Further to my previous posting, here are selected entries from the list featured in GQ - some clever, some thoughtful and some witty thoughts. Copyright Police, come and get me!
1. Money spent on dental work and travel is never wasted. Plan to die with good teeth and great memories.
2. You can skip anal sex and bondage, but you should try a threesome at least once. Expect a large part of it to be someone staring out of a window. Probably you.
3. Never hit a woman, a child, an animal or a man who is incapable of breaking your jaw.
4. Never hit anyone you are not prepared to keep hitting.
5. Good manners are important. There is never an excuse for rudeness. The quality of a life is largely about small human transactions, and politeness makes human existence bearable.
6. You will sometimes fail. There will never be a point in your life when you are too successful, too old or too wise to fail. Expect failure and let it put steel into your soul. Be made strong by your failures and be made grateful by your success. Like night and day, both will surely come to every life.
7. If you and your woman/man have loud arguments, then you are with the wrong woman/man.
8. Learn which bridge to cross and which bridge to burn.
9. Never walk past someone selling The Big Issue without buying a copy. It’s not charity, it’s a job.
10. When possible, get there by walking.
11. If you do not have regular orgasms, you will die. When the coming stops, the breathing is never far behind.
12. Love your work. Try to make your great passion and what you do for a living impossible to tell apart. This will make for a happy life.
13. Strain every fibre of your being to resist hating someone you once loved.
14. Stun them with your talent. Dazzle them with your genius. Never be half-hearted. Never be lukewarm. Attempt to knock every ball out of the park.
15. Happiness will come and go- the important thing is to recognize when it is here.
I fear I fail at most of these commandments but it's always good to have something aspirational to aim for...! ;-)
ReplyDeleteNice blog btw.
I was preparing myself to smile at a list of cheesy aphorisms but some/most of these are quite brilliant.
ReplyDeleteCould say a lot about a number of them, but just on #8, I wish there was some way to indicate to a Big Issue vendor that you'd already bought that edition from another seller, without sounding as if you were either pulling a fast one or you're just too mean to buy another. (When you're living on a pension, as I am, you don't have money to throw around!) Usually I just walk past pretending I hadn't seen them, which makes them feel small and me feel shabby. Don't know what the solution is.
I think there's a great deal to say for trying to implement numbers 5, 10 and 15.
ReplyDelete@Raybeard - I've just recently started buying the Big Issue again. I find that if you're able to look someone in the eye and genuinely say "I've already got it, thanks" it neither sounds (nor is received as) a brush off. On the other hand, when I've said it as a barefaced lie, I at least am all too aware that that is all it was.
ReplyDeleteMatt Cardle is on the front of the latest issue - so I just said "I'm not supporting crap music... sorry"
ReplyDeleteThat's a nice one... thanks
ReplyDeleteI specially like the last one. :-D
This is a very good list. I ought to print this out.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Andrew (onexwidow above). Next time I'll give it a go. I really am a terrible liar so they might realise that what I say is true.
ReplyDelete