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.

"Why Grow Up?" by Susan Neiman: First Thoughts on Reading

Why Grow Up? touches on a broad range of philosophical issues surrounding adult-hood and argues that we should rethink our, often anxious, relationship with the aging process.

Neiman points to the way in which "growing up" has of late acquired a somewhat morose theme: being assosiated with a state of resignation and a lacking of vitality.

By contrast Neimen portrays maturity as a process of constant tribulation through which we learn not only how to co-exist with a morally flawed world but with how to hold on to the will to change it for the better and master our own failings.

Understanding maturity in this way is meant to push away from the cult of youth. A cult, which as Neimman observes, destroys the lived experience of youthfulness by placing too many expectations on young people and neglects the pleasures that arrive in later life as a result of hard earned self-mastery cultivated through ones accumulative life experiences.

Textually the book picks a refreshing choice of topic and its execution and exploration of it is pretty spectacular in places, although there are a number of rhetorical turns that leave me a little un-certain.

Her particular philosophical heritage, Neo-Kantianism with a dash of Rousseau and Leibniz, leads her to support the older Socratic belief  that rational and just actions are one and the same. This equivocality between the good and the reasonable helps Neiman argue her view of childhood and adolescance but leaves her particularly reliant on a certain form of metaphysics. Then again I suppose certain axiomatic truths must be left temporarily un-challenged in order to enjoy the book. Another argument for another day.

Neiman also has an unfortunate tendency to write in a similar manner to Theodor Zeldin (not a particular favourite of mine). Accordingly the book has a fairly scattergun approach to contextualising its themes, flipping between psychological, philosophical and historical discussions at a fairly disorientating rate. As a consequence the references are, though wielded competently, rather thematically disparate; the result is a book that in places has more literary than thematic flow making the work pleasurable in form and wide-ranging in scope but also bewildering.


Overall it's an interesting little piece drawing attention to various authors and ideas surrounding adult-hood which are often over-looked or easily taken for granted: much more philosophically nuanced and well researched than I was expecting.