Everyone has heard of the long wait-time for certain medical procedures. Likewise we’ve also heard of “private” clinics available on demand to perform many of the same services for a price. My latest encounter with the current “provincial” medical system has highlighted the differences though oddly not related to cost or wait-time. There appears to be a widening rift between the “provincial” medical professionals and the “public” they work for, even bordering on disdain by the physicians for the public.  Loud and clear I have discovered that doctors are rapidly joining the ranks of those who are acutely aware of their prescribed duties and entitlements, primary facts which – for some at least – regularly trump pride in the work they perform. Certain physicians have – no doubt unwittingly – boxed themselves into the same corner one might find a wary and angry dog. Continue reading →

Lately con artists have woefully figured rather vividly in the morning news, stories about real estate developers who swindle one group of people to pay off another, something along the lines of a pyramid scheme. There are always two perceptible features to these inventions: one, there is inevitably a loser (the sine qua non for the success of all the other players); and two, it is a non-sustainable business model that promises participants money for enrolling others into the scheme without supplying any real product or service. These stratagems have at least the curious (though perhaps demonic) attraction of being elaborate and systematic plans of action even though fraught with artifice and ruse. They make for some delicious reading as well. No doubt you are familiar with the plots and deception which formed the foundation of the novel “The Way We Live Now” by Sir Anthony Trollope published in London in 1875. The proposal to construct a railway from Salt Lake City to Veracruz turns out to be nothing more than a front to ramp up the share price without paying any money into the scheme itself. The novel was inspired by the financial scandals of the early 1870s and was a rebuke to the greed and dishonesty which infested that era.

One does not however imagine that in the less public theater of one’s intimate personal relationships the same connivance can either exist or thrive. It is after all so much more convenient and less disruptive to presume to limit such activity to either Victorian novels, antiquity or at the very least the common forum of the masses. In fact it appears that the very intimacy of our personal relationships – whether amicable, familial or romantic – spawns and nurtures the same corruption even if less notorious. Its discovery is frequently shocking because it involves the unfolding of out-and-out dedication to culpability which is a trance quite foreign to most of us.

It may help to absorb what I am saying if one knocks the matter down a notch. Rather than aggrandize the theft as a scheme, label it merely as being taken advantage of. It is no doubt part of the success of these underhanded plans that they are seemingly buoyed by more favourable and distracting attributes. Under the guise of friendship, affection, family connection or any other less than exploitative attraction, the truly manipulative nature of the con is sufficiently veiled from detection until it is too late. Normally in these closely-knit fabrications, the victim of the scam is a willing (and admittedly at times a vain) participant without any view whatsoever to gain other than the normal rewards of human satisfaction which flow from charity and generosity.

Upon the revelation of the deception, strict behaviour is mandatory, by which I mean an immediate severance of the involvement. To confound the obfuscation further by attempting to qualify the disarray with buffers of alleged misunderstanding, misconstrued needs or anything else to dilute the mendacity of the proponent is a waste of time. At moments like this one must call upon the adages of axiomatic living which bring us out of the clouds and plants us firmly upon the ground, among them, “trust your instincts”.

The most recognizable intimate cons are the gold-diggers, the penny pinchers (who profess to excuse their niggardliness by claiming pride in having “deep pockets”), the social climbers, the political aspirants and generally anyone else who seeks to improve their lot at the expense of others. Historically, such losers inevitably fail; indeed their loathsome behaviour is customarily a signal of their current or impending ruin. Frequently the upsetting element of the con is not so much the value for which one is taken, but more for the publicity of having been taken at all.

When I casually mentioned to an elderly relative of mine that we were going to a wedding, he curiously asked, “Is it a church wedding?”. Uninitiated as I am to the mysteries of matrimony in general, I wasn’t entirely sure what the significance of a church wedding was in particular except to divine the obvious that it captured the more conventional aspect of the affair. In any event, I was able to report that indeed it was to be a church wedding, and in most respects traditional as far as I knew. Because the wedding was to take place was in the hinterland of the Township of Lanark Highlands we had previously toured the site to ensure we found our way there on time on the appointed day.

The church is located in the hamlet of Playfairville and is called the Zion Methodist Church originally constructed in 1860. Recently it was completely renovated though preserving the historic structure in tact in every possible way. It is a charming and unimposing white clapboard building set upon a high point of land close to Fallbrook Road. There is a flight of stairs leading to the wooden double front doors. Inside one adjusts quickly to the fact that the church is exceedingly small and that the structure, unlike most churches, is apparently wider than it is long which creates an elliptical impression. On each side there are rows of pews for two people; in the middle there are longer rows for about ten or possibly more people. There are about five rows in all three sections. The front of the church is a raised platform on the left of which is an old pump organ with an ancient oval mirror mounted on its cabinet to allow the organist to see what is going on at the back of the church. In the middle of the platform is the lectern, and on the right are three more pews presumably for a choir. There is a railing which separates the platform from the congregation. At the back of the church is a narrow steep wooden staircase leading to a snug balcony, where there are two sections of three further rows of pews. This is where we eventually sat since the ground level pews were already congested. From the high vantage of the balcony we were conveniently able to see all.

Upon our arrival at the church we parked on the gravel shoulder alongside the road in front of the church. Our eyes were immediately drawn to what was clearly an intentional work of art – an extremely muddy truck (which turned out to be the groom’s Ford F150) on the back panel of which was thumbed in the dried muck “Just Marry’ed”. We then caught sight of the groom and several of his male wedding party all clad in black suits complemented by long white silk ties, lending an air of mafioso to their appearance. They stood about the entrance to the church, smoking cigarettes and chatting with one another and the arriving guests. Quiet words of congratulations were extended to the beaming groom as people shook his large hand. The groom reported that his Best Man was further down the road where he could be seen having a drink from a store of spirits at the back of his own truck. One of the wedding party was a nephew of the bride, about fourteen years of age. He looked about as comfortable in his formal attire as did the other gentlemen who the bride had previously told me were all construction workers. Complementing the pastoral landscape was a small herd of light brown cattle in an adjacent field of undulating grasses. It was a sunny day, not too warm, with a pleasing mixture of fluffy white clouds in the otherwise blue sky.

The guests were people of mixed ages though predominantly young. The bride was only 24 years of age, and the groom was 25. When others (all young couples) joined us in the balcony before the commencement of the ceremony, we caught whiff of liquor as they ascended the narrow staircase. Some of the young girls were sporting rather provocative fashions, though their sylphlike figures certainly warranted them doing so without scruple.

The ceremony began to take shape as the male wedding party assembled at the front of the church on the right side of the platform. There they were joined by the Minister who I only heard referred to as “Sam”. The Minister was appropriately clad in a nondescript suit. He had a twinkle in his bespectacled eyes, alabaster skin, rosy cheeks and a quick smile. I thought he resembled Billy Graham, the well-known Evangelist. When he later spoke to the assembled throng his accent was thick enough to cut with a knife, distinctly Lanark County, that unique blend of Irish and Scottish brogue.

Then arrived the bride’s maids, one by one, each stopping to allow herself to be photographed, then taking their respective places on the left of the platform.

Finally, the bride wearing a traditional white gown, train and head dress was escorted by her father to the centre of the platform where the groom dutifully awaited her. The Minister began his address with a little joke about a young school girl who had kissed a little boy, the romantic feat having been accomplished with the assistance of two other little girls who caught the boy and held him down. The punch line, however, was when the Minister turned to the bride and said, “Good catch!”. What followed that uplifting introduction was a ceremony greatly disinfected of any religiosity and more embellished with fundamental truths about sharing and caring, forgiveness and love. The bride and the groom exchanged the customary vows, which, upon the invitation of the Minister, they sealed with a kiss to the delight of the wedding guests who applauded as a sign of approbation.

A moment more was spent by the bride and the groom signing the register, also on the platform, and the Minister then officially pronounced the happy couple man and wife.

Outside, following the exit of the wedding party and closest relatives into the summer afternoon, people met and greeted one another. True to form, the bride, though composed as the occasion might require, never lost her common touch, making all her guests feel welcome and important.

We have a tendency when reading about those who came before us, especially if long ago, to regard them as a bit odd if nonetheless quaint. By comparison our equal inclination is to reckon ourselves rather well-adjusted and modern. The bias is supported by propositions such as:

“Knowledge compounds. The experiences that we have in life, in business and in society, should drive us to learn and to improve. That is, if we want to get better. Knowledge is wealth and grows when learning is applied and compounded.”

It is ambitious to rebut such a promulgation when contemplating, for example, the advances which have been made since the introduction of the internet to popular society (e-commerce, mobile communications, data centres). Yet, apart from technology, medicine, science, engineering, alternative energy production and the like – all adjuncts to ourselves – I question how far we’ve really come in the improvement of human relationships. As antique as Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson may be, essentially they behaved towards one another pretty much the same way we do. What use Holmes would have made of the internet to solve his conundrums is quite another question, but I don’t see a remarkable difference between us and them based upon an examination only of human qualities.

Even if one seeks to magnify the essential differences between us and our predecessors by juxtaposing us to the vastly historic individuals such as the Romans, I am not yet convinced that our human temperaments have advanced in step with our technological accessories. Clearly science and medicine are supportive of our existence (our organism), but they remain subordinate to our being. Tackling the inner complexities (and often the maladies) of human interaction is frankly a task which oddly has been all but ignored in comparison to the pursuit of the external developments of life.

I suppose there are those who would argue that religion fills the void of which I speak. This in my opinion is a less than satisfactory retort, not merely for the reason that religion is so often the excuse for horrible acts of violence and social injustice, but more specifically because the focus of religion is frequently upon the life hereafter (and in the meantime religion does what it can to absolve us of our perpetual sins, not exactly a prescription for social harmony). More often than not religious differences keep people apart rather than bring them together.

It is generally accepted that the evolution of any species is something accomplished if at all over a very, very long time, and certainly far less quickly than our industrial, manufacturing and technological advancements have been made. I have no idea how long ago it was that the cave man was dragging his tree stump and knuckles along the ground, but within the last 2000 years from what I can tell, the nature of mankind hasn’t evolved by spectacular leaps. Of course we must rely upon recorded history as the basis of any comparison. Anything I’ve read leads me to believe that the nature of modern men and women is about the same as our ancestors. Even when reading the philosopher Aristotle, in spite of his antiquity, I nonetheless come away with a sense that he and we are not that much different. The prevailing hallmarks of humanity (prejudice, superstition, class distinctions and the like) continue to abound over the centuries.

If I am failing to make my objection clear, it is this: in light of all the endowments and resources we supposedly have at our disposal, we should have progressed more remarkably as co-operative and caring individuals than we appear to have done. It is one thing to extol the virtues of the internet by saying that, using it, one can retrieve almost limitless knowledge; it is however quite another to observe that we still lack the tools to manage personal disagreements, to control our anger, to rationalize different points of view, to accept and understand the effects of failure, to eliminate prejudice based upon sex or colour, to appreciate the mechanics of manners to override instinctive harm to others. If indeed “Knowledge is wealth and grows when learning is applied and compounded”, then I question whether, in the context of human relations, we have any such knowledge; or whether, if we do, it has been applied and compounded. Sadly I believe the unpleasant truth is that matters such as the improvement of human relations take a back seat to many other avenues of learning and enquiry. I don’t for example recall ever having taken a course in public school, high school, university or graduate school which came anywhere near an examination of the improvement of human relations. Why this is so I shall never understand. It seems to me to be a skill fundamental to our needs.

I quite expect that my rambling will be passed off as yet another heady but naive declaration for “world peace”. Perhaps what is closer to the truth is that our visceral instincts will forever trump our cerebral instincts. As a result the evolution of the species is mired in the fabric of nature which as we know requires millions of years to change.

Any scholarly study which addresses the meaning of human happiness includes without exception a reference to “the person within”, that enigmatic collection of strengths, frailties, aspirations, anxieties, accomplishments and failures which supposedly make us who we are and without the full cognition of which we can apparently never be content. Often the pursuit of the person within is represented to contradict the world without, rather like pitting the finite against the infinite (with the laurels normally going to the infinite as the only real source of happiness). This contradiction of the temporal world clearly works especially well for those who are in a perpetual state of want though the elevation of one’s mind to the spiritual ether is not lost on those who have abused their material advantage and who as a result seek delivery from it.

Inward analysis is portrayed as a panacea. To listen to some people complain, you would think they had done nothing their entire life but live to fulfill the expectations of others rather than listening to the intoxicating notions of their inner self. I am not convinced however that those private whimseys are altogether trustworthy and may indeed be more capricious than judicious. Nonetheless there prevails the widespread view that the unconscious holds the key, suggesting even that to find one’s inner voice is to find one’s inner counsellor.

The experience of knowing the person within is likened at times to listening to one’s instincts or the pursuit of self-awareness. The activity of seeking happiness – from whatever source – requires both purpose and discipline. If for example it is true that for years we have pandered to the wishes and views of others at the expense of our own inclinations, it requires strong commitment and repeated practice to thwart the abuse. It takes courage to be who you really are.

Discovering one’s personal identity is slippery business. One’s “self” (even acknowledging its inescapable connection with our biological individuality) is less a thing, more a process. Happily the project of self-discovery produces the advantage of freshly minted perspectives, unique to ourselves. We needn’t suffer the indignity of being a rubber-stamped copy of someone else’s making.

As a social phenomenon the search for the person within has gathered speed in the past several decades. Consider for example how prevalent were the mores to conform in the 1950s – 1960s. Indeed the achievement of commonality was highly desirable. The standard persuasion of the post-war middle class housewife, husband and child was epitomized in such now laughable television series as “Father Knows Best”, “Leave It To Beaver” and “The Brady Bunch”. While there will of course continue to be people who see these “innocent times” as having some continued worth for their preservation of traditional values, the more popular trend since the 1970s is toward greater individuality and growth of one’s personal qualities and ideals though frequently unsupported by the majority.

It is arguable that we are the last to know ourselves. While we may fashion in our own minds that our behaviour or thoughts are projected in one manner or another, likely it is closer to the truth that the irrefutable substance of our being is apparent in any event, with or without our massaging influence.

It is well-timed that I should be putting together this particular piece about “the cocktail hour” on July 4th, a notoriously social day in the United States (for whose people I have prodigious affection). I admire their entrepreneurial spirit, their resourcefulness, their hedonism and – more to the point – their inclination for material incentive.

The cocktail hour is after all a reward, a prize for having survived the day and maybe even for having accomplished something worth noting. After one has endured the boot-strap detail of one’s personal drudge, the thought of settling into a cushy green leather chair with an improving book, a salty snack and a restorative drink is seductive. The resulting respite and discharge from having realized the duties of one’s private avocation merit recompense.

I confess I am somewhat myopic in this regard in that I sense a positive necessity to wring all I can out of life while the opportunity presents itself. Others may feel the need or propriety to defer their celebration of life for another day or otherwise bank the entitlement, but I am unwilling to take the chance of missing out.

Recently, in a moment of self-purification and in an attempt to circumscribe our epicurean predilections, we have bandied about the idea of delimiting the cocktail hour to the cocktail ”half-hour”. This we have discovered is an abuse destined to failure, not to mention that it gainsays a valued tradition which has been years in the making. Whether one is diverting oneself with the local news, surfing the internet or reading a respectable novel, the process of decompression requires at least an hour for its fruitful achievement.

My preferred companion to the evening cocktail is a lively narrative by one of Britain`s dazzling writers, say Virginia Woolf or Jane Austen. In this age of e-books I have agreeably discovered that I can download endless numbers of my favourite volumes without expense as most of what I fancy is beyond the bounds of copyright. For example, all eight hundred pages of Edward Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire! A masterpiece for less than a song!

Pardon me, although I am already well into the subject, I must qualify my trifling opinions by acknowledging that, when employing the expression “the cocktail hour”, I am loosely including more than what are strictly speaking cocktails, unless you own that a vodka or gin martini (my personal poison) merits the distinction. Historically I have thought of cocktails as involving at least three singular and marked ingredients, with the glass itself frequently dressed up with perhaps a small paper umbrella. Think, for example, of the traditional Side Car or Old Fashioned. The definition admits however to greater particularity:

The first documented definition of the word “cocktail” was in response to a reader’s letter asking to define the word in the May 6, 1806, issue of The Balance and Columbia Repository in Hudson, New York. In the May 13, 1806, issue, the paper’s editor wrote that it was a potent concoction of spirits, bitters, water, and sugar; it was also referred to at the time as a bittered sling. J. E. Alexander describes the cocktail similarly in 1833, as he encountered it in New York City, as being rum, gin, or brandy, significant water, bitters, and sugar, though he includes a nutmeg garnish as well.

By the 1860s, it was common enough for orange curaçao, absinthe and other liqueurs to be added that, as first mentioned in The Chicago Daily Tribune on July 25, 1880, the original concoction, albeit in different proportions, as being called “old-fashioned”[ and came back into vogue itself]. The most popular of the in-vogue “old-fashioned” cocktails were made with whiskey, according to a Chicago barman, quoted in The Chicago Daily Tribune in 1882, with rye being more popular than Bourbon. The recipe he describes is a similar combination of spirits, bitters, water and sugar of seventy-six years earlier.

Traditionally, the first use of the name “Old Fashioned” for a Bourbon whiskey cocktail was said to have been, anachronistically, at the Pendennis Club, a gentlemen’s club founded in 1881 in Louisville, Kentucky. The recipe was said to have been invented by a bartender at that club in honor of Colonel James E. Pepper, a prominent bourbon distiller, who brought it to the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel bar in New York City.

The cocktail hour has lately been the subject of much attention on Broadway where the culture of preprandial indulgence has surfaced as the object of analysis in a modern play, one by the way which has not been altogether well received because, in times of economic distress for many Americans, it chronicles the dizzy indulgences of upper class Americans who use the hour as a forum for nothing more than complaint and controversy.

Certainly the performance and habit of the cocktail hour is not the norm for most families, especially those graced with children (who inevitably sterilize any modicum of evasion of the realities of life). The cocktail hour is thus the reserve of those of “advanced age” (or perhaps the very rich, if those types continue to exist). It is, whatever one might say, a vernacular reserved for them who at least have the privilege of looking upon their back yard without having to worry about putting the lights out!

Timing, as in everything, is also relevant to the cocktail hour. As fond as I am of a mid-day mart to jolt a luncheon of sea bass or scallops with a simple salad, the intemperance unhappily robs the evening cocktail of its punch. The cocktail hour is in my opinion strictly bound to six o’clock and not a minute afterwards! The respect of the limits of the cocktail hour should also be observed especially when one is out of one’s own house. If the invitation to a cocktail hour specifies 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. one should never linger longer. A loitering cocktail guest, just like a late dinner guest, is as much an insult to the host and an outrage to the chef.

I don’t know about you, but most of us lead rather less than a dramatic existence. I mean to say, we’re not exactly television material or front page on People magazine. As a result, it may be measured a small compliment to denominate one’s life as routine, conveying as it does the flavour of monotony and ordinariness. There is naturally a reason for this aspersion. In its usual application routine is associated with the commonplace tasks, chores or duties as must be done regularly or at specified intervals. Such undertakings thus acquire the character of typical, everyday activity even though they may recount the accomplishment of indispensable necessities of life. But routine is not always linked to such unexciting though obligatory responsibilities. Routine can represent a formula for the perfection of many duties, pedestrian or no. Importantly, routine is associated by many to the performance of those duties which are for whatever reason especially dear to their heart. Consequently the adherents to routine value the enactment of those dedicated activities very highly and any unorthodoxy is thought intolerable, even – in cases of mindless celerity especially – a capitulation, an admission of mediocrity and lowliness for example. The tedious sometimes lumbering fulfillment of a traditional duty is mandatory and equally moral though perhaps colourless in the eyes of some thinkers.

It is a mistake to assume that those who are seemingly bound by humdrum and predictable behaviour are in some sense creepy. It was for example no less than the German philosopher Emmanuel Kant whose habits were so notoriously regular that the villagers set their clocks by his comings and goings (at least that is until he fell in love and subsequently whispered, “All I have written is false” but that must be an allowable distortion). On the balance one has be alert not to confound the unexciting outward appearance of a person with the inner depth and passion of his or her thoughts. There are instances where diversity of activity is sacrificed to the preferred intrigue of introspective discovery and steadfast avocation.

For dedicated athletes routine is second-nature and without it their skill and development would correspondingly suffer. The encouragement to follow such an unchanging sequence is captured in Nike’s trademark slogan “Just Do It!” which is hardly a catchphrase to be daring. It is instead a strategy to overcome idle contemplation, a manifesto of empowerment (and one which by the way vaulted Nike’s share of the domestic sport-shoe market from 18% to 43% from 1988 to 1998).

In the less glamorous everyday business environment, routine is paradoxically very often the code of conduct which heightens the quality of production and safeguards that the much desired particulars and specifications are not inadvertently or – even worse – negligently unheeded. Routine is after all that sound course of behaviour which flattens the blips and hiccups of life by securing the barque of adventure to the steadfast moorings of tried and proven reason. It is easy to be persuaded in a vacuum of experience to deviate from the safe harbours of intellectual and commercial regulation. That is what routine is in the end all about, regulation – rules, guidelines and directives.

Yet in spite of the tributes which attend the recital of routine activities, there persistently remains the underlying pollutant that routine is either for the pusillanimous or the ill-informed. Routine just never had a good name, being about as blunt an exhibition as an ox in yoke. Creativity, on the other hand, inevitably trumps the erstwhile dull and foreseeable plot that is routine and seems the perfect contradiction to habitual behaviour. This however involves a misunderstanding of the two carriages. Creativity is by definition unique and distinct from existing models of performance. Routine on the other hand is the distilled result of what has not infrequently been years in the making. The seemingly uninteresting routine does not come about without previous effort.

Routine is not a tool for discovery (as more imaginative and hot-blooded agencies may be) but rather a prescription for success.

Given the unforeseen turbulence of life generally, having a routine is most certainly a precaution. Granted, its sometimes tedious nature rather compels one to abhor the apparent lack of flavour and dynamism which we might ideally wish for ourselves, yet the precaution embedded in routine comportment contains recognizable efficiency.

Hoi polloi (Greek: οἱ πολλοί, hoi polloi, “the many”), a Greek expression meaning “the many” or, in the strictest sense, “the majority”, is used in English to refer to the working class, commoners, the masses or common people in a derogatory sense. Synonyms for hoi polloi which also express the same or similar contempt for such people include “the great unwashed”, “the plebeians” or “plebs”, “the rabble”, “riff-raff“, “the herd”, “the proles” and “peons” (“Wikipedia”). You’ll grant that the connotation of the term hoi polloi is common knowledge. What, however, I derive of particular reputation from this etymology is the admittedly narrow point that it is held by some redundant to say “the hoi polloi” for I understand that “hoi” is the definite article. Others however take the view that “…once established in English, expressions such as hoi polloi are treated as a fixed unit and are subject to the rules and conventions of English (Oxford)”. Amusingly hoi polloi is sometimes used incorrectly to mean “upper class”, likely a confusion that arose by association with the similar-sounding but otherwise unrelated expression “hoity-toity” (itself from the now obsolete “hoit” meaning to indulge in riotous mirth, perhaps later connected with “haughty”, pretentiously self-important, pompous).

Whichever term is applied, there is an element of scorn attached to either hoi polloi or hoity-toity. This polar similarity captures what is in the result called snobbery. Seen from either perspective, the hoi polloi and the hoity-toity are regarded with disdain, the masses for their apparent lack of culture, the bourgeoisie for their imitation of aristocracy. In either case snobbery stigmatises a class to which one does not belong.

Snobbery figures prominently in more than one Hollywood film and British novel. It is the fodder of fashion and social codes. When one “class” (itself a derogatory term) is set against another, the fireworks begin. The difference of the classes is frequently the toxin for advancement of relationships, whether it is between male and female, same–sex couples, young and old, rich or poor (and very often a mixture of all the above). Dichotomy is the root of discovery when it comes to interactions (consider Wodehouse’s heroes trying to marry chorus girls). It is recurrently characterized as a “power struggle”. Less kindly it is said that snobbery is a defensive expression of social insecurity. For example William Hazlitt observed in a culture where deference to class was accepted as a positive and unifying principle, “Fashion is gentility running away from vulgarity and afraid of being overtaken by it”, adding subversively, “It is a sign the two things are not very far apart.” Snobbery is less about acknowledging the superiority of others than about aping them.

With the rise of the middle class (wherein a third of the most well-off, high status people consider themselves to be working class), the utility of distinguishing oneself by language, schooling and your shopping bag doesn’t go far to make anyone better than another. The ubiquity of “knock-off” clothing, watches and jewellery makes the dedication even less persuasive. It is even becoming more fashionable to avoid the very trademarks of superiority which once identified the snob – over-sized automobiles, monster houses, bling, etc. Hollywood has once again led the charge by the adoption of what is now considered environmentally friendly materialism.

Nonetheless history suggests that snobbery is not about to die, it is remarkably durable. It continues to insinuate itself into the body of our society. The gentlemen of cricket, a world of butlers and sherry is not lost on the professional sportsmen who now get paid to imitate them: “Ideas travel upwards, manners downwards (Bulwer-Lytton).” George Orwell: “I suppose there is no place in the world where snobbery is quite so ever-present or where it is cultivated in such refined and subtle forms as in an English public school. Here at least one cannot say that English ‘education’ fails to do its job. You forget your Latin and Greek within a few months of leaving school — I studied Greek for eight or ten years, and now, at thirty-three, I cannot even repeat the Greek alphabet — but your snobbishness, unless you persistently root it out like the bindweed it is, sticks by you till your grave.”

Yet as much as the British are wont to appropriate snobbery to themselves, the animated delineation between one class and another is not reserved to them alone. Snobbery is after all little more than a pretension with regard to one’s own tastes, whatever they may be, rather than a yearning to associate with those of higher social status. Our singular preferences inevitably drive us to condescend to those with different tastes.

Lately I have privately lamented that the typical education of our children does not include what I call “life’s lessons”, that is, those ordinary pronouncements which go beyond the drudgery of specific disciplines and which are directed instead to the general and perhaps less dazzling deportment of one’s daily affairs. When formal education is over, after high-school and university (after the endorsement of one’s thesis for a Master’s Degree or Doctorate), the unsuspecting young adult is thrown into the heartless forum of commerce and retail, perfidious “real life”. On the heels of what is commonly the deprivation of youth and the fiction of scholarship (during which reality is temporarily suspended), one is subsequently served up endless choices many of which are motivated by postponed craving. This enthusiasm needs to be curbed by informed intelligence. Recognizably we are a consumptive society and the unchecked submission to its urges is an inevitable malignancy.

Recently I read with interest that Justin Bieber (the Canadian pop musician, actor and singer-songwriter) is promoting a debit card for young people. At first blush this seems both maverick and unwise. Pointedly however he noted that whether you earn $100 per year or $100M per year, if you spend more than you make, you’re broke. This axiomatic intelligence is intoxicating. It is both blunt and obvious but that is what is needed. Mr. Bieber went on to confide to his faithful youthful audience that one has to save a little, spend a little. Again, this is the evident caution but nonetheless sage advice that was so lacking when I was growing up. I know that Mr. Bieber is undoubtedly paid handsomely by SmartCard for his endorsement but I think it is worth every dollar.

As much as I might prefer to think that any wisdom I have assimilated over the years is the product of my own inventiveness, the sad fact remains that I am the last person to appropriate such celebrity. Admittedly it is only by stark realisation that I have any claim whatsoever to the probity of life’s lessons. Now with the benefit of age, experience and repeated mistakes, the proven truths by which to conduct one’s life literally scream at me. For example, I am unceasingly impressed by those who adopt a candid approach to life. This may seem to trivialize the posture, but candidness is anything but inconsequential. The ability to see the pores and poisons of life is no small accolade; and the inclination and resolution to express them is an even greater tribute.

Recognizing the rigidity of life is very much a part of the adjustment to its exigencies, everlasting concepts such as supply and demand. Nonetheless such uninspiring notions, as important as they are to a theory of economics, have been dismissed as the painful elaboration of the obvious. Retailing such mundane truths especially to young people who believe their frontiers are endless is an up-hill battle. It is equally monotonous to market the counsel that indulgence in superfluity, while temporarily satisfying, is destined to the same garbage heap of irrelevance as any other vanity.

Blazing ostentation is not something peculiar only to the former Roman emperors. The difference is they frequently had the wherewithal to support such vulgarity. It is however a derivative lesson that behaving like an emperor is the surest way to procure your early demise. Children need to be taught that having the fastest, the biggest, the best and the most are not useful paradigms by which to live. Such instruction however goes entirely against the grain of society. Modesty is hardly a popular commodity and it is more often than not equated with deficiency.

The balancing of one’s resources includes of course one’s physical resources. Movements in the United States against obesity are long overdue. Children must be warned against plundering their personal capital of health without which naturally all else is lost.

I am aware that many of life’s lessons come off as negative and for that reason alone are less than appetizing. Yet all of us know that if we had been more studied in our approach to living we could have spared ourselves a great deal of trouble. This leaves me wondering why in the world we haven’t any courses in our schools which tackle life’s lessons. Granted it is not easy to formulate instruction on the mere topic of living but I can’t but think it would be worth the effort.