Cut-Throat's Resolutions for 2017.

2016 is dead. Long live 2017. Here are my resolutions for the coming year, along with some related observations and expectations.

1. Seize the Day (Off).

I rarely plan my days off, and when I do my foresight struggles to see past the first 48 hours. Consequently, I repeatedly fail to visit friends who live in other cities, and have not taken a proper 'sight-seeing' holiday for over two years - which is fairly appalling considering that I don't have any dependents to account for.

132 Seize the Days, a travel guide published by the Lonely Planet in 2007, attempted to cajole the reader into making better use of their weekends and holidays. Although it presumed the reader had a lot of disposable income, at least far more than I currently posses, it otherwise offered plenty of inspiration to do something interesting with those days off. To this end, I will be using a diary planner, in conjunction with a calendar, to plan ahead and make the most of my free time.

2. Learn a Craft.

Where I live there are a lot of opportunities to participate in combat sport. Unfortunately the nature of my work does not allow for facial injuries and so I will have to stay focused on grappling this year. This is not necessarily a problem. I have a fairly rag-tag martial arts background, but little in the way of accredited technical skill. Although I am a - relatively - okay grappler and a - below - average stand up fighter, it would be nice to be able to say that I do 'orthodox [insert grappling style]' to a reasonably satisfactory level. My aim for this year then is to grade in either Brazilian Ju Jitsu or Judo.

3. Specialise in the Kitchen.

Now that I have developed an all purpose cooking from scratch skill-set, it is time to dabble in the realm of culinary specialisation. By the end of the year I hope to have a strong grasp of at least two styles of world cuisine: I am currently hoping to learn Japanese and Scandinavian cooking. Vegan cookery may also make a later appearance, for the sake of my vegan friends, moral conscience and general curiosity.  

Cut Throat's Third Quarterly Review of 2016

The final quarter of 2016 is upon us and it is time to retrospectively assess the second half of the year. My initial resolutions for 2016 can be found here, and June's "half time" review of those resolutions can be found here. On with the show...

1. Reading, Writing and Running.

Now that I have picked up Judo and MMA again I no longer have any need for running. My exercise regime splits my week into three rest days and four days of workout; this has been the greatest success of 2016's resolutions so far. Exercise has finally been properly integrated into my lifestyle with an intensity and purpose that makes it both efficient and fun. After spending nearly two years drifting around in limbo, I am finally back in shape.

Progress with both my writing and reading has been encouraging but inconsistent. Reading wise, I have managed to stave off the temptation to buy new books, and have gotten close to clearing my home libraries gargantuan back-log; writing wise, I have begun work on a novella and am enjoying the process of writing poetry. I have begun experimenting with the integration of reading and writing into my morning ritual, this has worked well so far.

2. Get Techie.

No progress here, and little intent to improve. Back in January I thought I had a relatively stripped down set of resolutions. Bizarrely, I didn't spot the folly in wrapping up "read more, write more and run more" under one heading while also expecting to learn computer programming and progress with my cookery at the same time. I have come to my senses and abandoned this resolution in order to better pursue the other two.

3. Get Foodie.

Most of this year in the kitchen has been spent honing the elementary crafts and skills of world cuisine. In particular, mastering simple dishes and processes to the point that I can guarantee a consistent level of quality in terms of homemade curry/pizza/stir-fry/grill meals/omletes etc.

I have also, since getting back into combat sport, moved onto a more calorically restrictive diet. This is less of a stumbling block than you would imagine. The crux of good cookery is in making mediocre things taste great; learning to cook and learning how to enjoy food, that isn't drowned in butter and animal fat, work surprisingly well as a complimentary set of practices.

Lessons Learned.

The maxim "Do Less, Achieve More" was uttered at the beginning of this year: I have only recently begun to take it seriously. Accordingly, I will not pick up any skills in computer programming this year and will focus on consolidating the progress I have made in other fields.

Another life lesson is that if you want to incorporate a new activity into your life you need to properly alot a time and place for it. For example, getting and staying in shape is now fairly easy. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday I go to a training session where I can wrestle, puff and lurch myself through endless tai-otoshis and juji-gatames and go home knowing I have had a good evenings workout. After that, all I need to do is work one more exercise session into my weekly schedule and I have met my target.

It's a shame I won't pick up any tech skills but I really should leave it until I am finished working on other areas of my life. What I really miss is the opportunity to engage in an activity with marked cognitive benefits. Meditation appeals to me for similar - but still different - reasons, and would probably be easier to fit into a daily routine. Well... there is always next year.

The 2016 Half Time Review

With the arrival of June comes this year's edition of Cut-throat and Clueless' Half-Time Review. As you might have noticed, I have half-finished redesigning this blog in celebration of this milestone. For my original list of 2016 resolutions click here, and for my last quarterly review click here. Below is a summary of victories and setbacks that have been achieved and/or suffered over the last three months.

Resolutions.

1. Reading, Writing, Running.

My reading has picked up its pace since I last discussed my resolutions on this blog; my writing has been steady, though mostly fiction orientated, and my exercise regime has finally diversified to include body-weight training - routines that once reduced me to a huffing mess, I now breeze through effortlessly and it feels great! I have also recently booked myself onto a distance learning course with the UK Society for Editors and Proof-Readers - I'm looking forward to it immensely. I also have my first Judo session, in years, coming up at the end of this week.

2. Get Techie.

Hurrah for progress! I have finally started learning Python and it's fascinating. Coding engages a very different part of my brain to that which is engaged when reading and writing philosophy. Frankly I'm excited to learn something tech related but also hoping to gleam some of the mental benefits associated with programming. Granted the few hours I have put in so far were grinded out purely so I'd have something to write here, but the enjoyment I have received from it has been genuine.   

I'll have to find some sort of project to focus on later in the year, at the moment I'm just trying to memorise the basics.

3. Get Foodie.

There has been too much progress made here to list comprehensively. Notable success' include home-made pizza made from scratch; vegetable pakora and a couple of other great finds discovered among my growing collection of cookery and cocktail books. I'm making food better, faster and with less stress than ever before. As a side note, I've discovered that food and drink books are remarkably reflective of their social origins.

Consider that "The Savoy Cocktail Book" written by Harry Craddock back in the 1930's is close to 300 pages long with almost every page containing  4 or 5 recipes, each of them calling for a variety of spirits and liquers. By contrast, "Good Things to Drink" written by Mr Lyan, and published last year, features recipes that tend to focus on one particular spirit and prefers the intelligent use of mixers and garnish to accompany drinks. In terms of "recipes per page", it has one recipe for every couple of pages with the majority of the book being photos of Mr Lyan and his friends drinking in rustic locations while looking infuriatingly hip.

This is the unfortunate consequence of modern advertising, and caused by the same forces that have perfume companies advertising with bizzare montages of models sliding out of Limos. While Craddock may bring content by the bucket-load, Mr Lyan would trounce him in terms of sales if they ever competed - the gloss sells.

Gripes aside, as much as I have enjoyed Mr Lyan's book, he has a bad habit of tacking "top up with champagne" onto the end of his recipes; the fact that he considers adding champagne to be an afterthought indicates that mixology has yet to escape its privileged roots.

Huxley's Brave New World: A Hedonist's Response

"But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin."
 
- John the Savage repudiating Mustapha Mond in Brave New World.


There is common comparison made between Huxley's Brave New World and Orwell's 1984. One that remarks that while Orwell described the authoritarianism of his time, Huxley predicted the "soft-power" at work today. Read in this way the core theme of Brave New World is similar to that of emanicpatory writers like Rousseau: humans are frequently complicit in their own enslavement. This comparison suffers however from a certain level of western-centrism and misses some of the finer details of the dystopia which Huxley created.


Firstly, and a similar point is levelled by Nadya Tolokonnikova against Slavoj Zizek, the notion that modern capitalism controls its subjects through pleasure ignores the sweat-house labour and dictatorial right wing governments that have arguably played a big role in shaping modern global capitalism. Secondly, in Brave New World there is no evidence that humanity willingly gave up its Bibles or poetry; such things are banned and an inescapable system of social conditioning is required to force these artefacts of ancient pleasure into obsolescence. The depravity of the new world's citizens is artificial it is not an organic product of Huxley's subjects and their desires. As a hedonist of sorts,  while I could cry that Huxley's society is the product of authoritarianism and not pleasure seeking humans, that would do Brave New World a dis-service: the book did give me cause to reflect on hedonism and the relationship between pleasure and authenticity.


 The first thing that struck me as of particular philosophical interest was "Soma". Soma is the fictional drug taken by the new world's inhabitants and it functions as a very trenchant iteration of Nozick's experience machine. Unlike Nozick's original machine, soma requires very little in terms of metaphysical "jump": one could liken it to heroin without the side effects. Furthermore soma highlights the escapist tendencies of Brave New World's inhabitants. By taking soma the characters leave the reality which they ostensibly cannot deal with and submit themselves to a realm of pleasure inaccessible to more sober minds. This idea of "pleasure as escapism" may present some problems for a hedonistic outlook and raises questions about the dialectic between "fake pleasure" and "real pleasure".  Are there pleasures that fail to be valuable because they have no relation to objects outside of the subjects experience? Are mind altering substances providing fake happiness or real happiness?  Is a drunk happy to see you or do they merely think that they are in a welcoming mood?


Currently, I see little reason to make a hard distinction between the pleasures that are accrued through synthetic chemical manipulation, such as alcohol or soma based pleasures, and the organic chemical manipulations achieved through sugar, salt or a caressing touch. Furthermore if the thing that scares us about Soma is that it "merely creates pleasure" then what is that missing ingredient that allows us to be satisfied even if we are not enjoying ourselves? Pain? The outlook of John the Savage is rather reminiscent of Seneca: the roman philosopher who believed that suffering and tribulation should be cherished as a source of meaning in an otherwise empty life.

I can empathise with the Senecan position: life would become very boring if one was absolved of all tragedy. This I do not think is necessarily a problem for hedonists as the hedonic treadmill ensures that we will never run out of tribulations to give purpose to our growth. It may be that the reason we want struggle is that it gives context to our successes. We want struggle and heartbreak not because we don't value pleasure but because struggle and heartbreak make our pleasure worthwhile. 

My response to those who raise up Huxley's Brave New World as a warning against hedonism is that its citizens are not really committed hedonists. They are cattle who have been forcefully deprived of a range of pleasures, primarily intellectual ones, and conditioned to accept passivity as a state of enduring desirability.

When it comes to the relationship between pleasure and eudemonia what Brave New World articulates is a critique of lazy infantilization posing as the good life. As I have argued before, empty gluttonous carnality is not the same thing as an ethical and well-disciplined regime of hedonism.