stupid, call someone stupid." - Keith Olbermann
"An idea isn't responsible for the people who believe it." - Don Marquis
"A hero is a man who would argue with the gods." - Norman Mailer
"He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else." - Benjamin Franklin
"Cynicism is an evasion." - Noam Chomsky
"Identity politics is what we're left with when we no longer have a personality." - Will Self
"Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people." - Eleanor Roosevelt
"We have to do God's work when there is no god." - Penn Gillette
More is Less
I have eaten almost nothing but salad for the last three months. And I can tell you three things:
(1) It's remarkably easy to get used to eating salad. To the extent that you don't crave cakes, chocolates etc.
(2) I now no longer feel ill and exhausted all the time. In fact I didn't realise how lousy I'd been feeling for years - just putting it down to the general malaise of middle age, diabetes, and being born with rubbish genes.
(3) I weigh exactly the same as I did two months ago. And my reflection in the mirror is just as rounded in all the wrong places and not bulging in the nice places at all.
So, on the basis that I'm doing something right, but not enough of it, from today the menu is:
* Leuttice and other green leafy things (lots)
* Cucumber (lots)
* Carrots (lots)
* Onion (lots)
* Beetroot (because why not)
* Kidney beans (a few)
* Chick peas (a few)
* Pepper, salt, flaked red peppers, plus whatever other condiments or herbs I stumble upon
* Vineger, lemon juice or lime juice when the mood takes me (small splashes)
* Less olive oil than previously. Ditto rappa oil, mustard seed oil, ground nut oil, and whatever wild and wonderful oils remain to be discovered in the Mediterrainian supermarket. (if there's a puddle on the plate when nothing else is left, there was too much to begin with)
* Fish - mackerel, sardines etc. (occasional)
* Water (including in tea)
There's absolutely no point in restricting yourself to food you don't like, and there's nothing noble about going hungry. So the plan is to be an utter pig...but a choosy one.