Sophia Parker wrote this really interesting post on her 5-a-day….
“I find it oddly moving to read other people’s submissions. There’s a Theodore Zeldin-esque quality* to what people say: we gain new insights about aspects of people’s minds and emotions that usually remain hidden. Making these things public leaves us readers with a warm glow about being human (well, that’s what it does to me anyway).
Andy has asked that we all share our own 5-a-day, so for what it’s worth, here are mine.”
- Having my hair stroked
- A teenage-length phone call with an old friend
- Telling someone they are brilliant and amazing
- Exploring new stuff – ideas, places, people
- Reading in bed with tea, in blissful silence
If I could have a sixth it would have to be some combination (but not together) of porridge/wine/coffee…
* to illustrate what I mean, I can’t resist posting Zeldin’s chapter headings in my all-time favourite book of his, The Intimate History of Humanity.
- How humans have repeatedly lost hope, and how new encounters, and a new pair of spectacles, revive them
- How men and women have slowly learned to have interesting conversations
- How people searching for their roots are only beginning to look far and deep enough
- How some people have acquired an immunity to loneliness
- How new forms of love have been invented
- Why there has been more progress in cooking than in sex
- How the desire that men feel for women, and for other men, has altered through the centuries
- How respect has become more desirable than power
- How those who want neither to give orders nor to receive them can become intermediaries
- How people have freed themselves from fear by finding new fears
- How curiosity has become the key to freedom
- Why it has become increasingly difficult to destroy one’s enemies
- How the art of escaping from one’s troubles has developed, but not the art of knowing where to escape to
- Why compassion has flowered even in stony ground
- Why toleration has never been enough
- Why even the privileged are often somewhat gloomy about life, even when they can have anything the consumer society offers, and even after sexual liberation
- How travellers are becoming the largest nation in the world, and how they have learned not to see only what they are looking for
- Why friendship between men and women has become so fragile
- How even astrologers resist their destiny
- Why people have not been able to find the time to lead several lives
- Why fathers and their children are changing their minds about what they want from each other
- Why the crisis in the family is only one stage in the evolution of generosity
- How people choose a way of life, and how it does not wholly satisfy them
- How humans become hospitable to each other
- What becomes possible when soul-mates meet
Wonderful Sophia! I chose the pic of the mug (one of Edward Monkton’s) because Sophia mentioned tea, and she should definitely have one of these….