Blog

All memoirs are essentially about ageing. It is a natural and therefore unavoidable sexagenarian instinct to lean in to the past  -  in search of explanation, amusement, forgiveness. However, almost no autobiography you have ever read is  -  let’s put it out there  - persuasively reliable. Perhaps the knowing reader silently nods at every half-fumbled but very obvious evasion, all the Pollyanna Pollyfilla that covers the cracks of pain and disappointment, the casual casuistry that gets us all, specially the grey and the balding, through the remains of the day. Perhaps it’s also true that the mightier the celebrity of the author, the weaker the credibility all round. Who was it said that you must not touch your idols since the gilt is bound to be left on your fingers?…

    For the positives’ column, this is an often impressive if occasionally overwhelming dam-burst of stats-n-surveys about the business of ageing in the UK. But here the first problem lies already. Given the abundant literature already on the shelves across the Western world - the whole agequake/ageshift idiom being as old as the internet - there is little, at its best, really new here. (more…)

Dr. Murthy seems like a very nice man. One can hold no doubt that he has done much good in his life. But his book is an atrocity. And, with the interest of his fellow-Americans and indeed all the Western world in mind, one is here to tell you how and why. His pitch is simple enough We have lost precious things “in this transition to modern culture”. As we rush to grow personal wealth and achievement and while we linger online with our social media toys, we fail truly to connect with people and thus impoverish our souls. Loneliness is shortening the lives of millions of Americans; we are being murdered by modernity and inter alia the toxic masculinity which it inspires. Money and consumerism do not bring happiness;…

It seems to rest in the nature of modern times for us to search for liberating wisdoms in exotic venues, the more remote the better. The best proverbs all come in a foreign accent. Personal happiness can be achieved if we but drop our grubby habits and follow the ways of the Danes or the Japanese or the mystic de-clutterers or the gurus of mindfulness. Invariably, these narratives will contain an injunction to simplify our needs, perhaps find contentment in what we all already possess, disavow consumption of material goods to the benefit of interior balance, isolate what is truly valuable to the spirit… When our current traumas end, versions of this narrative will freshly appear, gaudier than ever. And self-flagellation over claims of national malaise will be as misguided…