Don't tell mum

I guess it's normal for kids to realise at some point that it's a mistake to tell their parents every detail of their lives. The innocent habit of blurting everything out regardless gives way to a more reserved approach in which you keep certain things to yourself.

You realise that some of the things you do and say are likely to get a hostile or at least chilly response from your uncomprehending parents, and you learn to keep them to yourself or save them for more understanding friends.

I have a long list of things that I've never mentioned to my mother or father (mainly my mother as my father died many years ago) - in some cases things from decades ago that my mother knows nothing about. For example:

• The times I tried cannabis and LSD
• The odd instance of petty theft
• My not-very-orthodox sex life
• Most of my political views (my mother is very right-wing, as was my father)
• My presence at gay pride and pro-choice rallies
• My taste in books, music and films
• The crummy bedsits I used to live in
• One or two girlfriends she wouldn't have approved of

I also haven't told her about the trace of prostate cancer. Well, I know she would only worry about it, even though it's pretty insignificant at this point.

The fact that I keep so much to myself is I suppose one reason why we've never been especially close. Closeness is dependent on a fairly open and honest relationship in which you can talk freely to each other. If I have to think twice about everything I'm about to say, that creates a huge barrier between us.

I imagine other people censor themselves with their parents in much the same way, though maybe to a lesser extent that doesn't preclude closeness. I envy those who can talk to their parents without such crushing inhibition.

Squalid impulses

I'm not a hateful person. If there's something about someone that rubs me up the wrong way, I don't hate them for it. I adjust to it, I work around it, I try to understand it. I don't hate them any more than I would hate a rock for being jagged or a snake for being poisonous.

I don't understand people who seem to be a never-ending torrent of hatred. Everything sets them off - a noisy neighbour, a demanding boss, a rude sales assistant, a smarmy politician. Any excuse and they let rip, tearing everyone to shreds. Where does all this bile and venom come from?

I've only hated two people in my life, people who treated me so badly all positive feelings were crushed and loathing took over. I just wanted to be free of them so I could repair my battered self-respect.

Of course you're probably already thinking I'm too good to be true, too magnanimous by half. I'm obviously denying my real feelings, bottling things up, keeping a stiff upper lip. I'm an emotional snob pretending to be better than everyone else and immune to squalid human impulses.

Well, I can assure you there's nowt bottled up. The fact is that hatred just doesn't come naturally to me. Which is surprising since all my immediate family are (or were) more than capable of intense hatred. I could list a dozen things that set them off like Pavlov's dogs.

It's often said that people hate what they don't understand, or what they secretly envy. I think there's a lot of truth in that. But if you don't understand something, why not try to unravel it? If you envy something, why not join in? Why the need for such bitter hostility?

"Let no man pull you so low as to hate him" - Martin Luther King.

Veggie woes

I never cease to be astonished at how bemused meat eaters are by my vegetarianism. My very simple preference for foods that don’t include meat is met with anything from wide-eyed puzzlement to seething hostility, as if I’m asking for something utterly outlandish. Freshly grilled newborn babies maybe or honey roasted virgin’s vagina.

Whatever reason I give for my aversion to meat, it’s usually regarded as slightly bonkers, or stubbornly perverse, or deliberately awkward. Seldom do people understand the quite valid reason for my attitude – that I don’t want animals to be killed to provide me with food, when there are hundreds of delicious non-animal alternatives readily available. And a lot cheaper.

I’ve been a vegetarian for 37 years, but the general bafflement at my choice is as strong as ever. The idea that meat is not only vital for health but is obviously tastier than any other type of food is a long time dying. The fact that most people are eating vegetarian dishes every day of the week – macaroni cheese anyone? – seems to make no difference.

So I wasn’t too surprised to read 20 stories of vegetarians being insulted and patronised and sneered at in umpteen different countries. The reactions are all too typical - insisting ham or chicken aren’t really meat, serving totally inedible meatless dishes, declaring anything other than meat to be mere animal feed, assuming a secret yearning for meat. And so on and so on.

So many meals became an all-out battle between diners who just wanted something meat-free and cooks and wait-staff determined to give them something meaty, even if it had to be stealthily concealed among the other items on the plate.

One woman who was constantly harangued by meat-eaters in West Africa finally stumbled on a foolproof tactic. When she explained that her dying grandfather had forbidden her to eat meat, to her delight she found that nobody dared question her grandfather’s final wishes.

I really don’t know why meat-eaters get so defensive and angry at those of us who don’t share their particular passion. A guilty conscience perhaps over the thousands of animals who’ve died for their gastric pleasure?

Disappointment

I cope with disapp-ointment fairly easily. Some disapp-ointments are harder than others, but they never turn into a festering grievance or personal hatred.

If I fail to get something I want, I tend to think, well, maybe it wasn't right for me anyway, or someone else was more deserving or better qualified, or it's an opportunity to change direction and try something else.

I very seldom blame other people or see myself as victimised or unfairly snubbed. That may well be the case, but it does no good to dwell over injustice. Yes, the world's unfair, I can't always get what I think is rightfully mine, I just have to walk away and knock on some different doors.

I've sometimes had stinging disappointments. The two times I was made redundant. The time I was disciplined by my manager for a very petty offence. Relationships and friendships that have crumbled. Houses and flats I wasn't able to buy. The constant conflict with my father. People who've let me down badly.

But that's life, I can only come to terms with what's happened and maybe learn some lessons about how to handle things better in the future.

I've known people who've eaten themselves away with bitterness and resentment, often over things that seemed quite trivial. They're obsessed with the person who ended their job or their marriage, they spend their days plotting revenge, reliving acts of cruelty or contempt, gloating over X's continuing bad luck or mistakes.

They seem unaware of how self-destructive they're being, of how all this scalding hostility is driving out anything positive, eroding their enjoyment of life.

They would say they can't help it, that it's a natural reaction to being so badly treated, that they don't just take things lying down. But being more philosophical about life's disappointments isn't turning the other cheek, it's being realistic and accepting that things don't always go your way.

Shit happens. Sometimes mountains of it. You just have to put your foot on the throttle and keep on trucking.