If you have read the first of these submissions you may be aware that I am working on a journal of lessons I have learned, and the first chapter is dedicated to the key lessons I learned from the people in my family. For example, here is what I wrote for my late grandfather: "Grandad showed me that loving your family is the most important thing a man can do. He taught me the importance of Peace, and of God. Unfortunately, as the person I lost first, he also taught me the necessity of giving your loved ones their flowers whilst they are still with you. The man with a Powerful Spirit." This week my uncle, and Godfather, passed away after a short-lived battle with terminal cancer. He was a good man, who weathered incredibly difficult times. When asked how he's doing, his response was always something along the lines of "I'll be alright." Without delving into the inner workings of my family, I can outline that my uncle's life was difficult. He and my aunt didn't have children and eventually they went separate ways after over 30 years of marriage. It was this event that highlighted to me how difficult life is for a man and this hardship is no excuse for losing your standards and being anything less than a gentleman. When the separation happened, my aunt moved back in with her sister and parents. She was welcomed and supported. My uncle was alone, his parents had passed and he was hundreds of miles away from his childhood hometown and siblings because he had left almost three decades prior to pursue a life with his childhood sweetheart, moving close to my aunt and her family. Post separation, he was alone, his only support financially, emotionally, and mentally was himself. Despite this, my uncle went to work day in, day out. He supported the least fortunate members of society by supplying wheelchairs to them day in, day out. Not only did he carry on contributing to society, and supporting his own livelihood. He also made an effort with my aunt, continuing to pay for her phone bills and the maintenance of her car. He was under no obligations to do this, aside from being bound by those very real obligations which come with unconditional love and selfless attempts to be a gentleman.

Ennui: A feeling. Dissatisfaction or listlessness caused by a lack of occupation or excitement. I learned this word whilst reading The Notes From The Underground by Dostoyevsky. It is a feeling I am all too familiar with, and one that I am sure is not unique to me. I did not know the feeling could be summarised in a word. The feeling of Ennui is like a tiredness with life, it occurs when we're burned out, when we've been trying and trying day in day out, over and over and yet nothing seems to have come from it. The chances are, if you're anything like me, if you sacrifice your time, energy and effort to pursue something "more" then you too have felt this. More extreme forms of ennui, or perhaps natural extensions of it could be characterised as a sort of suicidal ideation: The feeling of "it would be ok if I didn't wake up tomorrow", or perhaps even wishing for that. In Dostoyevsky's work the protagonist turns to nihilism. He does not care for other people, he views his work as above everybody else's, he is superior in every way because he can see the world for how it really is. He is bitter and resentful and entirely unpleasant to be around, doomed to make poor decision after poor decision fighting against any helping hand or act of kindness. If we are not careful, it's not inconceivable that we let ennui degenerate into this sort of outlook and lifestyle ourselves. Ennui, I would argue is natural. However I would presume it is much more prevalent in the modern day than ever before. I removed myself from social media for a year, and upon my return after 1 month I found myself much more susceptible to this feeling. "Comparison is the thief of joy" so the saying goes; it is also the catalyst of dissatisfaction, loss of excitement and utter listlessness. Content of far more successful people foisted upon us each and everyday can easily create the uneasy feeling. The good news is, this is just a feeling and not a chronic disorder. To remedy yourself of this feeling, I borrow the 8-dimensions of success from Peterson: "You need an intimate partner, you need a family, you need some friends, you need a job or a career, you need to use your time outside of work productively and meaningfully, and treat yourself appropriately mentally and physically so you can maintain your health, you need to engage with the broader social community, continually educate yourself and develop your skills."

A good life is as simple as this: You’re born crying in a room full of happy loved ones welcoming you to the world; you die happy in a room full of crying loved ones upset to see you go. Sickness, death and grief have been recurring themes in my family for a while now. It seems there is no shortage of terminal illness or flat out death. In all of this there is an important lesson which we may take for granted. You can quite literally see the measure of impact an individual has had in their life by the number of people who rush to their bedside when their time is dwindling or passed. Some of my relatives have visitors from across the country, across the world even just to spend precious moments together, to hear untold stories and share some final moments of laughter and joy. Other relatives were not so fortunate, not so popular, ultimately could not have felt as loved. The approach I have taken in recent years, since loosing my grandad, is to give your loved ones their flowers whilst they are still with you. I think it was Andrew Garfield who said that the feeling of grief is just all of the unreleased love you didn’t get to show that person when they were alive. I take this very literally and it terrifies me so I spend as much time as I can with my nans, listening to their stories and their wisdom, taking interest and making an effort. I try to do this whilst they are in relatively good health now because I don’t want to feel the sudden burden of panic to rush to the bedside when illness hits, to cram in some memories in the short time they may have left. I want to cherish these people whilst I have them, and they have their health. Until recently, I had been prioritising my nans because they are the eldest members of my immediate family, and I assumed that their time would be the shortest. I learned the hard way that this is simply untrue and instead now I endeavour to make the most of the time I have with all of my family members. For a lot of us, we’re so keen to “start” a family, we’re in such a rush to extend our family with our own children that we forget that we can care for, and provide for the family we already have, those who have already been caring for us. Proverbs 11:25 tells us “A generous person will prosper; whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.” I take this to mean that the true, genuine, unconditional love you show to your family and loved ones will be returned to you when your days are numbered and your own health dwindles.

"Here's something that's weird but true, in the day to day trenches of adult life: There is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what we worship, and a compelling reason for choosing (God) is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive (Wallace, D.F. 2005)" - "If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough." - "Worship your own body, and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you." On one level, we all know this stuff already. - "Worship power, and you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you of your own fear." - "Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out." - Worship feeling loved, and you will always feel anxious, isolated and alone. "The insidious thing about these forms of worship, is not that they are evil or sinful, it is that they are unconscious, they are default settings. They are the kind of worship that you gradually slip into, getting gradually more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that, that is what you do. The so called 'real world' will not discourage you from acting on your default settings, because the so called 'real world' of men, and money, and power runs aptly along on the fear, and anger and frustration, and craving, and worship of self (Wallace, D.F. 2005)." When you worship money and things, your body and beauty, power and fame, your intellect or piety, when these are the things you orient towards, the things you worship. When they are the axioms that govern your choices, 'freedom' and life: You are setting yourself up for a horrid ride. Not only is the journey towards these things a tumultuous one, filled with inadequacy and insecurity the entire way; The destination is boundless. You can never have enough. Worse still, is that you run the risk of these axioms shattering - and they will shatter. And as "the unbearable glow of truth blinds you, you will recognise the falsities for what they are (Dostoyevsky, 1849)." If your life has been governed by falsities then the uncovering of truth will be catastrophic.

"You didn't come here to make the choice, you already made it." Is a quote which resonated with me from the film The Matrix. It is somewhat relevant to an essay I am currently working on regarding virtue ethics. Simply, virtue ethics tells us we ought to act like a "virtuous agent." Someone who exercises virtues in the given circumstances and in doing so produces the desired "right" action and to the ultimate goal of human flourishing (Eudaimonia if you're interested). In layman's terms, the more virtuous a person you are, the more your actions will be right. Take the person who jumps into the river to save a drowning child: It takes a courageous person to do this, but the point I take from it is as follows: You probably don't decide there and then to muster up courage, you are either someone capable of courage, or you are not. You either have the self-belief you can save the child, or you don't. In a split second, you either jump, or you don't. However, this decision was already made. The person we are in that moment will dictate the action we take. In Aristotelian ethics, one takeaway is to practice virtues (wisdom, prudence, justice, fortitude, courage, liberality, magnificence, magnanimity, temperance if you're interested) and to know when and how to apply the virtues (Phronesis if you're interested) so you can achieve human flourishing. Stepping back from normative ethics, and back into real-world scenarios, you can imagine that when you arrive at a cross-roads, or a challenge, or face an adversary: Success of failure, your fate has already been decided. You already made the decision. In a comforting way, this means that if you are the type of person who has prepared themselves for the challenge, you will find little hardship in exercising the strength of your character, you made the decision to succeed. However, if you reach the cross-roads and you're not prepared, not the person who was ready to deal with the circumstance; well you already made the choice to fail.