Weltanschauung

The Philosopher’s Stone

zenothestoic@protonmail.ch

Category: The Inner Path

  • Sore Points: Settle or Leave to Fester?

    Sore Points: Settle or Leave to Fester?

    Human interactions and relationships will never be without their difficulties. Should sore points be discussed and settled in the open or  buried in the hope they will go away?

    The mature and adult option is undoubtedly to discuss any issues freely and to resolve them. One way or another. Perhaps all parties will then be satisfied with what has been decided. Perhaps not but at least everybody knows where they stand.

    The key is to avoid bitterness, recrimination and anger. To leave a grievance to fester is likely, over the years to destroy a relationship.  To discuss areas of concern in an atmosphere of understanding and kindness may lead to a different sort of relationship, or to no relationship at all.  But it will hopefully not result in anger or misunderstanding.

    All too often we misunderstand each other. Or approach each other in the wrong way.  All too often we refuse to acknowledge a problem and bury it until it becomes a bigger problem.

    As we get older, some of us become more philosophical. We are ruffled by less and less. We leave well alone in many cases. The daily news: who cares? Human nature as it stands requires endless conflict almost by definition. Evolution has ensured that all life on earth struggles to survive, usually at the cost of of other life which surrounds it.  Why bother to read about conflict let alone engage in it?

    We eat plants and animals. We kill them to survive. We seek pleasure in an effort to find meaning, not realizing that we will never be satisfied.  We survey, enviously, greener pastures and are often tempted to stray.

    What we should be doing is to wean ourselves away from such unthinking behavior. Assuming our chemical and algorithmic drives will permit us to do this. Assuming we have free will and are not robots.

    Above all we should avoid damage to those around us. But damage can be caused both by action and inaction. It is a fine balance. Will less harm result from burying an issue or in raising it? My suspicion is that the greater good will come from informed and kind discussion.

    We bury too much. Mental health has long been taboo and we are only just beginning to stand up and admit when we have a problem. And to seek help, even though such help as is available is pitifully inadequate – our science is not yet up to it.

    And so with all problems – bring them out into the open.  Do I have anger issues? Am I happy in my job? In my career? Is a relationship fulfilling and all it can be? Are their problems?

    No good can come from hiding issues in the dark and building up resentment. Much good can come from open discussion and from planning a route forward.

  • 1 Corinthians 13.

    1 Corinthians 13.

    Dream on Paul of Tarsus. Who are you kidding?

    As I sat in a church in Barnes this afternoon, I listened in my usual distracted fashion to the sermon given at a wedding.  I pondered sadly, or perhaps soberly, on the chances of survival of a marriage, any marriage. It ain’t easy; that at least the preacher man admitted.

    I had been invited to sing at the service as part of a small choir and had accepted the chance with much enthusiasm. After mugging up on the divine music for a few days, while down on the rugged cliffs of north Devon, today was the big day. Works by Finzi and the glorious 15th Century composer Juan de Anchieta were sung, side by side with Handel and Welsh hymns.

    As is not uncustomary, the young couple were exhorted to take to heart the wise words of St Paul and to live by those words in their marriage.

    Love.

    Love is all. The couple should be kind to each other, they should not envy.  They should not be rude, selfish; they should think no evil.  Hold no grudges, no fear.

    Behave, in other words, in a way no human has ever done either before or after these words were written.

    And to give him his due, the pastor reckoned such behavior was most unlikely. And then of course the crunch line. J.C. did behave like this; he was a great and good guy and came down to earth to save us all. He behaved perfectly and then pushed off for a couple of thousand years, hoping we would all be lead by his exemplary behavior.

    Right. I’ll do the jokes.

    Oddly enough, the sermon drew me back to my musings on Buddhism, which in general I find more to my taste than the sickly, sweet sugar of Acts.

    My strong suspicion is that reincarnation and enlightenment are about as likely as  leprechauns and the parousia, but at least re-incarnation would give us a chance to get it right next time round. And a bit better the time after that. Provided of course we had not been so naughty we were turned into a worm or a dog.

    You see despite the fact our Jewish chum Paul appears to have wasted his time, he was nonetheless cruising along the right lines.

    Even though none of us manage to behave well the whole time, that should not stop us trying. And it should not stop the Juju men from trying to keep us on the right track.

    So yes, on occasion I am inclined to sigh with exasperation at the naivety of the religious, and yet without them there would be few to advance the ideal as something we should strive for.

    1 Corinthians 13 is a magnificent piece of writing and a noble goal. I applaud that ancient Jew.  My belief however is that until we re-engineer the human genome, such piety will remain pie in the sky. Until we can release ourselves from the shackles of our evolutionary inheritance, St Paul can whistle in the wind.

    1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love I am only a resounding gong or clanging cymbal resounding in the wind.

    2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and can understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have faith, that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

    3 And though I give all I possess to the poor, and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

    4 Love is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up;

    5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil;

    6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth;

    7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

    8 Love has no fear; it does not worry; love keeps no records of wrongs; never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away.

    9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part.

    10 But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.

    11 When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

    12 For now we see in a mirror, darkly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.

    13 And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

  • On Facing Daemons

    On Facing Daemons

    In days gone by, a daemon was a reality, a physical presence that could come and grab you and drag you down to to Dante’s Inferno or the Lake of Gehenna.

    As the Catholics might say:

    “Exi ergo, transgressor. Exi, seductor, plene omni dolo et fallacia, virtutis inimici, innocentium persecutor.”

    These days they probably use English:

    “Depart therefore, thou transgressor. Depart, thou seducer, totally filled with cunning and deceit, O thou enemy of virtue, thou persecutor of the innocent.”

    Most of us with a more modern mind recognize that the Daemon, while very real, is nonetheless from the internal rather than external landscape.

    Happily, I self diagnose myself as normal; while prone to pessimism and black moods, psychotic I am not, nor have I ever been.  Whether any sane physician would share my view, who knows, but it suffices for my purposes.

    I can not imagine what the prison of psychosis must be like, although Dante and Bosch give us a pretty good idea. Maybe a more modern setting would have us in the grip of aliens, in the brig of a spaceship in a far flung and evil empire. Who knows.

    But on the assumption you have control over your own mind (which happily most of us seem to) much can be done by facing fear head on.

    As my hero Franklin D. Roosevelt said in his inaugural address:

    So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is…fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.

    Why today do I find myself contemplating daemons?

    Largely as a result of a return to the philosophy of the East, to the Tao in particular. Sparked perhaps by lunch with an elderly Japanese lady and a recent re-reading of the works of Alan Watts.  And Shintoism of course – all those wonderful spirits in woods and trees, in lakes and seas and rivers. How very Tolkien, how Narnian.

    To go with the flow, to face reality, to accept that to attempt to alter the Tao is futile and will lead to failure and self harm.

    To face daemons is to accept them as part of the landscape. To look them in the face. To face up to them as you must face a school bully. And when you do, those of us of reasonably sound mind find the fear disappears.

    Buddhism, the East – it is about acceptance of what is. It is about the illusion of self.  If we ourselves, our “ego”, are mere chimera, how then should we imagine daemons to be anything but a deception of the senses?

    And so after my usual rambling preamble, to the point.  If you can acquire the skill and discipline of letting go, letting pass, it all disappears, crumbles into the mist, ends like an Indonesian puppet theater.

    Your concerns are revealed as shadows cast by light on a curtain of cloth.  We are a physical process, little different conceptually to growing grass or the trees.  But arguably “cursed” with consciousness – an evolutionary sleight of hand to ensure survival.

    Yesterday I was visited by “daemons” as I partook of an ancient sacrament. With closed eyes, fearsome devils rushed towards me. Snakes appeared, many headed with fangs and hissing breath. Color exploded  and all of it daemonic. How so? My usual fare is Gothic arches and stained glass, quiet and ordered geometric pattern, the visual equivalent of transcendent and haunting Renaissance polyphony.

    Well it was just my day for something different.

    But faced with equanimity, with amusement even, these devils bothered me but little. A show of fireworks, beauty even. A part of my soul, my psyche. We are a flow of good and bad, beauty and ugliness. Well, I am anyway.

    If you see the Tao (or if you are a more modern and less prone to flights of fancy, physics perhaps) you can ride it. Shrug it off. See its beauty, yin and yang.

    Facing daemons is facing life in all its bizarre, unknowable and yet perhaps at heart simple flow.

    Well that’s my take anyway. I’ll vote for FDR any day.

  • The Destructive Power of Cynicism

    The Destructive Power of Cynicism

    Reading of the demise of renowned fund manager Neil Woodford, I was reminded of my deep capacity for destructive cynicism.

    The fellow had had a good run for many years but like all gurus, investment or otherwise, he eventually proved to have feet of clay like the rest of us.

    But cynicism and its close relative schadenfreude are undoubtedly not the correct way to “greet” the news.

    Cynicism seems to be one of my default settings and it is not a healthy one. It strikes most vehemently after a bad night’s sleep when I am feeling (just for a change) irritable and grumpy.

    It is my view that active fund managers succeed more by luck than skill (however intelligent they may be, or otherwise). They also prosper by good marketing. Fund managers are by definition “Andy Average” and the stars, over the long term, revert to the mean.

    While that may be true, the correct response to such a decline such as that suffered by this long successful manager should be quiet understanding of the laws of the market which humble us all eventually.

    My natural temptation on bad hair days is to crow. To say “I told you so”. But this is not helpful. He, along with all the other fallen stars, have presumably done a good and honest job as stewards of our pensions and savings over many years.

    It is entirely our own fault, not his, if we believed the hype which inevitably follows such people on their rise towards what (inevitably) turns out to be their zenith. If we were so convinced that such stars are eventually pulled by gravity to their nadir then so be it, we were right all along. But so what?

    If we believe in fairy tales we will eventually be disappointed, but we have to believe in something or we will not get through the day, let alone life.

    Cynicism is such an easy and yet self destructive trap to fall into.

    Instead of commenting on such things (or even noticing their occurrence) we should be quietly promoting views which we consider to be more appropriate.

    To concentrate on the positive and to ignore the negative.

    This post is not intended to be about my investment views. But I should concentrate on the positive; I should tell people about what I consider the “correct” and more durable approach to investing.

    Negativity serves no purpose whatsoever.

  • Original thinking or garbled trope?

    Original thinking or garbled trope?

    I am interested in expressing my own thoughts and reading the original thoughts of others. But too often writers feel obliged to offer up a digest or synthesis of what they have read rather than contributing anything new or original.

    I am well aware that my own thoughts have been deeply informed by others. I am often unconscious of that fact when expressing myself. Yet I try to voice feelings and opinions which are genuinely my own.

    What use if I merely quote Liebnitz or any of my other favorites? Better that than Trump or any of the other boorish ignoramuses of our time, but less of a contribution to society than something fresh.

    It is far from easy to dig deep into one’s psyche and to offer anything new. Indeed, if you were to believe Ecclesiastes, you would come to the conclusion that there is nothing new.

    And yet there assuredly is and from time to time a philosophy or view will pop out which is genuinely and alarmingly fresh.

    Often as not the new will usher in something every bit as dystopian as the new of old, but just occasionally something genuinely useful and peaceful but also revolutionary may emerge.

    Or that is my hope. I was reading through blogs on counter culture this morning. Whatever that expression means. I often consider anarchy, socialism, religious thought and even occasionally conventional centrist politics.  Without much satisfaction.

    There must be some good to be had somewhere. This morning I was reading an article from Sue Stevenson at Discombobula.

    Whether she was joking or not, she suggested that politicians in Australia be served magic mushrooms on toast.

    Researchers announced a few years ago that the psilocybin in magic mushrooms has the ability to foster “sustained changes in outlook and political perspective” for people suffering depression. Even better, those changes are “in the direction of increased nature relatedness and decreased authoritarianism.”

    Now there is an original thought, although I imagine a few of the Flower Power mob back in the 60’s felt much the same way. Which, according to lore, was why psychedelics were banned back in the day. Some say because the newly awakened young were refusing to enlist for the Vietnam war following their psychedelic enlightenment.

    But wait. Do not pass go, do not shut me down in fury and derision. For our Sue has a serious point whether she meant it or not.

    Let me explain. We are the slaves of our Darwinian origins, our evolution. Even the mildest of us will fight tooth and nail for our own survival, when push comes to shove.  We will trample over people on our way to the lifeboats on the Titanic, we will kill and maim and abuse any who stand in our way.

    I am unable to suppress often felt irritation over all manner of things. Which is all very well when I am locked away in my hermetic recreation of Skellig Michael. Faced more closely with my fellow man, I am prone to behave less charitably than I would like. And I am no Ghengis Khan, no Donald Trump. I have no desire to dominate or conquer. I just want to be left alone, as Garbo is reputed to have said.

    My point is that we need to recreate ourselves.  We need to escape from our origins or no amount of good thought or deed will make for a better or kinder world.

    We have had good religious thought for as long as man has existed and when you strip away the claptrap of belief, much of it has something useful to say about how to live in peace with each other.

    But we can not. We did not evolve to live in peace with each other or our planet. We were bred, like the rest of the animal kingdom, for survival – ours – at the expense of everybody else’s.

    And so back to Sue.

    The out of the box, the unusual, the un-thought of.  That is what interests me. Re-engineering our genome, altering our emotions for the better. Increasing our good qualia and reducing our bad.

    Good on you Sue. I agree with you.

     

  • The Limited Use of Self Awareness

    The Limited Use of Self Awareness

    “The unexamined life is not worth living” said Socrates and few would doubt the wisdom of his belief. But is self awareness enough?

    What good is self awareness without change? And can we change? Does the brain have true plasticity and if so do we have the free will necessary to change who we are and how we behave?

    Well I can not answer these deep questions and nor it seems can our brightest scientists or philosophers. They have beliefs, that is true, but they have no “proof”. No way of experimenting on themselves – or at least no way of proving that such change which may occur has done so by virtue of free will rather than the dead hand of determinism.

    Why am I perplexed and troubled by this question this evening? Partly because I am always troubled by my own motives, behavior, actions and thoughts and partly because I was reading some philosopher’s view that morals are relative and not absolute. I don’t care what the professor says or believes. I believe that morals are absolute and that we are grasping our way towards a better society. Hard as that may be to believe sometimes.

    But it all comes back to the personal eventually. And indeed what is society if not a collection of persons?  And if those persons are not self aware we have one problem: they will undoubtedly pursue one or more (perhaps all) of the seven deadly sins and not realize they are being naughty boys.  They may not realize that morals are most assuredly not relativistic and that their behavior therefor sucks and they should change it.

    Ah, but therein the rub. Can we change even if we realize and accept that we ought to?  I can only speak personally and subjectively – and I suspect that is all any of us can do.

    And I can come to no firm conclusion. I know what I ought to be. I know how I ought to behave. I know what I ought to do. And in general I make the attempt to follow the conclusions of my self analysis and my view on morality.

    But I am not at all sure I have ever managed to wreak real or lasting change. I am irritable. I do not wish anyone any real harm but I tend towards petty loathings ( see Pig, Salesmen) which I can’t seem to shake. Some people may indeed be loathsome but why not just let them get on with it and walk the other way? And there are many other things I would like to change about my behavior and my life.

    Oh well – at least I am self aware!  Perhaps that is better than nothing. Tries hard said the headmaster.

     

  • Anger is Self-Harm

    Anger is Self-Harm

    The anger I felt after a set-to a week ago was a futile exercise in self harm.

    I had a problem with two people. One I shall call Psycho and for her I feel deep pity and sadness. The other I shall call the Buffoon and for him I feel (I am sorry to say) contempt.

    I should have known better than to answer Psycho’s call. I have been trying to help for many years but she knows the lot and is incapable of listening or being wrong. Every time I have had contact in recent years, the poor thing has lit some touch paper inside me and left me feeling angry, guilty, irritable and sad in equal parts for many days after.

    Unfortunately when crossed, Psycho likes to let the world know and will make trouble on an epic scale. Countless parties will be copied in on trouble making emails, cc’d to friends, family, lawyers, the Archbishop of Ulam Bator  and Uncle Tom Cobbley.  The object seems to be to cause massive buggeration all round.

    Tittle tattle, gossip and venom are poured out in equal measure and the Buffoon (one of the lucky recipients) saw an opportunity to join battle, sending his own batch of vitriolic nonsense to various of the parties.  You would feel pity also for the Buffoon if he were not a self important, ill educated and stupid windbag intent on nothing but his own aggrandizement and self interest.

    But look who is working himself up…which brings me back to the point. At last.  Whether I am on the moral high ground or, more probably, not, I am self harming by allowing anger to surface. For me anger is rather like agent orange; or dogshit on the bottom of my shoes. I just can’t scrape it off. It festers, smells and builds for days until my blood pressure rises, and another trip to the doctor is called for.

    I am sure that if you are a saintly cove like the dear old Dalai Wotsit, you don’t get angry in the first place. Years of sitting cross legged and saying “Ommmm” must have made him immune to vulgar, common or garden anger. And what of the self help Gurus like Choppy Deepak and Eggsplurt Tolla? Such great men claim to live in the now and are presumably immune to the Seven Deadly Sins.

    Sadly I am a lowly mortal and when I get pissed off I really do have a massive Bad Hair day. Well quite a few Bad Hair days really.  I am impossibly irritable and bad tempered, I drive dangerously, I do not sleep at night. My irritation with Psycho and the arselicking Buffoon courses through my veins.

    But guess what? It can all be avoided by the simple tactic of avoiding poor old Pyscho and the absurd Buffoon. Don’t read their emails, don’t pick up the phone. Baton down all hatches, close the blackout curtains.  Recognize that wherever the fault lies, all parties are suffering and no purpose is being served.

    I guess it isn’t always possible to cut people out of your life. Or there again, perhaps it is, with a bit of effort. Providing you don’t lose your rag you could change jobs, wives, husbands, countries, town or villages. Sexes even. Flee.  It would be a bit presumptuous to expect them to flee but as long as one party does, your purpose is served.

    I wish I were not so easily riled. I wish I were not such a bad tempered old fucker but there you go, I am.

    The serious point is that anger helps nobody and does immeasurable harm. Lives can be ruined, lost even. My own solution going forward will be to avoid danger, if at all possible. Make sure my paths do not cross with those who trigger my wrath. It’s the only way.

    Because Dalai Wotsit I am most definitely not!

  • Psalm 42- Where is Now Thy God?

    Psalm 42- Where is Now Thy God?

    Like as the hart desireth the water-brooks, so longeth my soul after thee O God.

    Thank god for England, and for English country churches. For their jolly vicars, the kindly church wardens and those who “do” the flowers and dust the flagstone floors.

    For the organists and choirs and the village ladies in their funny hats and sensible shoes. England, this England.

    We shall miss it when it has gone, all this. When our heritage has been stolen by the greedy developers and our churches have been converted to flats, or worse, bingo halls.

    Get there while you still can. While the barbarians yet beat at our doors, held off but by the thinnest of lines; go and sit in a quiet shrine and contemplate the infinite. Or, if you prefer, the cosmos and our place in it. Or any manner of things. But go while it lasts and pick up a book of Psalms.

    Better still, read it out loud while there is nobody about on a blustery May day and see how our ancestors lamented, wailed and gnashed their teeth in oh, so modern a fashion.

    Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul, and why are you so disquieted within me?

    Like all the Psalms of David, this quiet and beautiful piece of poetry has been recited in synagogue and church for thousands of years. It has been chanted in plainsong, it has been sung in magnificent polyphony. It has been accompanied by the organ and the orchestra. It has been set to music by Felix Mendelssohn and many others.

    Wie der Hirsch schreit….Was betrübst du dich, meine Seele?

    How modern is the writer’s lament. Help me, do not desert me in my hour of need. Why is my heart so heavy, my soul so burdened. Who was he this poet? Where was he?

    A Jew in a foreign land it is said, unable to worship his god in the temple in Jerusalem. Exiled perhaps. Wandering aimlessly in sadness, a captive or slave longing for his freedom and his home. By the rivers of Babylon.

    Am I a closet believer a friend asked me today? No I don’t think so. I just appreciate sentiment, beauty wherever it is to be found. And performance, yes that too. To speak these verses as they were meant, to bring out their meaning. To sing the psalm to the glorious setting by Mendelssohn.

    And yet some part of me shares those sentiments. Those longings.

    Where is Now Thy God?

  • Another Day, Another Guru

    Another Day, Another Guru

    I was listening to some cross legged Russian windbag this morning pontificating on why micro-dosing psychedelics was bad news. It was not, he said, a short cut to god or anything else.

    I should have realized the fellow was going to irritate me when he waited a full minute before answering the question posed by the serious young woman interviewing him. For dramatic effect and presumably to emphasize his great holiness, wisdom and gravitas he remained silent in the lotus position while we mere mortals waited for his pearls of wisdom.

    What  a tosser. He proceeded to um and ah about various eastern concepts using the usual mumbo jumbo phrases about “mantric, tantric, chakra” filled bollux before ticking us off roundly about short cuts to heaven.

    I remember some years ago my wife and a sister having the hots for some old dear called Shine who wrote books on auric eggs or something. Anyway our Betty had supernatural powers or better and could see people’s auras. Or was it chakras? Or bottoms? I can’t recall.

    And so it goes, as Billy Joel so charmingly put to music. Another day another guru.

    Let me first tell you in no uncertain terms I am no Guru. I can not direct you to a stairway to heaven, nor have I traveled such route myself.

    But what I might just be able to do is to save you a bit of time and money by warning you against windbag, guru nutters. And also save you a bit of heartache and disappointment.

    I have been what I would call a “searcher” all my life.  I have looked in every nook and cranny and under every blade of grass for the Stone. The Philosopher’s Stone. The answer to Life the Universe and Everything.

    And I have read some shatteringly bad books and listened to some truly stupid people. It is not that I consider myself all wise: merely that I know humbug when I come across it.

    Why are we mere mortals fooled by Gurus?  Why do we listen to gurus? Seek them out, sit at their feet, worship them and suck up their bullshit?

    It is because we live in a fearful and in some respects terrifying and “bad” world full of danger and that most awful of animals – our fellow man.

    We crave gurus as we crave god: to answer our problems, to provide meaning to our life, to help us in our struggles. To answer our prayers, to save us from the hand of our enemies. To grant us eternal life and in the interim happiness and plenty on earth.

    Please don’t get me wrong: I would like all those things. But I do not need the advice of windbag self appointed gurus to achieve them.

    I have sought and in a sense I have found.

    There have been tracts, texts and indeed people I have found helpful along the way but mostly I have had to beat my own path to the doors of perception. I have followed Dorothy and found the Wizard of Oz; the winds of Kansas did me a favor and showed me there is no external savior and that all our emperors have no clothes.

    Lest that sounds bleak, it is not. I have found some help along the path. Cardinal Hume’s wonderful books for instance. The Abbot of Worth and his TV appearances. The simpler explanations of Eastern philosophy.  The Rules of St Benedict. The Tao.

    But in essence you will have to do all the work yourself.  No one is going to save you, transform your life, rapture you. No seller of books or vitamins, no merchant of dreams will save your soul or give you the “12 Steps to Happiness and Fulfillment”.

    If anyone promises so to do, run. And lock your wallet. Tighten your purse strings.

    The answer lies within. You and you alone hold the key to your own happiness and peace. And if you are temperamentally a miserable sod as I am you may need a little chemical help along the way.

    Which brings me right back to where I started and the Russian windbag grumbling about entheogens.

    What I can tell you is that entheogens have helped me. Have I seen the face of god? Probably not but he feels somewhere quite close by, even if he is not quite what I thought he was.

    What I can also tell you is I am moderately hopeful that judicial and cautious use of psilocybin may be on its way to curing a life long tendency to consider the glass half empty.

    Perhaps the Russian windbag is right in his own case. An entheogen may not be for him. But make your own mind up. Tune out, turn off the windbags.

     

  • 12 Ways to Wipe Your Butt

    12 Ways to Wipe Your Butt

    Why do the cretinous like numbered lists? And why do they annoy me so much?

    I was asked to write a chapter for a book on investment a while ago along with people who, unlike myself, knew what they were talking about.

    The publisher asked me to write about my 10 investing rules. Piqued by the absurdity of the  idea I wrote 8 rules instead but I could just as easily have chosen 1 or 15.

    For some reason I have a bee in my bonnet at the moment about Jordan Peterson who opines that there are 12 Rules For Life.  Perhaps it is just that I am jealous of his success? There again probably not – it must be exhausting to be in demand.

    This particular clinical psychologist offers books, “podcasts” (whatever they are) and general existentialist thoughts on every aspect of life and the universe. Or do I mean 13 aspects? Or 5 1/2?

    As a shrink perhaps Jordan could tell me why there are 12 Rules for Life? Or did his publisher just think the title was catchy and there were 12 apostles? Or was it 11 because that rotter Judas doesn’t count?

    Why 40 days in the wilderness? Surely 10 would have done the job?

    A cursory look at Google produces the following equally banal lists:

    • 30 Ways to Die
    • 12 Ways to Get to 11
    • 7 Ways to Maximize Misery
    • 7 Ways to Maximise a Fart
    • 130 Ways to Fill a Notebook
    • 16 Ways to Kill a Vampire at McDonalds

    Note that I have used a list! This is my “6 ways to point out the absurdity of numbered lists”.

    Is there a point to all this? Am I going anywhere or just driveling?

    Well I think there must be a point somewhere, if only I can find it. I’ll have a shot.

    We humans need certainty. We need codification. We like to explain the universe in terms of mathematics, and indeed that is the only way so to do.

    By writing a chapter containing 8 investment Rules I am giving people the certainty they crave. I am telling them that if they employ exactly 8 Rules in their investment strategy (my rules) they will achieve success.  What nonsense; how misleading.

    And so back to Dr Peterson. His theory is that just as there were 12 (or 11) apostles, there are 12 (or is it 13?) “Rules for Life”.  It makes people think there really are 12 Rules and that following them will lead to everlasting Joy And Happiness.

    Take the Kabbalah. It’s all about numbers. The mysticism of numbers. In numbers we will find our answers. 42 is the Answer to the Meaning of Life the Universe and Everything!

    Or take Buddhism: it has a Noble 8-Fold Path. Not 7 fold or 6. Or 5 1/2 but 8. Get a decimal point wrong and you will fall from the path and fail to reach Nibbana. Oh – and there are 4 Noble Truths!

    There is a place for the certitude of numbers and it is in the scientific endeavor.  The number of atoms in helium or strontium. The age of the universe. The rotations of the earth around our sun.

    There is no place for numbers in the messy and chaotic world of human behavior.

    So the next time some clever clogs tells you there are “12 Ways to Wipe Your Butt” the correct response is:

    “Bollox”.