Learnings

I got the word 'learnings' from working in branding - never liked the word much, but it does allow you to make 'learning' into a count noun. And if I know one thing about commerce, it's that it does like to count things (it means you can make powerpoint slides out of it, for a start).

I have found out some things, or remembered some things, since I've been travelling. Although it does remind me of that book 'Everything I need to know I learned in kindergarten', I'll acquaint you with them here. Some of them, I like to think, are Universal Truths and Philosophy of an Extremely Deep Nature. Others are just things about me, but which may strike a chord. So this is to celebrate being two days off two months away. I expect to be wiser in the future, too, so any of this is to be regarded (like all knowledge, if you believe Karl Popper) as temporary. When I find out I'm wrong about any of these things, I'll let you know straight away.

(1) Doing what you want is easy. Knowing what you want is the hard bit.

(2) I function much better in every way if I can sleep when I want to. I used to worry that, if allowed, I would sleep round the clock and thereby miss my whole life, but there is a natural limit. A nap in the afternoon is essential. Unless I don't feel like it.

(3) I seem to need to eat at 12 noon, 5pm, 10pm, and 2am. See above for how that works.

(3) Exercise definitely cheers you up, sometimes to the point of euphoria. I'm not sure whether it's the happy chemicals that are stimulated by (eg) running, or the smug sense that, having done it, anything else you do that day is a bonus. But it works.

(4) Left to myself, I don't drink alcohol. At all. I haven't the slightest interest in it. But I do smoke, and I do eat cake.

(5) If you don't know what to do, stop and observe the organism (ie you, without the annoying intervention of your mind). It will eventually do something - like reach for a piece of cake, fall asleep, or buy a camper van - that tells you what it wants. For this reason, boredom is something to aim at, because it is the blank canvas upon which what you really want will appear. Strive to be bored.

(6) I only get lonely when I'm frightened. The rest of the time, my head seems to be enough company. Or my DVD and book collection. But I do think that's against a background of knowing that 'my' people are out there somewhere. Reading this, for example.

(7) But, even given (6), I don't think I will ever want to be without a dog. Walking is pointless without one. Having one also avoids the stigma involved in talking to oneself.

(8) The right human lifestyle is one that involves useful physical activity as a matter of course, preferably outdoors, and preferably to achieve something necessary. That's clearing rocks out of your field or rebuilding a fence, rather than achieving the body beautiful. So if you find your gym fees too high and you are still getting fat, I'd recommend crofting, in between bouts on the internet. (This is further confirmed by new edicts that we need 90 minutes' hard exercise a day to keep healthy and avoid putting on weight. Why waste it on a treadmill?)

(9) Most things that look like jumping off a cliff seem, in retrospect, a six-inch drop with moss to land on. This is meant entirely metaphorically. Do not attempt it near anything that looks physically like a cliff. It will probably be a cliff.

(10) Take a picture by all means, but the view further up is always better. I have many series of photos where I went round a bend and could see even further. I have always interpreted this as philosophical.

(11) Avon Skin-So-Soft does work against midges, but only temporarily. I do not interpret this as philosophical.

(12) I have not been used to doing only one thing at a time, but the preoccupation that comes with multi-tasking makes it practically impossible to notice anything important. I am now doing things like scraping the last bit of peanut butter from the old jar into the new one with supreme concentration. I suspect the Buddhists already have a handle on this one.

(13) What you do, or don't do, is not actually all that important. My grandfather lived until he was 94. Not that he'd ever have done it, but at the end of his life I don't think taking a summer off in a camper van would even have made a sentence in his life's narrative. See previous observation about cliffs.

(14) Having no plan at all seems to work very well for me. At least at the moment. Please don't follow this one if you are trying to (eg) run a company.

(15) What stops me doing things is fear of regret. But I've learned over the years that I don't tend to regret anything - except possibly the times when I didn't stop doing things sooner.

(16) A dog will eat and drink perfectly happily out of a plastic bag. If you were thinking of buying a portable dog bowl, save your money.

(17) If you have to wrestle with it, you're doing it wrong.

(18) There is a natural urge in our culture to make things symmetrical or end on an even number. Or have things in threes, or beginning with the same letter. This sense of symmetry may be aesthetically satisfying, but it does not lend any value in terms of usefulness, good sense, or logic.