I Am Not Popular

Whoops, it seems that I have offended. Apparently, somewhere I have written that I am doing a blog because I needed to do something BECAUSE (here it comes) I had got to the point where I was beginning to think I needed to have manicures. I don't know where I wrote it, but I think it all the time, so no doubt it's gone down somewhere.

This comment has ruffled someone's feathers. SO, please let me explain.

I am not against having manicures per se. Indeed, had I time and money and a lifestyle which didn't involve a daily hand-plunge into compost and manure, I might well enjoy the occasional trip to the manicurist. Nor do I think that people who DO "look after their nails properly" (yep, I'm quoting) are in anyway lesser mortals than "lazy, scruffy people" (like me, I presume?). I do not think having a manicure shows any nonexistence of intellect. Manicurists themselves are often talented, creative souls and I could never match their attention to detail.

My point was that MY mind was rotting to the extent that I was beginning to think I SHOULD have them. I was losing touch with what I would normally value with a half hour to spare and £20 to spend in it. I was metamorphosising into some kind of Surrey housewife-via-Stepford. THAT'S what I was worried about, and I was only talking about myself.

To contest your assertion just gently, I don't think there is any problem with taking pride in your appearance. People have done it since time's dawn, and, stopping short of the point where it turns into an internal or external obsession, I can't see what harm is done. And you are no doubt right, I should do it more myself. But I DO think it's terribly queer to spend inequal amounts of time and energy on how you look and what you are. Especially when one dries up far sooner than the other. And of COURSE it applies to me too. I may have days where I think what a frightful state I look, but I am also troubled by how much I don't know about everything, and I'm sure my comment came out on such a day.

However, I do feel strongly on this: since we have this society that, for the most part, allows (even encourages) us to learn what we want, read what we wish and discuss whatever we like, then SURELY we should make the most of it? I don't want to hark back to North Korea or Burma or Zimbabwe, but since one of the first tricks of the despotic controller is to take away people's opportunity to Read and Discuss, surely we should be welcoming our intellectual freedom with Very Open Arms? And doing lots of it?

I think what I meant to say was that I felt I had caught myself mid-slither down into the murky points of non-thinking domestication and I wanted to do something about it. That was all.

It wasn't intended as a veiled insult. At all.