Are we all hypocrites or is there the odd saintly exception? The dear old Dalai Wotsit or blessed Mother T perhaps?
Without hesitation I own up to being a difficult, miserable old humbug full of cant, hypocrisy and intolerance. I know it’s wrong and in general terms I try and deal with it. But somehow life just gets the better of me.
It’s not that I actively wish anyone any harm, it’s just that I want to be left alone and have come to loathe almost any “normal” interaction with people other than the most superficial. I like lots of people but it tends to be those I do not have to have much to do with. Our postman for instance is great. The taxman not so great.
My pet loathings include
- dishonest and oily “biznismen”
- salesmen ( a particularly noxious sub category of the above)
- overt god bothering
- committees of busybodies
- politicians
Oh dear, it isn’t that I hate people, it’s just that most people irritate me and I am sure I them. As a child I wanted to spend my life pursuing some lonely craft in some quiet place. As an adult I have often wanted to be a secular hermit and would have moved to a remote and deserted Scottish island if (a) the weather wasn’t so terrible; and (b) my bossy little wife hadn’t objected. I probably ought to have been an inventor – a scientist of some sort like Professor Potts in Ian Fleming’s Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Living somewhere quiet and rural, with my inventing shed and outdoor lavatory, like the good professor and his family.
In any event, the City of London and those of Zurich, Tokyo and Hong Kong were, in very clear retrospect, not the ideal choice. Nor was a career in finance a clever decision.
So how should a hypocrite redeem himself (or herself…or in these days of multiple gender awareness, “itself”)?
The only truthful answer I can give is that we should hide ourselves away from others lest we do them verbal damage. I am sure they dislike my company as much as I theirs and it really isn’t anybody’s fault!
Weltanschauung 