It might seem odd but I, a convinced atheist, have recently completed a 10-day fast based on the Hindu festival of Navratri, which is being celebrated this week. These days, if we limit what we eat, it is almost certainly because we are trying to lose weight, detox or realise some kind of health benefit. The idea that we might seek to forgo certain foods for moral improvement seems bizarrely anachronistic.
ReadRegular readers might have noticed that I often talk about confronting reality as though that were a good thing. Could it not be a philosopher’s bias to assume that it is better to live in the gloomy shadow of dark truths than in the artificial light of pleasing falsehoods?
ReadWe have taken our places. This evening’s performance, sold out months in advance, is about to begin. The programme, handwritten in a traditional script on a rolled parchment, tied with string, tells us to expect a prologue, two chapters and an epilogue, without interval. I’m nervous with anticipation but I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit that it’s not because I am waiting for the curtain to rise on a Wagner opera or a Shakespeare play. I’m actually waiting for my dinner.
ReadIf the price of a certain liberty and spreading out in the world is less of a sense of belonging, for many that price is worth paying. There are those for whom it is better to be moving and rootless than static and routeless.
ReadThe real problem with air travel is not the carbon footprint, the hassle of security checks, the tedium of the boarding gate, the soulless sprawl of the hire car lot, or Ryanair’s excessive excess charges and unavoidable fees for allegedly optional extras. The deeper issue is that how we travel reflects and shapes the way we think, and we have become a society of airheads.
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