A twinge of envy

There are plenty of things I envy in other people - certain skills and abilities, certain personality traits, certain physical features. Things I would quite like to have myself, instead of what I was actually blessed with. Things that had been mysteriously overlooked when I came into the world. For example:

Intelligence: I'm constantly impressed by those who are smarter, more quick-witted, can think on their feet, get straight to the point of something, and always have a witty comeback to an unexpected criticism.

Memory: I admire those with a better memory, who can recall all those little details that rapidly escape me. In particular I envy the sort of photographic memory my sister has.

Writing: I'm in awe of those who can produce novel after novel, who have the ability to keep a complex plot and umpteen characters in their mind as they twist and turn over hundreds of pages.

Height: I would quite like to be a bit shorter, so I don't have to stoop a dozen times a day and it's easier to find clothes that actually fit me.

Sight: It would be nice to have perfect sight rather than a hazy blur and not need the glasses I've worn since I was 17.

Happiness: Some people seem to be perpetually happy, despite all the challenges and mishaps of daily life that so often upset the rest of us. How do they do that?

Tolerance: I admire those with infinite patience over things that annoy the hell out of everyone else. Like boisterous children and unhelpful call centres.

Don't get me wrong. These aren't things that eat me up with jealousy, or things I brood over into the small hours. They're just things I'd quite like to have in an ideal world. Which of course doesn't exist and never will.

Dyed in the wool

One way I've wised up as I get older is my growing awareness of the enormity of prejudice and discrimi-nation. I've realised it's much deeper and much more permanent than I thought.

When I was young, and typically optimistic the world could be rapidly changed for the better if people just pushed hard enough, I fondly imagined prejudice against gays, or transgender people, or blacks, or foreigners, was a very temporary thing and would soon die away.

I was completely ignorant of how engrained these prejudices were, how reluctant people were to drop them, how much they passed from one generation to another, and how eagerly they were nurtured by politicians and the media.

I assumed other people were basically tolerant and open-minded and couldn't hold such prejudices for long without realising how damaging and inhumane they were. I assumed they were as fleeting as snow-storms or flash-floods.

Gradually it dawned on me that these prejudices were often rock-solid. You could argue against them till you were hoarse, but people still held them, utterly convinced of their soundness. The very idea of dropping them would seem like an act of madness.

I realised that although prejudice against certain groups had lessened, it had happened incredibly slowly and was still far from over. There's still strong opposition to gay marriage, to giving transgender people jobs, to promoting blacks, to treating foreigners fairly. In fact many people would like to turn the clock back and remove all the rights these groups have painfully and laboriously gained.

So nowadays, a great deal older and wiser, I assume that rather than demolishing prejudice, which seems near to impossible, the only realistic attitude is to work around it and try to chip away little bits here and there.

My optimistic younger self would be shocked at my new-found pragmatism.

Po-faced fanatics

The Charlie Hebdo massacre has prompted a lot of soul-searching and fierce debate about whether the magazine is right or wrong to poke fun at religion. Some people defend the magazine unconditionally while others say they are being deliberately provocative for no good reason.

It seems to me that Suzanne Moore in The Guardian makes the best point about the whole thing. "Why must I have respect for religions that have little respect for me?" she asks.

In her case she's talking about the widespread religious view that women are second-class citizens and should be treated as such. But of course many religions are equally intolerant of gays, transgender people, atheists, people with "inappropriate" clothing and appearance and so on.

Suzanne Moore goes on to say "Tolerance has to be reciprocal or it is not tolerance at all." Precisely. Tolerance can't be one-sided. If a religion wants to suppress what I do or believe, then why should I respect what they do or believe?

Of course there's a difference between not respecting repressive religions, but keeping that disrespect to yourself, and on the other hand publicly mocking and criticising those religions. Is public mockery acceptable or does it merely fan the flames of religious intolerance and make the situation worse?

I think people have to make up their own mind about that but personally I'm reluctant to mock another person's deeply held beliefs merely for the sake of it or merely to exercise my freedom of expression. I'm content for people to follow whatever beliefs they wish to, without comment, just as long as they're not attacking my own beliefs. In that case, they're fair game and I have every right to attack them back.

You could argue that Charlie Hebdo magazine went too far in deliberately lampooning a major religion. But then you could also argue that those who object, and those who think such disrespect deserves a bullet in the head, are simply self-righteous, po-faced fanatics with no sense of humour or perspective.

Warts and all

Is there such a thing as uncond-itional love? Is it really possible to love someone warts and all, despite their many infuriating flaws and faults, and not walk away in disgust at one enraging quirk too many? However much we love someone, aren’t we always full of secret ifs and buts and maybes?

I think unconditional love is very possible – unless there’s some serious wrongdoing involved. Most character traits are livable with if you’re sufficiently tolerant and flexible, however weird or annoying they might be. There’s not much that’s genuinely impossible to handle. Unless the other person is a serial rapist, or terrorist, or bank robber, or pathological liar, most personal behaviour can be adjusted to.

There are several people I love to bits, and I think I do love them warts and all, however nasty or vicious they can sometimes be. I can live with their unreliability, bitchiness, amnesia, wild emotion, paranoia, or grumpiness, because I love them as a person and well, those traits are just part of the person so I absorb them along with everything else. I don’t pick and choose what I accept and what I don’t.

Of course I’m probably fooling myself. The people concerned will no doubt say that my love isn’t as all-embracing as I imagine, that there are loads of things I recoil from or get judgmental about, loads of things they keep secret or raise very cautiously in case I throw a wobbly.

I think unconditional love is not that common. Certainly there have been plenty of people in my life who have given the impression of loving me wholeheartedly but in reality their reservations were rampant. Starting with my father, who always maintained he loved me but in practice really wanted me to be just like him.

When it comes down to it, many seemingly tolerant people are actually hideously judgmental and would clearly like to change everything about me if they had the chance. I can see them bristling and steaming at my every utterance. Not many people truly accept me for what I am.

Unconditional love is not easy when we’re all so full of preconceptions and assumptions and fixed ideas, but it’s possible. And when it does happen, it’s a very beautiful thing.